YOGA SEQUENCING for Beginners | Ladder Flow Method

Transcript

welcome to yoga sequencing for beginners this is a series to give you examples of some of my sequencing methods and today i'm going through what i call a ladder flow my name is ashley and i specialize in helping new yoga teachers and yoga practitioners create their own unique yoga sequences in a very simple and effective way if you haven't checked out my 10 steps to sequencing a yoga class video it's a pretty good one i would recommend checking it out but i did make that about four years ago so now i'm just expanding on that and giving you a few more methods within that ten step framework and this one is called ladder flow you can actually find more about all of my methods and my sequencing tips and tricks in my online workshop called focused flow all of my links and things will be down in the description so you can check it out there but let's get to an example of what is a ladder flow and how can you create your own i wrote this example out here it's a very simple ladder flow sequence i've got five poses that make the base every yoga class or fitness class really has this bell-shaped curve starts with a warm-up and then there's a middle section which is like the work portion and there's then there's the cool down as you head down to relaxation so that's pretty much the same for every fitness class there might be little variations here little bumps along the way but for the most part warm up build your way up and then you come back down so i want to focus in this ladder flow on five or six i've got five here poses that make up that middle section so these five poses build on each other more challenging as you walk up that ladder my sequence goes like this crescent lunge warrior 3 warrior 2 side angle bird of paradise and you'll also notice something about that sequence is that i've grouped together the internally rotated hip lunges and the externally rotated hip lunges crescent lunge and warrior three have the same internally rotated back leg warrior two side angle and the bird of paradise all have the externally rotated back leg it would be really awkward to go from crescent lunge warrior two warrior three side angle it's just a lot of turning in the hips so if we can minimize that and group like poses together so that's how we create smooth transitions from pose to pose now with these five poses that's going to make up the base my warm up and my cool down pretty much stay the same class to class you don't have to get extra fancy or creative here if you're just getting started keep it simple so what i have for the beginning is a very power yoga friendly warm-up or initial pose and practice we start in child's pose another reason i like starting in child's pose with bird of paradise being our biggest pose is that we want to start by opening the hips so i think about okay bird of paradise we need hips open i should either start seated or in a child's pose so child suppose it is from child's pose shift forward cat and cow so then we start to get the spine activated and you can actually do other kinds of warm-ups if you would like from cat and cow walk the hands a little forward tuck the toes under down dog just for about a breath or so maybe peddle the feet a second or two then we walk forward the first time i come up to standing i always roll up so it's a slow rise to standing now you might add something here a little grounding in tension mountain pose it's your base that kind of thing but then from there going into sun salutations on my flow here i just said we'll do sun salutation a three times because i'm doing so many lunges in the middle of our practice i'm not going to get too much into sun salutation bees which add lunges so that's just too many i'll just walk through it one time so you know what i'm talking about palms forward reach up inhale exhale forward fold lengthen inhale exhale you can step or jump back and i'm power yoga focus so i always add an extra breath here to shift forward and then bend the elbows and you will have different variations of that you might lower to your belly up dog or cobra pose downward facing dog now it's up to you if you want to hold a few breaths here i usually like to do that then from there bend the knees look forward exhale step or hop to the top half lift forward fold inhale rise up when i'm teaching beginners i typically go through the first sun salutation a slowly we add a few more breaths and i talk about each pose the second time and third time through we go a little faster so after that we're getting right into that middle section so that was our warm up the middle section you can either just step right on back that's a great way to do this with beginners so you're not constantly going through the endurance building of the vinyasa or that sun salutation if i'm teaching a vinyasa or power class my students are used to it wanting that challenge we would go through the sun salutation highway the same thing i just did [Music] and then we step forward from here you might lift the leg first bend the knee step forward talk through that the first pose is crescent lunge so pose number one crescent lunge now a couple things you could do here you could add movement if you're into it like an up and down motion we could just simply hold you can add an arm variation or just stay where you're at reaching and talking about crescent lunge very basic it's wonderful and then we do the other side you're not just gonna step step switch that's awkward so instead we're going to take the hands down now you can step forward into your fold and then step back if you're avoiding weight on the hands or adding that vinyasa step back so it's up to you what you do in between but make it smooth smooth transitions so no awkward steps we want it to feel like we're flowing with that breath so we reach up at lunge and you would hold this one and the next few i'm not going to hold as long ago on both sides i'm just going to give you an example what we're doing next so after that we come down we do it again you might go straight to down dog again the in-between just find a transition that works for your students might be just simply stepping back to down dog avoiding the push-ups or we step forward step back ladder number two step number two we first hit up our lunge at the same pose we started in that's number one and on the exhale we rise right away transition balancing on carpet is hard here we go warrior three and hold this for a while same thing we could add movement here or just stay and hold and you'll want to go back to your lunge in order to transition you always want that bass pose either the lunge or warrior two to transition back down and through and we do the other side one two crescent