• Head massage techniques
• CNS-ANS coordination. Using the CNS to...what?
• Neuro-musculo-skeletal integration. What is this?

Curiosity

Stuff I'd love to try, either on myself or willing hamsters.

• Head massage techniques

Wisdom

Practice

• You should never just do yoga; you must do strength training alongside it. If you stretch a muscle too much, it loses stability. Angus did 100 sun salutations for 93 days (out of a 100-day challenge), and stretched one leg more than the other. This resulted in years of strength recovery exercises.
• Regularity is priority. It's better to do a little each day than an hour once a week. Only commit to five minutes of practice, or three rounds of Surya namaskara.

Progression

• From the Hatha yoga teacher training course (their personal take). One way to adjust the focus of a class based on people's experience with yoga is as follows; beginners (people with less regular practice) largely need benefits in their flexibility and cardiorespiratory efficiency, while long-time regulars will want to explore their sub-conscious mind or pranic awareness.

1. Skeletal system.
   1. Flexibility of 8 joints + spine.
   2. Fascia, tendons and ligaments.
2. Respiratory system.
   1. Restoring diaphragmatic breathing as the default.
   2. Lung capacity.
3. Cardiac system.
   1. Cardiac strength, blood pressure.
   2. Metabolism.
4. Muscular system.
   1. Reducing muscle tone (muscle tension at rest).
   2. Counteracting muscle fatigue, like strengthening your lower back to prevent your trapezius from overworking and getting fatigued from holding your spine up (as in kyphosis).
5. Nervous system.
   1. CNS-ANS coordination. Using the CNS to...what?
   2. Yoga nidra.
   3. Stress management.
   4. Neuro-musculo-skeletal integration. What is this?
6. Endocrine system.
   1. Homeostasis; restoring hormonal balance by stimulating glands. Often done by focusing asanas on particular (physical) chakras, which correspond to hormonal glands which are part of the endocrine system.
7. Energy body.
   1. Pranic flow. You still get these benefits, even without awareness of pranic movement in your body.
   2. Pranic sensitivity and awareness. Learn to sense the movement of energy in your body, like by holding awareness on the chakras.
   3. Includes pranayama, often breath-work; Nadi shodhana, Anuloma viloma, Kumbhaka.
8. Subconscious mind.
   1. Altering patterns of thought and emotion; in particular, replacing unnecessary thoughts and emotions with peaceful thoughts that are conducive to living.
   2. Essentially, conditioning yourself with mantras or songs.

Anatomy

• Major concepts are: Muscle, Stretching, Spine, Respiratory system, Cardiovascular system, Nervous system, Endocrine system.
• Light compression can be good for bones because it can encourage them to grow stronger
• Don't avoid hyperextension unless it's painful. We shouldn’t force someone to compromise their alignment because they hit compression, and we shouldn't restrict someone's range of motion if it doesn't hurt them. It would feel like not exploring the full range of your motion, “just wrong”.
• Bone-on-bone (BOB) compression largely takes place in the eight major joints.
  1. Wrist (flexion)
  2. Elbow (supination/pronation, flexion)
  3. Scapula (spinal process) and humerus, can try abducting humerus to dodge the process (ie in downward dog, to stop the shoulder compression from bottlenecking the shape's flexion)
  4. Neck flexion/extension (whether can touch back of head to neck, and whether can touch chin to chest)
  5. Lumbar spine (ie cat)
  6. Pelvis and femur (sideways pelvic tilt as in trikonasana)
  7. Knee rotation
  8. Ankle
     • Notably, Aman highlighted that you can have compression from non bone, like tension in the front of the ankle. So it’s not as simple to identify bone compression by detecting resistance in the front side

Language

• Gentle reminders for internal kindness go a long way. They certainly help me open up and treat myself more kindly in class.
• Do not speak about things you are not qualified in.
  • We will learn about Chinese medicine as part of the course, but please, do not speak about Chinese medicine like you know everything about it. Do not be Jordan Peterson; do not use your perceived authority and knowledge as a yin toga teacher to talk about things you are not qualified to talk about, and if you do, disclaim your lack of knowledge.
  • Do not use definite language around things you're not certain about. The nervous system is so complex that nobody understands it - not even us, yin yogis. We don't know what "regulates" other people, let alone ourselves. So, we will not say "this pose will down-regulate your nervous system."
  • If you don't know something, say so, don't bullshit an answer. People will not perceive your uncertainty.
  • Yogis tend to assume they can do branches of yoga they're not qualified in. Angus thought he could do a yoga nidra, but after doing the training, he realised he had nowhere near enough idea to run it (ie without the risk of triggering someone).
• Yin is not a restorative practice. Although it looks similar to restorative yoga, we are creating stress in target areas, but restorative yogas are taking away that stress.
• Be mindful of your volume. It can be very jarring not to use a quiet, soft voice - especially after pauses for poses.
• Tend towards being quiet. It can feel awkward or anxious to hold a space for people (esp if they're holding poses for 4-7 minutes), but if you've ever been in a yoga class where the teacher didn't stop talking, you know that all you can think is "shut up".
  • However, it's helpful to bring reminders of kindness, and that people have a choice to not engage with their thoughts.

Empathy

• Doing lots of yin in a short timeframe might be very challenging. You don't need to do yoga every day to be a teacher. However, you do need to do 90 minutes of yin for 9 days in order to experience a wide range of emotions, tension and struggles that your students will encounter.
• Teaching from your own body's experience is extremely limited. Our bodies are so different, so you need to understand anatomy in order to empathise and diagnose someone's experience with yoga.

Cueing

• Cueing well involves using targeted, terse descriptions. Tersely tell people how to get from seated to their belly. Explain the target muscles that people should feel the stretch in.
• You should be able to get 90% of the class feeling a stretch with general instructions. Having good cueing allows you to spend more time on people who don't vibe well with a certain shape, like you're running a private session for a whole class of people.
• Specific language makes a big difference. "Pose" implies a strict appearance or aesthetic, which is unhealthy and unhelpful for many people. "Shape" implies a family of postures, and encourages people to adjust it.
• When someone says they can't feel it, look at the joints and think of ways to change the shape so they can.
• You should never give non-functional cues around body shape; if the alignment doesn't make sense for most people, it shouldn't be part of the shape's cueing. Maybe give a rough guide, but it's up to people (and teachers to tell them) to explore the parameters of every shape.
  • Shitty cue examples are: "don't take knees over toes", "pelvis square", "elbows hug ribs", "heels towards the floor", "bring shoulders over wrists", "index finger parallel", "tuck tailbone", "shoulders away from ears", "knee bent 90 degrees", "feet parallel"
• You should never say "stay there". Holding poses can trigger people's trauma. Protect yourself by giving students autonomy.

Designing routines

• You should aim to hit all four spine bends in each class.
• Pentacle/Shavasana is 10% of the class time, and it's the respite that people are paying for. Do not shortchange people on this.

Environment

• Having a blanket underneath you makes a massive difference to how warm you are.

Music

• Songs can trigger people, so it's best not to teach to music with lyrics.

Meditation

• Giving people space for their minds to wander at the start can be helpful, because it allows people to get the wandering they would otherwise do out of the way (like the wandering you do before bed after a busy day).