Laban Movement Analysis – A “Primer” for Yoga Instructors

By Kathryn Boland

Are you aware of the many types of systems for observing, understanding, and communicating about human movement? Have you ever studied any of these, to find it can offer insights that can be beneficial in your yoga instructor work? Laban Movement Analysis (“LMA”) is one such system. Like yoga, it regards people as complex systems of emotions, thoughts, physical qualities/tendencies, and more – all aspects that are engaged in constant interaction with one another.

Rudolf Laban was a German choreographer and movement theorist in the early 1900’s. During WWII, he analyzed factory workers’ movements to determine ways in which they could perform their daily work more efficiently – and thus increase their output. From this, and further investigations, he created a system for analyzing, classifying, and modifying human movements. The result is Laban Movement Analysis, a large body of work that fields such as concert dance, Somatics, and Dance/Movement Therapy call upon. What might it contribute to yoga practice and education?

If yoga instructors and practitioners have a basic knowledge of LMA’s rudimentary principles, they have more tools for understanding and describing certain aspects of yogic practice (in asana, pranayama, and the physical placement aspects of meditation). I will describe the applications of the Effort System in this article, and space considerations (including socio-emotional meanings of movement in separate planes) in a separate article.

Laban’s 4-part Effort System can offer a unique way of finding new dimensions in movement. Those can help to deepen one’s yoga practice, or simply lead a yoga practitioner find the qualities that are more in tune with their needs (physical, spiritual, mental, et cetera) on any given day. One’s sense of Space can be on a spectrum from Direct to Indirect. Direct space is the quality one has when zeroing in on someone across the room whom one was looking for. In contrast, a feather or leaf floating to the ground travels in an Indirect manner. Such images can guide practitioners to have a clearer, stronger drishti in balance poses. Conversely, in Mountain Pose, we often guide students to close their eyes or keep a “soft” (Indirect, as another way of thinking about it) gaze. That gaze can have that same quality of a floating leaf or feather.

One’s quality of Time can vary from Quick to Sustained. Rushing down the street, late for an appointment, one moves in a Quick manner. That same person walking more slowly (yet continuously), such as when strolling on an unhurried Sunday, moves in a Sustained quality. We can encourage students to have a more Sustained quality – with more ease and flow – in asana practice, through guiding them to finding subtle movements of expansion and grounding. Those include finding length in the spine on inhales, and depth further into postures on exhales. Moving in a Sustained quality can also help practitioners to not move so fast that they lose connection with their body’s initial reactions to certain postures, and any adjustments that they make to those postures. In the worst cases, such lack of awareness can lead practitioners to injure themselves.  On the other hand, thinking of certain pranayama exercises as Quick, with corresponding images (as described), could be a useful mental framework. Those include Dog’s Breath and Kapalabhati (“Skull Shining”) breath.

 One can have a quality of Weight ranging from Light to Strong. As with all these Effort system “spectrums”, is it about one’s relationship with weight – managing to resist gravity’s pull or giving in to it. For instance, a child skipping through a meadow – seemingly just about ready to float to the sky - has a Light quality. A parent telling him that it’s time to leave, her crossed arms and rooted feet showing her frustration, will have a Strong quality. Yoga students can feel more grounded in standing postures through visualizing having strength through their feet and legs. At the same time, they can find more expansion in the upper body through imagining having lightness in their torsos.

One’s sense of Flow can range from Free to Bound. Free defines relative lack of muscular effort, and Bound conveys its presence. On a day off, without significant pressures, we likely move in a Free manner. Back in another stressful workday, however, tension leads us to move in a Bound quality. For the most part, a balance between Free and Bound qualities can support yoga practitioners in executing asana practices that have clear alignment and necessary muscular engagement, yet lack limiting tension. It could be a useful way for yoga students to conceptualize that balance as where they are “free” from muscular effort that does not serve them in their practices, such effort as something that they do not have to be “bound” to – not without their consent! Maybe, just maybe, they might find that quality on their mats - and then be able to bring more of it into their lives off of them.

A key part of the system is the fact that at any given point, we move with a certain level of each of these qualities in combination – to result in our overall movement and self-presentation at that time. If we can see that a student has an effective balance of Free and Bound Flow, but could benefit from a more Sustained quality as they transition from asana to asana, we might have clearer and more helpful language with which to guide him/her to a more fulfilling practice. As always, dear readers, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic, and if you have further questions about Laban Movement Analysis. Stay tuned for a following article on special considerations of LMA’s Space theory in yoga instruction. Namaste! 

© Copyright 2015 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Please feel free to share our posts with your friends, colleagues, and favorite social media networks.

