The art of curating a holistic yoga experience

Woman practicing yoga

Like any good piece of art, a good yoga class is supposed to make yoga practitioners feel something. Just like the brushstrokes of an exquisite artwork, there is significant technique involved in creating that affect.

Today I'm writing to share 6 key ingredients that go into creating the art of curating a holistic yoga experience for yoga practitioners.

The fundamentals

Carrying students through a synchronized sequence of a warm-up, breathwork, the heat of movement, the self-exploration through transitions, the strong challenges in class that asks us to push ourselves just a bit more, before a well-earned cool down, is all an intentional architecture the teacher follows pulling out various tools from their toolbox to take us on a little expedition with ourselves.

Sensory exploration

It's an experience that engages so many of our senses. While class styles and teaching styles may vary, if you’ve ever been in a yoga class, you may have noticed some of its following nuances:

·      The teacher asking students to notice the points of contact between their body and their yoga props, stimulating the sense of touch

·      The selected burning incense in the room stimulating nasal pathways

·      The playlist, singing bowls, or intentional silence in the room, premeditated to create a mood or to remove stimuli from our sense of hearing

·      The lighting matching the intended goal of the class i.e., high intensity vs low intensity

·      The meditative body scans asking us to turn our focus inward

·      The change in the tonality of the teacher’s voice through the process of the class flow.

It’s all intentional.

The free flow of emotion

The yoga experience is not just meant to facilitate blood circulation and remove stagnation, it is designed to enable free flow of emotion and energy too. For Chinese medicine geeks out there we know movement, fascia, energy, emotion is all connected. So, it’s hard to not feel something when we move or hold still in select asanas.

Though the past decade of practice, the classes I’ve been in have made me experience a plethora of thoughts and feelings. Stuff including

·      This is so damn hard; can I ever pull this off!?

·      Shit I am so exhausted today, I need a break

·      I can’t stop myself from breaking down on the mat and crying next to strangers

·      I can feel anger rising and falling through me as I move

·      I recall a memory of a person or place important to me

·      I feel stuck today

·      This makes me feel so good

·      This makes me feel miserable

·      I feel free when I move this way

·      I can visualize something better for myself today

·      …and more

Facilitating two-way traffic

Any intuitive yoga teacher knows we can’t always stick to the script of what we prepared for our students in class. What if someone walks in with an injury? what if someone’s pregnant? what if some students need more/less of a challenge?  what if they are not responding to a certain playlist, what if differently abled people walk into class? This is where we as teachers switch gears to customize the experience.

·      I once had a student come in with impaired hearing in class.

·      Several times students for whom English is not a first language have walked in and giving me feedback to speak slower so they can understand me better

·      People with knee, wrist, shoulder, and back injuries come in all the time and their movement repertoire varies from those without injuries

The exchange of communication and movement that boils down in a sixty-, seventy-five-, or ninety-minute class setting is never completely in the hands of a yoga teacher. The student informs through words and body language, the teacher adjusts to meet them where they are at and to push them within their own ability. The exchange is symbiotic at best where students feel empowered within their bodies, not the opposite.

The sprinkle effect of suffering

Being on both sides of the room, the student and the teacher’s, I’ve observed that insanely good classes, just like classic songs, books, and art created to strike a chord within us are delivered by artists who have undergone suffering is some form.

Many yoga teachers, opted to teach in the first place, because yoga found them at a difficult point in their life, they discovered the life changing quality of this discipline and decided to share it with their community.

I can’t speak for all but for many of us teachers, our suffering necessitates us to channel our grief, our frustration, our anger, and sometimes our well-earned joy into what we share in class. It’s not tangible, but students may identify it with the vibe/energy of the teacher.

Some of the best classes I’ve been in have been delivered by yoga teachers who in real life are undergoing or have overcome something significantly difficult. Equally, I have delivered some of my best work on days, I’ve been totally shattered before class.

This is in no way asking you to start looking for a tortured teachers who are miserable in their lives. That could be toxic too. I simply intend to inform you, next time you are vulnerable in a yoga class, please know us teachers are familiar with, and not afraid of big strong feelings. Our life experiences and our trainings qualify us to hold space for students as they experience big emotions during their practice.

But we are not your therapists (But that’s a whole different article;)

The communal cherry on top

Ask anyone about the best classes they’ve been to. They have one quality. They make us feel like we are a part of something. There are two sub-elements to this quality: Social connection, and yoga philosophy.

Social connection: Millennials and Gen Z have been socialized very differently from previous generations, thanks to the digitization of our world.  We get everything done on our phones. And in a post covid world, the experience of adult life, can be isolating and lonely for many.

I’ve come to appreciate the importance of showing up a few minutes before class and lingering for a little while after. It’s not always comfortable to strike a conversation with a stranger on a mat next to us but, sometimes just simply moving through a similar asana experience can forge a connection.

The same people showing up for class consistently slowly start to form friendships or a sense of familiarity with one another and the next thing you know, they are catching up one another on their lives before class, or they are inviting each other out for social gatherings. Every time I’ve seen this transition happen amongst my students; it’s been extremely gratifying.

Yoga Philosophy: The learnings of yoga invite us to understand the basic principles of the human experience that work not just for us but have worked for those who came well before us.  

Be it the yamas and niyamas that create an ethical framework for us, the koshas that foster an understanding of our spiritual selves, the bandhas that refer to our energetic locks or the chakras focusing on or energy centers, all of this is intelligence handed down in human form from one generation to the next, has made us a part of something bigger than ourselves.

I don’t want to use the word cult because that’s not what authentic yoga is, rather these learnings make us a part of a larger collective of human consciousness not only urging us to look within, but also to regard ourselves as a part of a larger whole extending our responsibilities to the world around us.

Little nuggets of yoga philosophy wisdom in asana classes can go a long way in changing someone’s view towards themselves and the world we live in.

Try a yoga class and feel the difference

All I can say is show up. Feed yourself this beautiful art form that is multi layered and rich bursting with complexity and sheer simplicity at the same time. It is not exclusive. It is for everyone. Find the right teacher that you vibe with. Make it your staple diet. The transformation will show.