PRINCIPLES OF ADJUSTING STUDENTS

Students need to feel safe, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  The teacher’s job is to create that environment.  The teacher is the creator and holder of the sacred space of the classroom. 

Touch people with respect, caring and consciousness.  If you can’t do that, don’t touch them.   Use your voice instead to give information.  If you are having a bad day, and your own energy is not good, it is best not to touch them at all.

Don’t touch people with the idea that you are “fixing’ them.  View yourself as enabling them to find the joy of their own yoga--not just the way you think they should do it, or the way you like to do it in your own practice. 

Adjust the most dangerous conditions first.   Look at the base of the pose and go up.

Ask permission to touch.  “May I touch you?”  or establish an agreement with ongoing students.

Look first, then adjust.  Step in with a clear idea of what you are going to do. 

Ask, “Would you be willing to try it this way?”  Then listen to what they say.

Adjust lightly, giving feedback. Then, stabilize the person as you adjust, and don’t let go too quickly.  

In a class, don’t adjust too much.   Give them space to learn.

Don’t try to adjust everyone.

Don’t adjust one person all the time in a class.

Certain personal areas of students’ bodies should never be touched.  Absolute integrity much be maintained here, both in thought and action.  Sometime adjustments have to be done differently with men, if you are a woman teacher, & vice versa.

BASIC CONSIDERATIONS:

What does Yoga mean to you?

Adjusting depends on your assumptions about what Yoga is.

You have to have a positive idea about your concept of Yoga as a teacher.  If your assumption is that you are the authority and need to correct or fix your students, that will bring a certain kind of energy into the room.

If your assumption is that you as the teacher are the enabler so people can find their way of being with Yoga in their life, another kind of energy will be in the room.

Some of my assumptions: (Most of this from Anusara Yoga and Kashmir Shaivism)

          Yoga is about experiencing our greatness

          Yoga teachers mirror to the students their greatness and light

          Adjust for safety first, then for creating more opening, ease,

                   and grace to flow

          Look for balanced action.

          Muscular vs. organic energy

My job as the teacher is to create & hold the sacred and space for the students to learn and grow.