Natasha Rizopoulos – Sequencing 101

Natasha Rizopoulos – Sequencing 101

Check it out: Natasha Rizopoulos – Sequencing 101

Smart asana sequencing has become a lost art in most yoga classes and teacher trainings. But it’s not too late to learn! Natasha Rizopoulos, founder of Align Your Flow yoga and a senior teacher and teacher trainer at the Down Under School of Yoga in Boston, has developed a fool-proof method for creating the strength and stability you need to move progressively deeper into peak poses, and then to truly rest and renew in Savasana. Smart sequencing changes the way you understand postures; it changes the energy of a class; and it allows you to finish your practice feeling balanced—energetically, intellectually, and physically. This course is NOT about memorizing sequences, as so many teacher trainings encourage. Instead, it is about understanding the fundamental energetic and anatomical requirements of poses and building toward them in a sustainable way.

This six-week course includes: 

• Basic sequencing theory and guidelines
• Effective sequencing strategies for prepping peak poses in different categories of postures
• Helpful instruction on ways teachers can sequence their cues (for individual poses), assess their sequencing, and optimize their teaching

Each week you’ll get: 

• A primary asana sequencing principle related to theory, anatomy, mechanics, or intention. (Approximately a 5-minute video.)

• An asana practice that help you apply and embody the sequencing principle. Each week builds to a peak pose in a specific category of poses: Sun Salutations, standing poses, heating inversions, backbends, core work, and cooling postures. (Approximately a 1-hour video.)

• A dissection and deeper dive into the peak pose and the actions, or essential elements, you need to sequence and repeat in order to build the strength, flexibility, and stability it requires. (Text and photos.)

• Homework that supports and reinforces what you’ve learned, and that prepares you for the next week’s practice. (Text and photos)

Curriculum:

Week 1: Overview, Sun Salutes 

Essential elements: Poses and actions that lengthen the hamstrings and lower back, mobilize the upper back, and refine shoulder alignment.

Week 2: Standing Poses 

• Essential elements: Pressing into the big toe mound, lengthening the hamstrings, firming the front hip into the midline, finding the central axis, and using the breath.

Week 3: Heating Inversions 

• Essential elements: Keeping the legs and pelvis neutral, exploring shoulder flexion and external rotation, keeping the elbows pinning in, and feeling root/rebound.

Week 4: Backbends

• Essential elements: Maintaining neutral feet and thighs, lengthening hip flexors, finding mobility in the thoracic spine, and opening the shoulders.

Week 5: Cooling Postures

• Essential elements: Keeping legs and pelvis neutral, strengthening hamstrings, building strength and mobility in the thoracic spine, playing with shoulders in extension and external rotation.

Week 6: Core, a Well-Rounded Practice, Wrap-Up

• Essential elements: finding length in the hamstrings and adductors, engaging the outer hips (abductors), and maintaining integrity at the center.