A Professional Plan for Yoga Instructors – Part II

By Kathryn Boland

Have you ever wondered if you could benefit from more concrete definitions of your professional duties, aspects such as pay and scheduling, and your overall vision for your yoga instructor career? In a prior post, I started to describe how we can write out our own “Job Descriptions” - to help reach further clarity about where we now stand, and how to get to where we want to, as instructors. Also included in typical job descriptions are pay-rate and work structure (such as part-time, full-time, day or nights/weekends, et cetera). When can and can’t you teach? Do you have another daytime job, and teach on weekends for extra income and fulfillment? Do you teach dance, other fitness forms, or carry out some other professional endeavor at night? 

Being clear to yourself about when works the best for you to teach yoga, as well as perform other supportive duties (such as class planning and your own personal practice), can help you to more efficiently and successfully seek instruction opportunities. You will also be ready to quickly and easily answer questions such as: “Can you teach 7:30 Wednesday nights?” Next, be clear on your pay. Perhaps for certain entities, you have a very specific, non-negotiable hourly rate. For others, maybe you can operate on a sliding-scale, “pay-what-you-can” model (as a charitable act).

Next, consider a strategic plan for your yoga instruction career. What, where, and who do you really want to be teaching? Retreats in tropical climates? Pre-schoolers? Advanced practitioners in elite studios? Perhaps you’re not quite sure of where, who, and what you want to be teaching – you just love teaching. That attitude of openness has value in itself. Perhaps with time you’ll discover what type of teaching is right for you, and you can follow that path. Without a clear idea of what it is you want as an instructor, however, it is more difficult to actively engage with the appropriate entities in order to build your teaching.

In any case, analyzing how the skills you have compare to the skills you will need in your desired work (back to that list of skills and knowledge that you wrote before) can help you to be realistic about the nature of your work ahead to get there. For instance, are you skilled at physical cueing but sometimes struggle to be clear and helpful with your verbal guidance? Capitalize on your strengths, and diligently work to improve upon your growth areas. The type of yoga and students you want to teach certainly matters here; skill at subtle physical cueing is most often not needed to teach children (especially in environments wherein touch is not legally permitted), but energy and a sense of creative fun certainly are! Engaging with a knowledgeable and approachable mentor, independent study, seeking students’ feedback, and self-evaluation (written or mental) can all help in those efforts to enhance the skills you need to teach where, what, and who you want.  

Teaching skills in themselves do not secure teaching positions; you’ll need to work at the self-marketing/branding end of it as well. Work on your “elevator” speech (the thirty second summary of your professional interests and offerings, ready for whenever you might meet that important “someone”), resume, social media presence, and professional website. If you are interested in teaching at elite gyms/health clubs and studios, politely reach out and ask about auditioning opportunities. Gradually working into a teaching position from doing work-exchange (working for the studio in exchange for free classes) is also sometimes possible. It can be a “faux-pas” to some owners of such institutions to “cold-call” directly to ask about open teaching positions. Asking if there are auditions and/or work-exchange programs, however, is most often welcome. Try to be accountable to yourself that such actions are happening as necessary - such as through keeping a log of “to-do”, when each effort gets accomplished and the initial result, and follow-up actions. 

Find a system that works for you, and – in the midst of hectic modern life – do your best to stick with it. Yes, it often takes time and patience to get where we want to be as yoga instructors – but, as yoga can teach us, it’s about the journey rather than the destination. Your efforts at more clearly defining who you are as an instructor, and consequently where you’d like to be, will make wherever you might arrive all the more fulfilling. Yoga also teaches us to seek our life’s purpose, our dharma, and to stay as consistently engaged with it as possible once we have found it. In the twenty-first century, that involves resumes, auditions, and LinkedIn pages. The generous and open spirit of our work as instructors, however, can be the same as yogis have always put forth. I wish you the best on your paths, dear readers. Namaste!    

© Copyright 2015 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Please feel free to share our posts with your friends, colleagues, and favorite social media networks.

A Professional Plan for Yoga Instructors – Part I

By Kathryn Boland

Do you ever stop to think about your vision for yourself as a professional yoga instructor? Do you notice how the presence of such a vision (or lack thereof) might impact your professional performance and public image? This dynamic plays out in how we market ourselves, the venues where we put our efforts into offering our services, how we present ourselves professionally, how we build towards a strategic outcome for our own careers, and more. All of this is essential for yoga instructors, the majority of whom are independent contractors (whether full or part-time with other paid work to help pay the bills).

Employees of corporations, agencies, and non-profit organizations are most often hired under very specific job descriptions. Logistics such as full or part-time, pay rate, et cetera are agreed upon. Initial training reinforces the skills and expectations that such descriptions outline. Nine times out of ten, periodic performance reviews/meetings/assessments (whether in-person or written) occur. These are platforms for supervisors and employees to check in on employees’ growth and strengths, areas for continued improvements, contributions to employers’ outputs thus far, and employees’ personal comfort levels with their daily work. This is clearly a very structured process for supporting employees in reaching the place where they can optimally perform in their positions.

