Two weeks ago I had a great opportunity to give a yoga workshop at my church. Every year the youth group holds a retreat/sleepover over St. Patrick’s Day weekend (they call it the “LepreCon”, haha). My friend Warren, a social worker and therapist, was giving a workshop on meditation, and he asked if I’d be interested in giving one on yoga (later I found out that Warren had done both last year and his yoga portion had been semi-disastrous, so I was doubly glad I’d agreed to help out!).
I only had half an hour, so I began by talking a little about the benefits of yoga (physical, mental, and emotional), emphasized how a yoga pose should be both comfortable and steady, and described how to use your breath as a guide to where you are in your yoga practice. Then I led the group through a brief series of basic core postures and through a guided relaxation. Warren then took over and led us through several meditation exercises: diaphragmatic breathing and three-part breathing, staying focused in the present moment, and a four-part loving kindness meditation, in which we sent forgiveness and compassion first to ourselves, then to a loved one, acquaintances or strangers, and finally to someone who has hurt us. It was a really great experience, both leading the yoga portion of the workshop and participating in the meditation exercises.
Here’s the sequence of yoga postures I taught:
- Basic Warm-up: < 5 minutes
- child’s pose
- cat/cow
- down dog
- standing forward fold
- Standing Work: 10-15 minutes
- mountain pose
- 2 half salutes
- 1 salute low lunges
- 1 salute high lunges
- warrior 1
- warrior 2
- triangle
- standing poses other side
- tree both sides
- Cool Down: < 5 minutes
- seated forward fold
- knees to chest
- Savasana/Guided Relaxation: < 5 minutes
And here’s the playlist I used. In planning the workshop, I was torn on whether to include an extra song or two just in case; I decided to leave them out, so as to help me stay on target with timing, but as it turned out I could’ve used an extra two minutes of music. So this is the playlist I wish I had used. It runs about 29 minutes.
Song Title | Artist |
Cherry | Ratatat |
Jahta Dance | DJ Drez |
Runaway | Beats Antique |
Drop | Cornelius |
Katamari Stars | Katamari Damacy Soundtrack |
Bliss | Yogini |