For Yoga Teachers

60. Introducing the koshas into your yoga asana classes

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Last week’s episode was all about understanding the koshas, and today, we’re taking that up a level, looking at layering your yoga asana classes with this understanding of the koshas. 


This is where we’re going; 

- A review of what the koshas are

- How to work with each kosha in your yoga asana classes


Make sure you bookmark this episode, as it’ll serve as a guide for anytime you’re low on inspiration, or looking for a way to work with someone who’s struggling a bit with asana, this is where working with the kosha model is so empowering and so full of potential, because you’ve got four other routes to be able to work with this person, and to help them. You could work with their breath and / or their energy. You could use a ‘top-down’ approach, working with the mental body, with intention, or mindfulness techniques. You could guide them to connect with their inner wisdom, and you could guide them to connect with a sense of their inner peace. SO much potential, SO much inspiration.
 
Enjoy, yoga teachers!

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Hello, and welcome to For Yoga Teachers. This podcast has been created to help yoga teachers teach with passion, avoid burnout and earn a fair living. 

Last week's episode was all about understanding the koshas. And today we're taking that up a level, looking at layering your yoga Asana classes with this understanding of the kosha 

Just an FYI here that next week, we'll be looking at the koshas again and specifically, using the koshas to up level your private yoga classes. 

So if one of your focuses for next year is to work on your private yoga offering, that episode will be perfect for you. But back to today, this is where we're going. 

We'll start with a review of what the koshas are. And then we'll look at how to work with each kosha, starting with the annamaya kosha, the food body. Then the pranamaya kosha, the energy body. The manomaya kosha, the mental body, the vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom body, and finally the anandamaya kosha, the bliss body, in your asana class classes. 

Make sure that you bookmark this episode because it will serve as a guide for any time that you're low on inspiration, or any time that you're looking for a way to work with someone who's struggling a bit with asana. Okay. 

Let's crack on. 

 A kosha is a sheath or a body or a layer, and there's five of them. 

In the name of each kosha, we have the word Maya, the Sanskrit word, meaning illusion. Meaning an unreality, and it's referring to the illusion that we are all separate. So working through kosha by kosha, from the annamaya kosha; the most tangible, to the anandamaya kosha, which is the most subtle, we can start to gently remove this maya, this illusion. 

How to work with each kosha in your yoga Asana classes. 

Annamaya kosha, the food body. 

Of course, most people expect yoga classes to be physical. To be stretching. 

But this isn't a forum for my whingeing, so I'll stay on track, but of course it's much more than stretching. 

So when you're teaching asana, you will, of course already be working with the annamaya kosha with the food body. There's no doubt about that. Inhale, arms up, exhale, fold forward. This is the control over, and the movement of the physical body; the food body. 

I think what can be really interesting as a yoga teacher is that people can be in your class and moving in the way that you are instructing, but they still seem very, very disconnected to their physical body. Now, this might be something that you can work with. You could guide the person. Can you feel the stretch here? Can you feel this part of your body working hard? Could you make more space here, et cetera, et cetera. However, they might be disconnected and unable to connect or indeed unwilling to connect with their body. Maybe they think of their body or something that causes them pain. Or maybe they fallen out of love with their body. They don't like the way that it looks or, that may have been some past trauma or any number of reasons. In which case you could ask yogis to connect, connect, connect, and these invitations will just bounce off them. 

This is where working with the kosha model is so incredibly empowering and full of potential. Because you can continue giving your instructions for your yoga Asana classes. But you can start to guide yogis to connect with other koshas too. 

 pranamaya kosha the energy body 

connecting with the pranamaya kosha through directing the breath into a certain part of the body. Now, if you were to say, breathe all the way down into your toes, this could get someone offside. How about asking someone to connect with breathing into the side of the rib cage in a side bend. Or into the upper back in a forward fold. Or into the entire front of the chest in a backbend. And by working with the pranamaya kosha, with the breath, they are gently connecting or reconnecting with annamaya kosha with the food body. But in a kind, exploratory an indirect way, which can be incredibly powerful. 

Of course the pranamaya kosha isn't just the breath. It's the prana. So, if you feel that your yogis are open to learning about prana, You could ask your yogis to move in a way that frees the movement of prana around their body. Or you could ask them to take a body scan, and sense if prana is stuck anywhere. Or notice if there's any change in the prana in a twist or a gentle inversion and so on. See again, how by doing this, we're asking the yogis to explore and connect, and this is all getting them to be here in the present moment and to svadhyaya, to self study, and to hopefully move and receive in ahimsa in non harm in kindness. What we are seeing is yoga philosophy and the yoga koshas in action in your asana class. 

And at the risk of state and the blinding obvious, you can work with the pranamaya kosha in your asana classes by layering pranayama techniques, such as Ujjayi pranayama, the victorious breath, maybe throughout your class. Or for example, starting with nadi shodhana alternate nostril breathing, or box breath or whatever your yogis need and whatever you enjoy teaching. 

