On Monday night I taught the prenatal yoga class, and I have to say, it felt great. I was a little nervous but slipped right back into my “yoga teacher voice” without a problem. I remembered all the things I wanted to say, and I worked them in naturally – for example, talking about the need for both strength and flexibility in the pelvic floor while we practiced a wall-assisted squat. I was able to work the wall-assisted squat into the sequence in a natural way by moving us over closer to the wall for a balance pose (with only two students, I felt like I had a bit more freedom to work with the space). I’m grateful that Sarah set a precedent for using blankets and blocks in this class, because I think props can be enormously helpful for prenatal yoga (and props aren’t typically used at all at EEY). At the end of class, I tried a new guided meditation, and it flowed nicely. I felt awesome after class, and more importantly, my two students seemed to enjoy the practice. I hadn’t taught yoga in ten months, but it felt like I’d never left.
Here’s the sequence I taught:
- Begin seated, with a centering moment
- neck rolls
- shoulder circles
- arm stretches
- Move to all fours
- cat/cow (actually, cat/neutral, since cow is contraindicated for pregnancy)
- hip circles
- calf stretches
- child’s pose
- downward dog
- Step up to forward fold
- mountain pose
- Warrior sequence
- warrior 1
- warrior 2
- radiant warrior
- triangle pose
- goddess
- wide-legged standing forward fold
- Repeat standing sequence on the other side
- balance pose at the wall: tree pose
- wall-assisted squat
- floor poses
- cobbler pose
- happy baby pose
- pelvic tilts
- inversion: legs up the wall
- savasana with guided meditation
Rox Does Yoga 