Teacher Training
As part of the 60-yoga class requirement for teacher training at CorePower Yoga, two of those classes have to be Hot Power Fusion classes I observe. When deciding on who’s Hot Power Fusion classes I wanted to observe, I decided to go with the trainers themselves – Sunny and Jill. I already observed one of Sunny’s Hot Power Fusion classes a couple of weeks back. This week, I decided to sit in on one of Jill’s Hot Power Fusion classes.
It’s such a different experience observing a yoga class than it is being a student in one. While observing both classes, I sat in the back of the room and watched everything happening during class. While everyone elses eyes were closed, mine were wide open, taking mental notes. Not so much about observing the students, but what the teachers were doing in the room. My favorite part of observing both the classes was watching the hands-on assists. I never get to see these, just experience them myself, but only if I’m one of the lucky chosen ones to receive one during class.
Jill’s Hot Power Fusion class tonight was quiet, as in there were only five people taking the class. That is by no means a reflection of Jill’s teaching. I’ve been in quite a few of Jill’s classes where they were packed. Today just happened to be a warm and sunny day, one of the first this spring. It’s becoming apparent that attendance in hot yoga classes dips during the warm months and understandably so. Everyone wants to be outside enjoying the nice weather instead of sweating indoors in a hot yoga class. To be honest, if I weren’t in yoga teacher training right now, I’d probably be spending more time outside myself.
With only five students in class, I wanted to make sure I didn’t stare at any one student for too long. I made sure to keep my focus on Jill for most of class, unless she was offering a hands-on assist to someone. Than in that case, I paid close attention to how Jill approached the student, how she grounded herself before the asisst, did the actual hands-on assist and then how she walked away from the student. It was like a well-choreographed dance. Jill did all of her hands-on assists with a lot of grace. I have some practicing to do!
Jill offered a number of different hands-on assists in class. I saw assists made in Hands To Feet pose, Reverse Warrior, Downward Facing Dog, Half Tortoise, Half Pigeon and two different students during final Savasana.
Jill’s positioning in class seemed to be very deliberate. She was only in the front of the room three times – at the beginning of class, during Core and at the very end of class after cueing students out of final Savasana. For the rest of class, Jill stayed in the back of the room, walking back and forth from one side of the studio to the other and at times, hung out right in the middle of the room, kneeling down on her knees.
It was also interesting to see Jill’s positioning for both rounds of Horse pose. For the first round, Jill faced the left wall in the studio, away from her students. During the second round of Horse, Jill was on the opposite side of the room, this time facing her students as she demonstrated Horse with the twits.
I paid special close attention during the Core section of class, mainly because that’s the part I’m teaching in our Bring A Guest Day during our Group Session this Sunday. Jill did the entire Core section with her students. She also did a demonstration of Frog and Crow afterwards.
One thing I observed in Jill’s class that I’ve never really noticed before as a student is how she’d cue her inhales and exhales. For most inhales cued, Jill would take an audible inhale with her students and then take audible exhales as she cued them. This really helped create a nice pace for class. I want to incorporate more of this in my own practice teaching because without it, I think I’m going through each of the postures way too fast.
Class started off with low lights on in the room. As soon as we got to the Core section, Jill had the lights all the way on. I noticed Jill starting to dim the lights again during Half Wind Removing pose. By final Savasana, the lights in the room were completely off. I thought it was cool how Jill tiptoed her way to the front of the room, to avoid disturbing any of the students in Savasana. Then when it was time for the students to open their eyes at the end of class, Jill was there in the front of the room, ready to greet them and thank them for coming.
It’s funny how I’ve missed all of these things as a student in a Hot Power Fusion class. Now that I’m almost done with teacher training and have had the chance to observe a couple different Hot Power Fusion classes, I feel like a lot of the mystery has been solved with what really happens in a Hot Power Fusion class when my eyes are closed. I hope I’ll be ready to create some of this magic of my own for my own students in a Hot Power Fusion class one day soon.
Class #36, Hot Power Fusion with Jill at CorePower Yoga Greenwood (Observe-2)