For centuries, yoga has been an age-old practice. It is an overall approach toward physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Yoga practice is gaining popularity all over the world. If you are a yoga instructor teaching beginners, you have to focus on building strong foundations.
Yoga has proven health benefits- reducing stress, increasing flexibility, and enhancing body posture and muscle strength. However, learning the alignment to yoga practice in a safe environment to reap the benefits for yoga practice.
Why is alignment essential while practicing yoga?
As a yoga instructor, you have to focus on building a strong foundation by teaching the proper alignment of yoga practice. The alignment refers to the precise positioning of the body while practicing. Teaching the correct alignment will enable the students to yoga practice in a safe environment without causing severe injury.
Furthermore, the proper alignment ensures that the body receives complete benefits from postures. For instance, the correct alignment for the downward-facing dog permits the body to stretch the hamstrings, calves, and spin. Meanwhile, it also strengthens the arms and shoulders.
Besides avoiding causing severe injury, the proper alignment helps to enhance posture, build strength and overall flexibility, and finally, tone the body.
This article discusses the importance of building strong foundations for alignment and safety in yoga practice.
1. Creating a safe environment to practice
Students sustaining injuries during yoga practice is on the sharp rise. Therefore, building solid foundations begins with creating an atmosphere where students can practice yoga. After establishing an environment, you have to assist your students in understanding their bodies. That will help the students to better align their posture.
The better students know about their bodies, the easier it is to enhance the alignment. As they learn new positions, they will improve their alignment. For a yoga instructor, the improvement the students make will assist you in understanding how you can push your students. Once you know the limits of your students, it will be much easier to establish an environment where they can safely learn.
2. Leverage the potential of technology to instill discipline
Discipline plays a crucial role in building strong foundations for practicing yoga. You will likely wonder how technology will assist you in instilling discipline. It requires establishing a proper communication channel with your students. So they can comprehend the instructions that you give them.
Yoga class scheduling software like Picktime helps you to maintain proper communication with your students. The software has a customizable booking page or widget to embed into your website. So potential students can sign up for the yoga class directly from the website. If you have a social media presence, for instance, on Facebook, you can also integrate the software on social media.
So potential students no longer have to contact you by email or phone. That gives you more time to spend with your current students and understand them by communicating clearly. The software sends automated reminders over email and SMS to enhance communication. The students know what the class will be about and refresh their memory from the previous classes.
If you conduct online yoga classes, you can include the links to attend the class online- for instance, Google Meet and Zoom. If the students want to reschedule the class in case of an emergency, they can complete rescheduling the class in a few steps. Furthermore, if you make any changes to the class schedule, you can instantly inform the students of the changes with the assistance of the automated reminder feature.
Another hassle you will likely face as a yoga instructor is organizing multiple classes daily. That is where the calendar feature of the software comes in handy. The feature gives you a detailed overview of the daily class schedule. So you can organize your day to handle multiple classes and decide when to take a break between classes.
The software also permits you to create a secure student information database to categorize your students based on their accomplishments. Furthermore, it ensures the privacy of your students. If you plan to open up yoga studios in new locations, you need not make additional investments for software support.
3. Proper alignment assists your students in reaping the complete benefits
One of the key reasons for yoga practice is to benefit from it. That will only be possible if the students learn the correct alignment. Otherwise, practicing the postures will not be beneficial. As a yoga instructor, the primary focus has to be on students learning the proper alignment while building the foundations.
The correct posture alignment helps the students to increase muscle strength and flexibility, calm the mind, remain energetic throughout the day, increase blood circulation, and maintain a balanced lifestyle. Furthermore, the alignment helps to stretch the correct muscles in the body. As a result, that enhances the body’s overall physical well-being.
4. The correct alignment makes practicing yoga efficient
Keeping the body in the proper alignment helps with the body’s energy flow and makes each movement very efficient. Moreover, that makes practicing yoga more effortless- for instance, stretching the shoulders and performing a plank pose helps to achieve balance and stability.
The proper alignment makes performing each poster effortless. That also helps to activate the muscle in the correct area. So that helps the students to make the best out of yoga practice because the poster activates the muscles in the right area. That is why proper alignment is essential.
5. Achieve the desired progress by yoga practice
As a yoga instructor, if you want them to practice difficult poses, it is essential to improve flexibility and muscle strength. The correct alignment while performing the posture activates the muscles in the proper locations in the body. If you feel that you have to strengthen the muscles further, you will know where you have to strengthen the muscles.
So performing challenging postures will become effortless, and you can help your students achieve the desired progress that they want by performing the poses. Furthermore, performing the difficult poses will help the students realize whether their body is ready to perform them. Otherwise, forcing the body to perform difficult poses is never good. So you can prepare your students to perform the challenging poses based on their readiness and physical strength.
In conclusion, building strong foundations lies in teaching the students the correct alignment while performing the yoga poster. So they can build the physical strength to perform the challenging poses by activating and strengthening the muscles in the right area.