lunge warrior three again we hold take it back down and then i'm just gonna get into the other poses so then we lift we step forward crescent lunge first go through warrior three right then you have to step back crescent lunge then back heel spins down open up the hips now we're into our externally rotated poses this hip that's open the back heel stays the farthest point back we want to avoid the toes turning out roll that back thigh in but open the hip press through the pinky toe see these are all alignment cues now i'm getting into yoga teacher mode as with all the poses we hold a while feel squeeze the legs talk about it and then instead of coming back to crescent lunge here we can actually reach forward hands come down to the floor windmill effect lift the back heel and plant the hands down you'd step forward or step back through that transition and do the other side [Music] now i'm going to pause here because i also want to tell you as you do this ladder right you're going one two three we've got two more poses left if you would like to add something in between let's say you want a little core work just a little extra pop of pizzazz you can do that in between the poses let's say between poses three and four would be a great time so we went through warrior two maybe right now we're going to be doing some like knee to elbow type of work just to get a little bit more core activation or figure eights lift a leg hold plank is a great foundational pose for building strength in pretty much the entire body okay so we're going into the next pose lift the leg step right pose one crescent lunge pose two warrior three pose three warrior two now pose four leaning forward we've got the same externally rotated hip side ankle giving options or variations elbow can be on the thigh hand could come down low and before you come back down to the ground you're not just going to hands down well you could but sometimes it's a little awkward we can come back up first and then down to the floor back heel lifts and then switch sides okay so you get the gist of it right so the fifth round we do the final pose lift the leg exhale step forward crescent lunge warrior three exhale inhale crescent lunge you might have to add some extra breaths here exhale warrior 2 adjust inhale lean forward exhale side angle and you can get the option here just for the bind so especially these bigger poses you don't have to do no one has to do the full variation and this bind might be a bit much look down step forward and give the option to lift into bird of paradise and come back down open up lift back to where you're two hands to the ground step back go through your vinyasa flow now after you completed all five poses step by step and you hold each one as you progress you can flow through each of that like two one or two times again without the holds so it's breath based so you have to control the breath with it let's try it inhale lift the leg exhale step forward pose number one crescent lunge pose number two warrior three exhale pose number three warrior two inhale first to crescent lunge exhale open to warrior two inhaling forward exhale side angle let's bind the hands and open back up so i'm not going to flow through that bird of paradise i'm really just going to keep just maybe it's a bind and then we're open back up inhale exhale hands to the floor step back after you flow as many times as you want through your five poses we're then coming down to our cool down and the cool down this can be very similar for every class from class to class as well if you want to add anything extra any extra core work cool awesome as long as you know the basics in keeping people safe you're in a good place one of the best things that would feel good though is a hip stretch of some kind so i'm gonna i have online after after we finish i'm doing pigeon pose because we've been opening in a different way this would feel so good so we've got pigeon pose rest here for a little while and i like doing pigeon pose directly from right to left side so you don't feel super uneven and have to go through this long flow or long sequence before you get to pigeon on the other side so then we step back after a few breaths and do the other side and then from there give it a little shake out right and then we sit down and the cool down or as i come down it's going to be seated poses and reclined poses and then we're done so here after pigeon i've got forward fold a bound angle could be nice and then a regular let's go seated twist so we haven't done really many twists here so i'm trying to think in my mind what have we not done a whole lot of or what would complement what we just did so we did a forward fold we did another fold here so a twist to lengthen that spine and we haven't done a lot of twists so i do a simple seated twist side to side and these you can hold let's say for three to five breaths or even more if you wanted to these ones don't have any ladder type flow it's just you know a cool down so after those twists i actually have on here boat pose i mean sure why not add a little core strength as you go through this if you practice it yourself real quick like your hour long sequence just go through it and flow through it like in 10 15 minutes you'll start to notice what you want to add or delete and then we're rolling down and then i keep it really basic at the ground bridge pose legs up the wall another spinal twist a relaxed final twist left and right hug the knees grab the feet happy baby pose and then shavasana that's it each of those of course you're going to hold a little while and then we roll up or roll to your side sit up and finish your practice so that was a ladder flow it's really picking five or six poses and continuing to build on each of them your classes don't have to be ultra creative and the truth is you are probably going to get bored of your classes or your music selection long before your students ever do it's actually really great to keep a little bit of consistency so that your students know what to expect when they come to your class all right i hope that was helpful i would love to hear about your ladder flow what would be your four five or six poses that you would put into the middle of your classes put that in the comment below and make sure that you stay tuned for next week's video because i'm going through this same flow in the method that i call a wave flow so it will be slightly different but the same poses so this is a way you can change up your class without actually changing up the poses that you do you're just changing up the middle flow style so i can't wait to see you next video also don't forget to give this a thumbs up hit the button and stay tuned for more yoga sequencing and yoga teaching tips