Creating Sequences for Specific Ailments

The idea came to me while meditating in class about mid-October.  As I was fighting myself to focus on the white light resonating from the middle of my head, it came to me. I wanted to make sequences for my friends. Specifically for my friends with ailments. Thus unfolded my four part (sequencing, ailment understanding, my practice and translating them all to ASL) personal experiment.

First, I wanted to work on my sequencing skills. This has been nagging on me as a particularly scary responsibility for a future yoga teacher. I not only hope to gain the skills required to create a proper sequence, but to also have some stock sequences to go back to in case I get yoga writer’s block. I also want to be able to have some sort of helpful pointers for the people who come into my classes with unexpected illnesses or physical  injuries. I have heard countless teachers tell me countless horror stories of classes gone wrong. While I’m sure I wont have a perfect track record, Id like to minimize the negativity that might reside in or result from my classes. Practice makes perfect. So I contacted my friends I knew who had an interest in yoga and asked them if I could make them a personal sequence. Most of them were 100% on board, much to my excitement. Next, I asked them to share their most prominent ailments. Again, they were happy to do so. People love the idea of relief, so getting good participation was a piece of cake.

 As I started making the sequences, I realized, to no shock or awe, that I knew very little about yoga for “medicine.” I ordered the book, but, as of now, it still has not arrived, so I utilized teachers and the good old internet (yogajournal.com, mostly) to aid me in my trek. What I found was astonishing! All of the poses that you would think would help a certain problem, do! Once you have the basic understanding of what you are trying to do, generally, you can handle the smaller scale problems! I love it! I only wish I had more people to practice on. I’ll be making up imaginary people with imaginary ailments from now on to practice with! I am starting to feel more and more confident in, as Kevin says, treating the person, not the problem. **The sequences and the reviews of my new yogis are below**