For a complete yoga sequence, start sessions with at least five to 10 minutes of pranayama or yogic breathing exercises. Warm-up either with sun salutations, which are a combination of eight poses repeated three to five times, or with other poses linked together with the breath. Follow warm-ups with holding poses for five to seven breaths. End classes with restorative or deep stretches to hold for seven breaths or longer, and a period of relaxation or meditation.
Step 1
Select for your format. Compose a list of poses you consider gentle, intermediate and advanced, so you can easily pull together a sequence appropriate for the kind of yoga workout you want for your or your class workout.
Note that you can incorporate a challenging pose into a gentle class if you break down its components with proper preparatory poses. For example, if you want to teach your class how to bind side angle pose, you could start the class with chest openers, cow face pose and warrior poses to warm-up the legs and arms.
Step 2
Choose a few poses that you want to teach or practice and build upon them with complimentary or preparatory poses. If you know that you want to use tree pose and headstand, then you should build up confidence in your or your students' core strength. Yoga leg lifts, boat pose, cobra, flowing supine spinal twists and mountain pose would be effective at warming up abdominals, back muscles and balance.
Step 3
Base your classes on a part of the body that you want to work. To strengthen and increase flexibility in the arms, for example, you might sequence a yoga class with downward-facing dog, plank, eagle and crow poses.
Step 4
Use an inspirational book, meditation, quote or other source to select a theme for your class. A theme may center on patience, love, opening the heart or any other topic you choose. For example, a sequence of yoga poses based on a theme of love may include humble warriors, a challenging standing splits pose held for 10 breaths to demonstrate patience and some heart opening backbends, such as camel or wheel.
Step 5
Try a free yoga pose sequencing too,l such as that found on the "Yoga Journal" website. According to the site, you can tailor a sequence to suit your skill level and the category of pose that you want to try. They divide poses into arm balance, backbends, core, forward bends, inversions, restorative, standing and seated and twisted. A Radiant Life website has a sequence building link which allows you to select a session with up to 66 poses.
Step 6
Use a yoga book to get ideas. "Light on Yoga" by B.K.S. Iyengar includes several pose sequence ideas for beginner and advanced students. Iyengar includes photos, instructions and the benefits of each pose. You can also study yoga styles, such as Ashtanga or Bikram, that use set series of poses to get ideas about which poses work together.
Tips and Warnings
- Be creative. Think of ways that you might sequence a seated pose next to a standing one, for example.
- Do not attempt yoga poses without warming up first.
References
- Yoga Journal: Build a Sequence
- "Light on Yoga"; B.K.S. Iyengar; 1966
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