Kathryn Flynn’s weekend of workshops at triyoga are taking place from the 5th to 6th November. Read on for a glimpse of her unique approach to teaching and her philosophy on inclusive yoga.
When I started teaching yoga, I was partially demonstrating on the mat and partially wandering the room – on the mat, because I enjoyed moving and it seemed efficient to move my body while they moved theirs, and wandering the room, because I’m a hand-talker and like keeping an eye on the room’s progress. (It’s easier to be motivational when you’re not executing asana).
It was this combination that led to a groin injury. I was on a yoga platform lunging in one direction, and then shifted weight when I saw a student needed help in the other. It took two years to have pain-free access to my range of movement again, and my teaching practice evolved beyond my expectations.
Now I teach 90 –100% of each class off the yoga mat; I haven’t brought one with me to class for years, and I’m 100% available to my students. Here are a few reasons why I continue to cultivate this approach and how it has set me apart as a teacher.
I don’t believe that when I teach it’s my time to practice – it’s their time to practice. With the increasing competitiveness of the yoga industry and the typically high associated cost, I want to give them the best experience possible. I want them to cultivate an inner awareness, and diminishing the temptation of watching the teacher is the perfect place to start.
A component of that experience is hands-on enhancements – not corrections or adjustments, but enhancements. I’m specific with the word because I want people to have a stronger, deeper, nourishing experience without feeling picked on and criticized. We live in a culture that’s competitive, narcissistic and simultaneously insecure. I want to offer yoga that expands my students’ consciousness through calm and challenge, but I can help them reside in these states in a supported way.
Any corrections that are really needed can be done with verbal cuing! I teach a yoga class a lot like a game of Simon Says: put your right hand here, left foot there, engage this, relax that, and now breathe. Sure, sometimes I need to show what I meant if the cues don’t land, but we teach so much yoga-asana that don’t have specific names these days that knowing how to cue specifically is a really useful skill. Some people can approximate what to do by looking around, but they can’t tell what’s being engaged or relaxed in a pose with purely sight. Those nuances come with verbal cues and experimentation from the student.
Not to mention, if you injure yourself as a teacher, what do you do when you need to teach? Having completed several teacher trainings, I tell my students all the time: you don’t have to teach like me, but I recommend that you get the methodology in place and then choose if you want to demo more. No one ever starts demonstrating on their mats and THEN gets comfortable enough to move off.
Another upside is that it actually allows me to get quiet and provide more silence for the students. If you’ve got your roster of cues for a pose and you’re not watching your students, you might be sharing what they’re already doing or missing out on what specific help they need. If they’re doing it all and you can see that, let them abide in their experience with more quiet.
The wonderful thing about teaching is that it’s like personal practice: there’s no one way, and all paths can lead to the same outcome. What works for me may not work for you or your teacher, but it’s made me of greater service to more students. It’s made my teaching practice calmer, more conscious and less injury prone, and more healing for those who seek to learn with me. To me, that’s worth going through the transition of easing off the mat.
Kathryn Flynn is an old soul: a smart, warm, and occasionally humorous yoga teacher living in Ottawa, Canada and teaching wherever people want to experience deep ease in their yoga practice and enhance their teaching skills under the guidance of her calm confidence. Articulate and thoughtful, Kathryn is the teacher for those who want to feel a sense of reverence and inspiration in a practice celebrating the radical freedom of simplicity. She is committed to intelligent, inclusive yoga, and students of many generations call her their teacher. Visit Kathryn’s website for more details:Â https://intelligentedge.yoga/kathryn-flynn/
Join Kathryn in Camden…
intelligent edge yoga:
cultivating curiosity + grace
05 – 06 november
book now