Compare that with independent contractor yoga instructors. We dutifully study for, and graduate from, our trainings (200 and/or 500 hour, RYT or CYT). Perhaps we seek to teach full-time, or to combine teaching with other professional work for optimal fulfillment and financial security. In the best cases, we carefully determine the amount of teaching that we need to be doing to keep ourselves fulfilled and financially afloat, and put in the necessary effort to achieve that amount (which, yes, takes time, patience, and diligence). We may or may not have clear ideas about the types of people we want to teach (for instance, corporate employees or seniors or children or those in fitness settings) – and, again, strategically market ourselves accordingly. Teaching schedules build, and we come to feel good about how things are going.

Professional Image

At a certain point, however, we might feel a certain lack of definition about our professional image and goals. What exactly are our professional duties; how exactly are we balancing time in the classroom, class planning and post-class evaluations, continuing education and other informal research, and our own practices? Where do we see ourselves, career-wise, in five years? In ten? In twenty? Then there are rough patches when we might lose a few private students, and a class that paid very well (Lord, in the same week, no less!) Are we prepared with other viable leads to follow, to fill in those gaps? Doing so is important to, again, keep ourselves growing and fulfilled as instructors - as well as to keep our personal finances balanced. Without formal evaluations, bi-monthly direct deposits into our checking accounts, and supervisors, there is no one to keep all of that clear for ourselves but ourselves.

Keeping ourselves more accountable to ourselves in these ways can come with a few relatively easy steps, small efforts that can be very worth the while. Firstly, write out a “Job Description” for yourself – similar to those posted in any job-search engine or Jobs page of any corporation’s website. Include short and long-term duties. Those include things you do as part of your yoga instructor work daily (teaching and planning, for instance), to the amount of workshops and other continuing education efforts you do over the course of one year. 

Then write out the skills that you need to perform these duties. These include anatomical knowledge and competence at conveying it to your students in understandable ways, personal abilities as a yoga practitioner (read: demonstrating), physical cueing, prop usage, et cetera. Some important skills as instructors that we often overlook include our self-marketing and “branding”, objective and knowledgeable advocating for yoga as a healing and wellness practice (for instance, how well can you answer those tough questions about what yoga can offer for those coping with various medical complications?). In a following post, I’ll describe further clear steps that we can take to evaluate our current professional standing and how to reach where we want to go. Om Shanti!

© Copyright 2015 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Please feel free to share our posts with your friends, colleagues, and favorite social media networks.

Teaching Thanksgiving in a Yoga Class: Relaxing

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed.

During the frenetic pace of the holiday season, you will probably find that many of your Yoga students are desperately in need of a dedicated period of time at some point during their week when they can simply just relax. Although many traditional cultures value periods during which they have leisure time to dedicate to socializing with others, creating art or beautifying their environment, our current culture tends to more highly value being busy, constantly multi-tasking and getting financially and professionally ahead of the proverbial eight ball. 

Of course, setting goals and working towards those goals is highly admirable and inspirational. The drive to accomplish one’s goals may have been one of the primary motivating factors for your success at becoming a certified Yoga instructor. However, when this drive to always be active and accomplish your professional or personal goals prevents you from relaxing, the underlying stress can wreak havoc on your immune system, and even predispose you and your Yoga students to developing symptoms of depression, anxiety and insomnia. 

In order to help your students to relax when you are teaching a Yoga class, it is important to offer them a balanced practice of physically challenging postures and restorative, restful poses. One way to do this is to create a sequence of Yoga postures that is balanced between active, vinyasa-style Yang postures, such as flowing Sun Salutations, challenging standing poses and arm balances, with more Yin-style poses, such as seated forward folds and supported heart openers. 

Supported heart opening Yoga postures are particularly good for helping to alleviate symptoms of depression. Many of the emotions associated with depression, such as a sense of helplessness, hopelessness and an overwhelming feeling that one’s cup is always and permanently half-empty, are often alleviated when the physical constriction around the heart chakra is released, during the practice of supported heart openers. In addition, supported heart openers are very restful and relaxing, which is a nice counter-balance to the busyness of the holiday season.

Supported heart opening Yoga postures also help to cultivate a sense of fullness and gratitude, which ameliorates some of the feeling of lack that so many people experience when they are stressed, tired and/or depressed. As a professionally certified Yoga instructor, you can help your students to experience a sense of fullness and thanksgiving, by weaving a number of back bending and supported heart opening asanas into your classes. A few wonderfully relaxing, restorative heart openers are Reclining Supported Goddess Pose and Legs Up the Wall Pose, especially when practiced with a small rolled blanket supporting the back of the heart area and an aromatherapy eye pillow. 

