Reddit reviews Yoga Sequencing: Designing Transformative Yoga Classes

Starting a home practice is a little awkward at first, and you probably won't know exactly what to do, but I guarantee you will grow into it. Just keep it consistent and learn to listen to your body. The cool thing about a home practice is that it is tailored to YOU! I love going to class and get a lot out of having an instructor guide me in alignment and offer new and exciting sequences, but my home practice has become sacred.

A few tips to start:

• Pay attention to the tips your instructors give about form and alignment. While you're holding poses, try to bring these tips to mind in order to refine them.
  
• Sun salutations are always a good warmup.
  
• If you can remember any sequences from class, even if you can only remember part of it, do it! It will help you fill up the time at first and maybe give you a bit of direction about what to do next.
  
• If you can't think of what to do, holding poses and really trying to refine them as you hold them is always a good option.
  
• Develop a pose or maybe a few poses that you want to focus on (maybe crow or bridge/wheel, for example) and do poses that will open up the parts of your body that you need open for those poses. As an example, when I want to do bird of paradise, I make sure I do a lot of standing splits and other poses to open up my super tight hamstrings.
  
• Don't get discouraged if it doesn't flow smoothly at first. It will eventually. You'll find sequences that you love and sequences that don't do much for you. And it's all ok.
  
  I hope some of this helps. Also, I just started reading this book, Yoga Sequencing by Mark Stephens for my teacher training, and it is a huge help. It explains the principles of sequencing but also provides a lot of sequences for all levels. More than worth the cost.
  
  Starting a home practice can be scary, but I'm so grateful for my self practice. It's made me more aware of and grateful for my body. It's your time to explore. I think you'll find that mixing in a studio practice and a home practice will help you to balance and refine your own practice. The two will inspire and inform each other.
  
  Edit: I apologize about the awful formatting. I tried really hard to get the bullet points to actually be bullet points, but I can't figure it out.

The book Yoga Sequencing: Designing Transformative Yoga Classes is an amazing book with many sequences provided. It also goes over the theory of sequencing so you will be able to build your own. I think it was originally intended for teachers, but will work solo just fine. Well worth the investment.

> I'm sure there's plenty of literature on the subject

Mark Stevens has written an entire book on sequencing.

Combining sequencing is fine as long as you do everything in an order that "makes sense." There's certain things to stay away from, like never go from an extreme back bend directly into a deep forward fold and vice versa. And then there are some things that are recommended, like you should open your hips before your do deep back bends. If you really get into it, I would recommend this book on yoga sequencing

I teach power yoga so I use a lot of Baptiste Journey into Power. For more general hatha styles, Mark Stephens has a really good book on basic principals of sequencing, with lots of variations for beginners, intermediate, advanced, different health conditions, pregnant students, elderly students, etc. Really good resource!

This one is what I currently started with :) good luck!

I use books, really.

BKS Iyengar has a section of sequencing in Light on Yoga (basically the Sanskrit listed out, in order)

And then there's this book (fairly thick too) with just images of the yoga poses.

And I like the Home Practice section on Yoga Journal!

edit: but my general skeleton of a class is something like this

• 5-10 minutes of breathing/centering
  
• 5-10 of gentle stretching
  
• then some slow flow (like sun salutation c) or easy standing balance
  
• then like the sun salutation a's with standing poses, planks, balances mixed in b/n
  
• then deeper flexibility poses that we hold or standing postures that we hold (hopefully I've warmed them up properly so they can do this safely)
  
• then back/belly work or floor work (like reverse plank, locust, bridge pose, shoulderstand type things)
  
• deeper seated stretching, if time or reclining twists/stretches
  
• savasana!

My suggestion would be finding DVDs or books at the library. If you have the time, do reading on yoga sequencing or the Ashtanga Primary Series, the latter of which is very physically demanding (yet meditative) and should keep you occupied for several years. There also exists books on yoga and depression.

Good luck on your journey. I'm using yoga to treat anxiety problems and it's working wonders.