I am so lucky to have one more class on Wed from this week!

Some of the participants are same with the monday course, also 3 new.

Today I taught Ashtanga kinda intro, the asanas we did today not even half of what I planned as always.

It is really not easy to teach in a group, everyone has different need and level, luckily except a girl , the others have pretty similar level. However, even so , students still tend to want something which is actually out of their limit. I am still learning to find the balance between not to bored them and correct foundation / alignment.

So today what we accomplished are

Two very different ways of breathing with the diaphragm.
Fully belly breathing and ribcage breathing
I found this pretty clear explaination the distinguish of these 2 breathing technique from here 

Belly breathing / Abdominal Breathing, where the belly bulges out on the inhale, is the first method students are taught. Accustomed to a fast pace of life, many people habitually only breathe into the chest using the top part of the lungs, which is inefficient and stimulates the stresses associated with the fight or flight response. Belly breathing helps students learn to breathe deeper, and serves a necessary role in teaching deeper breathing that helps calm the mind in some forms of meditation. Sometimes, it can be used in “physically lazy” Hatha yoga approaches that are relaxing, restorative, and require little muscular effort. The lower abdomen is relaxed, and the breath pushes the belly out, as the muscles connecting the ribcage to the diaphragm contract. This is often mistakenly referred to as THE technique “diaphragm breath” which is misleading since there are other ways to breathe with the diaphragm that also stabilize the spine. Reliance on only using this method contributes to bad posture.

Rib-cage breathing: Another style of diaphragm breathing taught in Ashtanga and Power yoga involves keeping the lower abdomen engaged and sucked tightly in, two inches below the navel. This causes the ribcage to move upward on the inhale and expand out to the sides. This style of deep breathing is commonly confused with shallow chest breathing, but make no mistake. This is the strongest deepest breath you’ll ever take. It is physically impossible to properly extend the spine without the Uddiyana Bandha drawn in (referring to the lower portion of the transverse abdominus, below the navel). Try doing the classical yoga posture Chair pose (Utkatasana) with your belly relaxed, and the spine will be unable to find the ideal neutral position.

I can’t sure if they really understand or not..

Then we did 2 exercises of engaging the core muscles which I learned from Tom’s Workshop.

1.Lie down on the mat, knees directly above the heeps
Inhale,
exhale, knees to chest , belly in
inhale back to center
exhale lower feet down toward the floor but can’t touch the floor
more challenging with legs extended

2. inhale, center
exhale, bring knees to the side, toward elbows, shoulders stay on the ground
inhale, center
exhale, twist to another side
getting challenging by extend the upper leg then with both legs straight

3. Bridge exercise
inhale , lift the butt
exhale, lower the butt but not touch floor
repeat several times
then one leg extended hold for some seconds

After these exercises slowly into the flow

Cat Cow
Downward dog

I still have problem of teaching downward dog
I feel this is actually very challenging for most of people
the most mistakes I saw from my class are
fingers close together
wrists twisted in a unnatural way
hands distance not wide enough
shoulders position too forward, shoulder blades squeeze together
Shoulders squeeze neck
Hyperextend of the elbows
Feet too far from hands
Use the palms but not the base of fingers and finger knuckles

After the first Downward Dog we came to standing

Sometimes I am worried that they feel very tired of me always repeat how important the breath and Samasthiti is

Ekam, Dve, Trini repeated 3 times then into the complete Surya Namaslara A

I modified the flow to a simpler one by
Plank with knees down and take extra in breath
exhale lower all the way down
inhale to cobra
exhale through the hands and knees to downward dog

The 4th and 5th time hold in plank for one extra breath

I want to know how to make students have improvement of their arms strength and core strength, and one day be able to do full Chataranga

Standing Sequence
Padangustasana
most of them have problem place the palms on the mat

Utthita Trikonasana

Utthita Parsvakonasana

Prasarita Padottanasana A and C

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana A modified by holding the knee

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana B

then lift the leg

then directly through vinyasa to seated sequence

Dandasana

Paschimottanasana A

Inbetween I made them to try to lift the hips over the floor

Purvottanasana with knees bend
but still to most of them this is very challenging with the hips lifted

Baddha Konasana

Marichyasana C simple version

Bridge

Happy Baby

Rewinde Baddha Konasana

Savasana

Today Ani said she still felt upper back pain while doing yoga
I think it was due to downward dog as I noticed she has hyperextend of elbows and she tended to squeeze her shoulders and the distance between hands are too narrow , caused the tension of the back
I suggested next time replace down dog with extended puppy pose and use the real mat , see if back still hurt.

Hope they like todays class

The more I teach the less meaning I found with IG yoga …..