How to offer embodied yoga adjustments: "Better, worse or the same?"
A guide to embodied cueing and adjustments for Yoga Teachers
If you're a yoga teacher and you want to transition to more embodied language, then this blog is for you! I will share one of 5 key language tools in this blog (you can find the other 4 in our free ebook)
Also, if you prefer to listen rather than read you can watch on youtube here :)
The first question is why would you want to change to embodied language?
You know at the start of every class you say to your students, just do what feels good in your body? and you know that you're inviting them to take poses or not take poses at a level that suits them. In reality, how often do your students actually follow that invitation?
You make the invitation genuinely and yet somehow they they find themselves or you notice that they push themselves into poses too far or that they're in poses for too long or that they're striving in a way that isn't useful for their body. So here's a kind of a really important tip as to how to change that dynamic in the class. An invitation at the start of the class is critical, but it's not enough.
It's not enough to support students to make those decisions for themselves. So the language cue is better, worse, or the same. Is it better, worse, or the same?
How to use “Better, worse or the same?”
So how do we use this? It's a fantastic tool, better, worse, or the same.
The way we use it is that you notice whatever it is you notice about the students. So maybe they're in warrior and their knee is externally rotated and is not safe. Or maybe they haven't got support of their back foot. Whatever the the adjustment that you want to invite them to make you you've become aware of it and you're about to language what the thing is.
The first step is to take a pause. Take a pause with that student and see can they sense what's going on. Ask them to notice, say, the power through their back leg. Then offer them the adjustment. See what would it be like play with the let the foot position, for example, and slightly moving the foot in whatever way it is.
So, that they become more stable from our eyes. And then inviting them to check-in. This is where the learning is for the students so that the student can find this position for themselves in the future because that you don't want them to be dependent on you all of the time. You don't want your students to always need you to be their eyes. You want them to train them to feel from the inside what is the difference.
And you know why you're asking them to make this adjustment. So now support them to notice that in their body. So in their body, see can they feel and sense, is it better, worse or the same? They may not have the language to understand what is going on.
You can cue, does it feel stronger? But the question is for them, and then they make the decision. So this is kind of really fundamental, they make the decision, do they leave their foot, in this example, in the new position or do they return back to the other position? So is it better, worse, the same and they choose. If they say it's worse or the same, then you have, depending on the time of your class, you have the opportunity to offer an additional, suggestion.
Languaging better, worse or the same to your students - Goldilocks
Play with it a little bit more until they find that Goldilocks place. It's really important to of language it. I use the language of Goldilocks. So, if Goldilocks had only had taken the 1st bed or the 1st chair that she'd sat on, she'd have never found her true comfort. It would always been a little bit hard. And even if she'd taken the second chair, it would have been a bit too soft.
But once she made that third adjustment, then she found the perfect chair or the perfect bed. So encouraging your students to to give themselves the time to take that 1, 2, or potentially even 3 versions until they find in their body what is better, worse, or the same. And so then they can choose the better one.
What is the language shift actually doing?
What you're doing by doing this is a number of things. The first thing is you're empowering your students to be agents of their own body and for them to decide what feels good in their body.
The second thing is you're doing you're starting to train this somatic awareness in their body because we have lost connection. You know yourself. You're teaching yoga. You know you ask people to move their body and they don't even know where their body is. And you if you you invert them or you twist them and then they they can't figure out even where their hand is. So we are constantly we as a society, have lost connection with our body, with with that sensation in our body. So inviting them to notice, is it better, worse, or the same? Straight away, starts to train that for them and to reprogram that somatic awareness in their body.
And then the third thing is this whole power dynamic, that you become an expert in yoga, but not in their body. Because you don't know when they walk in, what situation they were in yesterday or 3 months ago. They could be, you know, off on their balance today, and you may make an assumption that that means that they're aging and they're losing their balance. On the other hand, maybe they're just recovering from an operation and this is massively better than it was a year ago, where they've been working on their balance for a year. So we get to see a person, a student in one moment in time and we get to support them, but we don't know the big picture of their body. And therefore, again, we're saying, look, we we have the tools.
We know about the tools and we have trained our eye and we can support you, but you know about your body. So again we're important in supporting and empowering them. Better, worse, or the same. It takes a little bit of time, like a tiny second more time, rather than just say turn your foot this way. Check-in how does that feel, try, invite them to change the position and then ask them better, worse or the same.
It's really, really powerful and it's really, really simple.
What if the student picks the adjustment I don’t want?
One little thing is that sometimes the student will pick the one that you don't want them to pick. Now most of the time not, but sometimes they will pick the the the choice that you don't want. And in that situation, as long as it's safe, you need to live with it. Because otherwise you're just undermining yourself.
So if they choose the one that that to your eye, to to your eye doesn't look the best, then invite them to inquire and if they're still solid and they're safe, leave them be. And so now for you in your in your teaching of the next class, you're thinking maybe I'll play with pathways of weight, maybe I'll play with sensation, maybe I'll play with balance to support this our students as a whole to develop more somatic awareness and maybe just you were wrong, You know, maybe it is better for them in whatever whatever natural position that they had. So it could be either. It could be habits that are really embedded in their body so that they feel comfortable in those habits, or it could be that you require more information. It's really, really fun and it's a really, really nice way to play with this is better, worse, or the same.
Invitation to make an adjustment. Is it better, worse, or the same? So you're supporting your students all the time that they become the the experts in how they sense and feel.
Have some fun with it.
Let me know if there's other tips that you would like (pop us a DM on instagram @arunayogaacademy or an email Kate@arunayoga.ie), me to talk about, and, we'll see you next week.