I have been wanting to develop an "anatomy course" for yoga students for a long time. As yoga and movement teachers, we get to delve as deeply (or not) as we like into the concepts of applied anatomy in our practices and classes. I believe the more you know, the more you power you have.
I believe this should extend to our yoga students. The more they know about how their bodies move, they can engage with their asana practice in a more meaningful manner. It also offers the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the anatomical language that is sometimes used in classes by teachers that can go unexplained or are just peppered in.
So I wrote it, proposed it, made handouts, reviewed, edited, re-edited and re-re-edited and rehearsed. Then presented the three part series, Asana from the Inside Out, at Birchwood Center in Nyack over the last three weeks. The three modules were: Shoulders, Torso/Diaphragm and Hip. Each module is two hours long, one hour-ish of lecture and then an hour-ish of movement to reinforce the concepts and areas focused on in the lecture section.
To say it went well would be an understatement. Attendance was great, the brilliance and curiosity expressed by the attendees was beautiful and I took such great joy in watching light bulbs going off while we were moving through the designed mobility sequences and asana. There is clearly interest and curiosity in the yoga student population. Next? A little more refining, then maybe shopping it around to other studios! I think that folks are a hungry for this kind of information.
