6 Common Creative Yoga Sequencing Problems and How to Fix Them
If you love creative yoga sequencing, have a look below at six common creative sequencing problems and actionable tips on how to fix them. If you are feeling stuck or unsure about your yoga sequencing, you have already taken the first step! Seamless, intentional and efficient sequencing starts with curiosity and openness to learn and apply it in practice. It’s great to have you here.
1. Ignoring students’ general level
I am a firm believer that creative movement is beneficial, and approached with intention, perfectly appropriate as one of the many ways we practice yoga. When it comes to creative sequencing, some might say that it’s only appropriate for intermediate and advanced students. I don't believe movement to be so black and white: on one hand simple, habitual and repetitive, on the other complicated, fancy or difficult.
You can teach creatively anywhere on the spectrum from simple to complicated, depending on how comfortable your students are exploring new territories. Too much novelty and complexity can feel cerebral, confusing and overwhelming. Since we are teaching yoga, a balance between cognitive effort and meditative awareness is key. In other words, reconcile effort with ease.
Actionable tip: Dose novelty & complexity at an appropriate level to keep students engaged, not confused.
2. Not considering physical capacity
This is related to the first point, but specific to movement skill.
Consider your students’ current mobility, strength, balance, and movement abilities. At the beginning, it’s easy to forget that our body is not representative of everyone else’s. If you’ve practiced yoga for longer than your students, your body has adapted, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Whatever feels normal and easeful to you might feel hard for someone else, depending on your and their anatomical uniqueness, soft tissue capacity and experience with movement.
There isn’t a quick fix here, but bringing awareness to this problem is a good start. Are you using ranges of motion, strength or movement patterns they might not be comfortable with yet? Think about the idea of threshold concepts: introduce the foundations first, so that you can progress over time. Two of the most helpful things you can do to learn to predict physical capacity is to study anatomy and kinesiology and really observe your students in class.
Actionable tip: When coming up with poses & transitions, consider how this might feel to your students.
3. Thinking creative flows have to be complicated
Creativity ≠ Complicated.
There are many definitions of creativity, but most researchers agree that creativity is a combination of novelty & value. Cambridge dictionary defines novelty as “something that has not been experienced before and so is interesting.” Some might think that the only way to introduce novel, interesting movement experiences in yoga is to go for ‘long and complicated’, but there are many other ways to create that feeling.
Engaging deeply with movement as a lived experience and moving beyond seeing it as only “shapes”, allows us a greater sensitivity to interesting concepts hiding in plain sight. The way you transfer your weight… the way the arm swings as you let go into gravity… the way changing one small thing makes a movement feel completely different. The list is endless! This approach to creativity comes from a subtle mindset shift: from ‘a shape sequencer’ to an embodied movement explorer.
Actionable tip: Instead of adding more poses, choose an interesting transition and explore it in depth.
4. Lack of physical intentionality
Creativity ≠ Random.
Lack of physical intention can make flows random, overuse certain ranges of motion and lead to creative burnout. This is where intentional creative sequencing comes in! Physical intentionality is about keeping classes and class curriculums coherent, layered and educational.
The good news? Creative sequences can be interesting, have a focus and be well-balanced. Your physical intention can start as an idea or emerge through movement exploration. Muscles, joints, movement patterns or qualities… Use whatever sparks your curiosity and make it the focal point of the class. Inspired by your chosen intention, come up with your main class flow, and then analyse it.
Notice how the body is being used throughout the flow. What ranges of motion are you using? Which tissues are activating? What kind of movement patterns are present? If you are going for a well balanced class, tweak your flow to create that feeling. If you are going for a specific focus, make sure that it’s highlighted enough in the flow, but built on a well-balanced foundation.
Actionable step: Let inspiration flow… but support it by intellectual analysis to create a sense of balance.
5. Missing methodology
As yoga teachers we layer multiple aspects of yoga in each class — we all know that yoga is incomplete without its beautiful integrative quality. Many of us are familiar with layering on a concept throughout the class, and this is what being methodical is all about. Within a layered yoga class, the same principle can be applied to the movement practice itself.
When it comes to teaching movement, methodology is the foundation that helps us create progressive & educational movement experiences. Warm up helps our bodies feel prepared for what’s next. Awareness training helps us move with intention. Practicing isolated parts helps us approach movement skills with confidence.
A popular warm up model, RAMP illustrates this principle really well:
Raise — temperature, blood flow & lubrication of key joints,
Activate — and bring awareness to key muscles (concentric, eccentric, isometric),
Mobilise — key joints, stretch and bring awareness to key tissues,
Potentiate — layer on complexity, add more load & teach isolated components.
Actionable tip: Make a list of physical components of your flow. Work backwards to build the flow back up.
6. Not connecting to your why
A sense of clarity about your intention for sharing creative movement as part of yoga is a key step towards intentionality & authenticity. Take a moment to consider what draws you to creative sequencing, and teaching movement more generally. Why is it important to you? What does it mean to you?
One of the benefits of yoga is that it allows us to look deeply into ourselves, become aware of our values and use them as our compass. One thing that I believe is essential for teaching… is learning. Maybe you just can’t stop researching, studying and practicing movement — it is so deeply embodied it feels like it flows from within. Maybe you’ve experienced a profound transformation through movement, and you feel called to inspire the same in others. Perhaps you want to encourage people to reconnect with the body that they live in.
The key is exploring how this intention aligns with the values of yoga. In my observation, those who do it for the wrong reasons — to compete with someone else, to show off, out of conformity or convention, or to skip the foundations of steadiness and awareness, will soon burn out.
Actionable step: Meditate and journal on your why behind creative yoga sequencing.
Conclusion
Consider your students’ general level: create a balance between skill and challenge.
Consider your students’ physical capacity at this moment in time.
Explore novelty without overcomplicating the flow or adding too many poses.
Hone in on your physical intention, highlight your theme and round out the rest.
Thoughtfully design the movement experience with a warm up, awareness & progressive practice.
Connect to your why, design your classes and lead the room from that place.
If you find these helpful, check out my podcast interview with my friend Reika here, where we discuss creative sequencing pitfalls in more detail. If you are feeling ready to go deeper into this topic, join my mailing list for regular sequencing insights, early access and a special discount for my sequencing training: the Art & Science of Flow. Find out more about the course here.