I launched my first online course this week on yoga anatomy! This has been an idea of mine for a few years now and I’m so excited to be able to offer it as part of my programs and services. If you missed the link on my website or my social media pages, here is the first course:
Now that the first course is live, I wanted to give you an idea of what to expect from my courses, what makes them different and why you’d want to buy them.
When I started teaching yoga, I had a background in anatomy but I really wasn’t applying it to my teaching. I taught with a focus on alignment but didn’t really understand or connect the specific anatomy to the movements. Over the years, and especially in the past several years, I’ve really expanded my knowledge of anatomy and its application to yoga practice through independent study and training with and assisting teachers that focus on anatomy in their teaching. I’ve written an anatomy manual and accompanying Teacher’s Guide and sold it to a few studios to help them with their 200 hour training. I’ve taught a number of anatomy workshops and several 20-hour segments of 200 hour trainings for studios in my area. But I was always left with a sense when finished that the process was much more overwhelming to students than helpful in allowing them to put into practice what they heard.
My efforts to create an Anatomy Manual and Teacher’s Guide, while successful on some level, still left me feeling like there was a better way to present this information. My Teacher’s Guide is filled with exercises to help “bring the information to life” and I’m convinced that at in-person trainings, this is the  only way that we as teachers, stand a chance that our students will remember and be able to apply much of what they’ve learned. The more they sit and listen and view slides, the more our chances decrease that they’ll really remember the information. It’s just too detailed and for many teachers, this is the first time they’ve heard any of these anatomical terms.
The other problem with learning anatomy by reading alone is that it’s completely passive. You read the information and close the book. There’s very little to help you know if you’re understanding it or remembering the information. By the same token, unless the book is one that is specifically geared to yoga teaching, the information, while helpful, can be too detailed, can be more than you need to know and it lacks the “application” piece, which is really why, as teachers, we’re learning anatomy. We’re not trying to operate on someone; we’re trying to teach them a pose.
When we go to an in-person training, this is really one of the best ways to learn anatomy for teaching. We have a senior teacher, one with a background in anatomy, sharing information. We can palpate muscles, watch others move, look at pictures of the muscles and ask questions. We can work with our colleagues’ bodies and see how things look in the body as they move. The challenge with this mode of learning is that it can be very expensive to travel to trainings, between the cost of the training and the time off to participate.
So, to that end, in my research and partnership with a consulting group for wellness professionals, Patient Moon Wellness Marketing, the idea to take several anatomical concepts for yoga teachers and present them in an online course format was explored. Once I tried the Thinkific software I knew it was a useful idea. Through this medium and with my approach to presenting anatomy for yoga teachers you can:
- Study when you have time versus having to book time to go away
- Learn in a way that can supplement the times you are able to attend in-person trainings
- Learn in a cost effective way
- Learn in short, digestible chunks so you are not overwhelmed
- Learn with a tool that uses several different format to teach: words, images, audio and video
- Learn anatomy in the context of yoga, versus learning anatomy as a stand-alone topic
- Learn components of anatomy that can help you teach in a way that will support your students’ growth on the mat. Things like the muscles behind common movements like High to Low Push Up; learning how the body compensates for tight hip flexors and how to adjust your teaching to help students create healthy stretch are among the things we will explore
- Learn how to bring anatomical themes into your teaching in a way that won’t overwhelm your students but will help them feel empowered on the mat. This comes from giving them information they can use in any class, regardless of the instruction (or lack thereof) that is presented
- Provide you with sequencing and theme ideas to help keep your teaching fresh
- Help you answer student questions about their bodies
- Help you become more educated about anatomy so you can be more discerning as you read and hear things in the yoga industry
- Provide you with a tool at the end of each online course so you can test your knowledge to see what you learned.
Now that I’ve presented to you my first course, I can’t wait to do the next one. I have a list of starter topics to get things moving but welcome your questions and input as well.
Please join my mailing list on my website to stay connecting to my latest news and notices about new courses. Join my Facebook and Twitter pages so you know through that medium as well when I release my next course.
There a many ways to learn the anatomy related to yoga teaching. Knowing this information can help set you apart from other teachers. If you are passionate about learning this information, this format of learning can be a wonderful addition to the other things you do.
If you have any questions about my online training program, please send me an email to karen@barebonesyoga.com.