Ask your yogis to stay present before, during and after the pranayama, and notice if the breathing has had an overall impact on their body and, or their mind. And you are helping your yogis connect, the different koshas. 

Still thinking about pranamaya kosha, you could introduce the chakras into your classes. You could introduce shushumna nadi the approximation of the spine and ask your yogis to move their spine in a way that maximises energy flow through the shushumna nadi Okay. I'll stop now, but suffice to say that there is a huge amount of potential, even just layering in you're pranamaya kosha into your asana classes. 

 The manomaya kosha 

Bringing the manomaya kosha into your asana classes is yet another tool that may work for some yogis and it may not with others. Working with the mind could be introducing an intention into your class. Maybe one that you set or maybe you ask yogis to come up with their own. Perhaps you guide yogis through a mantra, which they repeat throughout the class. You could introduce mindfulness techniques into your classes, such as grounding, a body scan or noticing information coming in through the five senses. In my humble experience, people usually feel that their mind is racing. That their mind is particularly busy and its uncontrollable. So I've found that by explicitly stating 'we are working with the mind today' can get people on the back foot. They're already thinking 'my mind is out of control. I'm not going to be able to do this.' I found personally that being more subtle helps. Saying 'you are human. And you have a mind thin ks But let's go that thinking just for a moment on focusing on; the connection between you and the ground beneath you. Or focusing on that particular noise outside. Your mind will wander, and that is okay and when you notice that it's wandered, just bring it back. 

Being permissive and accepting of the wandering mind, I feel, really helps people understand that their wandering mind isn't meaning that they are bad at yoga. But he helps layer in the mind, the manomaya kosha into their asana experience. You could also work with manomaya kosha, with the mental body to cultivate self-acceptance and understanding in your yogis. You could ask them to think about something small they did today that they wish they'd done differently. You could explain that when we're stressed, tired, hungry, et cetera. It's more common to act in reactive ways. Ask them to forgive themselves and to hold forgiveness or self-compassion for the rest of the class. 

I hope this is getting your cogs turning. At this point I think it might be useful for a little recap. So. In your yoga Asana classes you could completely focus on the asana and the movement and the sensation of the physical body. Working with annamaya kosha, helping yogis to understand their body, where they hold tension, where feels free, et cetera. 

You could then layer in working with the pranamaya kosha by asking yogis to connect with the breath, the movement of their subtle energy or both. And, or you could layer in self-study, mindfulness techniques and intention to work with the manomaya kosha. And depending on your yogis, you could explain exactly what you're doing and introduce the Sanskrit terms, or you could leave the explanation out of it and simply focus on teaching the techniques. 

 Vijnanamaya kosha. 

 working with vijnanamaya kosha. Perhaps for people who are more sort of open minded about the esoteric aspects of yoga. Because now we're starting to move towards that inner wisdom, that inner knowing, that inner bliss. You can talk about vijnanamaya kosha as the gut feeling, as insight, intuition, instinct. You could simply weave this in at the beginning of your class or in Savasana at the end of the class; asking yogis to bring, to mind a situation in their life where they feel a little bit stuck currently. 

And ask them if they have a gut feeling as to what to do. Maybe they connect with this by imagining it was their best friend in their position, and they're the one giving them advice. You could also ask your yogis, what is preventing them from listening to that instinct? Although, this could be incredibly emotive. 

You could also ask your yogis, what is it that they need right now? And what is it like to be them at this moment? Anything to connect with the truth of who they are and how they are will be great in working with vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom body. 

 Anandam aya kosha, the bliss body. 

Finally, introducing the concept of anandamaya kosha, the bliss body is perhaps the least tangible of everything that we've spoken about so far, and it might be the hardest for your yogis. Because we're inviting yogis to feel a sense of contentment and peace. To connect with inner joy and to connect with something larger than ourselves. 

To be aware that that inner sense of peace is always there. This is incredibly hard to get on board with when you're having a hard time, yet, it's one of the most profound lessons of yoga and it's a really, really useful thing for us to share. You might like to just introduce this as an idea to people that you know are open to the philosophy and power of yoga. 'Can you open-mindedly allow yourself to feel that this sense of joy is always there and in yoga, we uncover it. We don't create it through yoga. We uncover it.' 

So yoga teacher, there is so much potential in there. At the risk of repeating myself, this gives us so much scope as yoga teachers; because if someone's really struggling to connect with one layer, we can help them through the four other layers, the four other koshas. So if somebody is experiencing pain in the body and struggling to connect with the body, We can help them work with their breath or their energy, or their mind or their inner wisdom. 

If someone was really struggling with the mind, they've got anxious, ruminating thoughts for example. We can move the body, we can work with the annamaya kosha, worked with the breath, and the pranamaya kosha to calm the manomaya kosha down. So cool, really, really empowering. 

Remember, you don't have to remember the Sanskrit terms, you don't have to say the Sanskrit terms; you can work with the bodies just by weaving these different tools and techniques into your classes. I'd absolutely love to hear how you get on with layering your asana classes with the koshas. And if you be so kind to share this with another yoga teacher, we would be so super grateful. 

And as always happy teaching.