Legs Up the Wall Pose is a very accessible Yoga posture that can be easily practiced by most students. To lead your students through the practice of Legs Up the Wall Pose, ask them to move their Yoga mats to an empty wall space in the studio with the short side of their mat flush up against the wall. Before they begin to practice Legs Up the Wall Pose, ask your students to make sure that they have one rolled blanket and an aromatherapy eye pillow near their mat, so that they can easily place the rolled blanket lengthwise on their mat and the aromatherapy eye pillow over their eyes. 

Of course, if you only have non-scented eye pillows for your Yoga students, that is fine as well! Just the simple act of withdrawing their sense of sight for a few minutes while they hold Legs Up the Wall Pose will help them to relax more deeply. To begin, ask your students to place their mats in a perpendicular fashion against the wall and a rolled blanket horizontally across their Yoga mats at the approximate height of the bottom of their shoulder blades. Next, ask your students to place their left buttock against the wall, and then gently swing their legs vertically up the wall and place the eye pillow over their eyes. Hold Supported Legs Up the Wall Pose for five full minutes. 

Supported heart opening postures are often practiced towards the end of a Yoga class and just prior to Final Relaxation Pose. As your students rest and relax in the restorative heart opening posture that you have chosen, you may also want to gently lead a short contemplation focused on gratitude or thanksgiving. As your students become more aware of the many positive aspects of their lives, their hearts will begin to be filled with a sense of gentle fullness. With this sense of fullness, many of your students will be able to truly relax and restore their life force energy, as they rest in the abundant well being that you have helped to nurture in your Yoga class.

Virginia Iversen, M.Ed, has been practicing and studying the art of Yoga for over twenty years. She lives in Woodstock, New York, where she works as a writer and an academic support specialist. 

© Copyright – Virginia Iversen / Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Please feel free to share our posts with your friends, colleagues, and favorite social media networks.

Teaching Thanksgiving in a Yoga Class: Honoring the Journey

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed.

During the holiday season, it is an uplifting change of pace to teach Yoga classes that are focused on gratitude and thanksgiving. So often, our highly commercialized society is geared towards getting the best deal for your money. As I sit and write this article, it is Cyber Monday. I am not sure who has decided that today should be focused on getting the most for your money online, but it has almost become a national holiday in the United States! In order to counter this frantic buying ritual just after Thanksgiving, some organizations have implemented “Giving Tuesday.” 

Although “Giving Tuesday” is in many ways the non-profit sector’s spin on Cyber Monday, and of course “Black Friday,” the emphasis on giving back does help to underscore the bounty that many of us experience in our lives. As a Yoga teacher, you may feel that you are struggling to truly support yourself teaching this ancient practice to a variety of students. However, if you pause for a moment to consider all of the abundant and uplifting things in your life, your heart will begin to fill with a sense of gratitude. 

When you move through your life with an awareness of abundance and a feeling of thanksgiving in your heart, you will tend to attract more abundance in your life, whether it be an abundance of love, rewarding friendships, good health, or financial prosperity. In the same way, during the busyness of the holiday season, you have the opportunity as a certified Yoga instructor to gently remind your students of all the abundance in their lives. One way to nurture this sense of abundance is to help your students to honor their own journeys, both on and off the Yoga mat. 

So often, many of us struggle with the reality of where our bodies are on any given day. For instance, there are days when much of my own Yoga practice consists of moving in and out of Extended Child’s Pose and Downward Facing Dog. At times, I feel impatient with the pace of my practice and start to ignore the signals my body is giving me, so I push myself to keep up with the quick pace of an advanced Yoga class. When I do this, I can feel that I am disrespecting my body. If I continue to push too hard when I am on the mat, I invariably injure myself. 

Of course, injuring oneself does not create well being or abundance! In the same way, when you are leading a group of students through a comprehensive Yoga class, if you push them too hard or do not offer modified postures to those students who need a less strenuous practice, your students run the risk of injuring themselves. If your students injure themselves during a Yoga class, they are far less likely to return to class and may even stop practicing altogether. This, of course, does not generate abundance for either you or your students. 

A respectful way of supporting your Yoga students in their practice is to remind them to honor their own journey “on the mat” and in their lives. We all move at different paces and in different ways throughout our lives. When we respect the pace of our own practice and Yoga teaching career, we are more able to embody the virtue of thanksgiving and gratitude for our students. In this way, you will help your Yoga students to learn compassion and patience for themselves and for those around them. Compassion is one of the primary foundations for creating a life of peace, simplicity and abundant well being, from which a true feeling of thanksgiving arises. 

Virginia Iversen, M.Ed, has been practicing and studying the art of Yoga for over twenty years. She lives in Woodstock, New York, where she works as a writer and an academic support specialist. She is currently accepting Yoga and health-related writing orders and may be contacted at: enchantress108@gmail.com.

© Copyright 2015 – Virginia Iversen / Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Please feel free to share our posts with your friends, colleagues, and favorite social media networks.