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Honoring Mind and Body: Personalizing Your Yoga Practice

Therese M. Pope | April 25, 2008

Yoga is growing in popularity, especially in gyms and private yoga studios. However, the feeling of personalized instruction can be lost amongst fifty other students crammed into a studio where the instructor is barking out orders. The intimacy between instructor and student can be lost in these larger class environments.

However, Barbara Lawrence’s teaching approach to yoga is individualized and unique. She holds small classes (five students) with these same students attending class each week. She conducts classes out of her home yoga studio and she also offers private yoga sessions. She previously taught yoga in a gym environment and felt the student population was transient and she didn’t interact as personally with students.

“My students have formed bonds and relationships with each other which are beneficial to them during class. They can talk and share with each other and try to help each other with problems and issues that arise.”

Lawrence reflected that yoga is essentially about listening to both your psyche and body. Yoga is not about pushing yourself to the point of pain and exhaustion.

Listen to Your Body

Her philosophy results from twelve years of healing as both a reiki instructor and massage therapist. She doesn’t mind if a student attends class and wants to stay in child pose during the entire class. She respects the fact that her students are listening to their minds and bodies and are practicing yoga accordingly.

“Don’t put yoga on your to-do list,” advises Lawrence, a northern California yoga instructor and massage therapist, “I ask my students to do a body check before we begin class and to really pay attention to what their bodies are telling them.”

Lawrence offers students a safe, comforting haven when they walk into her classes.

“Barb’s classes encourage community. Each class has five students and we are all on a journey together. We care about each other, without interfering in each other’s lives. There is no judgment,” reflected Rae James, a student of Lawrence’s who’s been practicing yoga for 15 years.

According to James, Lawrence’s smaller classes provide a customized session. Lawrence gives advice on postures with where your body is today.

“If you can’t reach the floor, then reach your knees to still get the benefit of stretching your hamstrings. If you hurt your foot, then don’t do the balancing postures and work with the ball instead. If you want to challenge yourself further with a pose then twist around to the wall,” commented James.

Fitness Through Yoga

As the trend of yoga increases in the fitness culture, yoga has almost become a “put it on your weekly check list” exercise as opposed to a spiritual learning process. However, this hurried approach to yoga is detrimental to the long range health goals of students and their practice.

Lawrence hopes that smaller, more intimate classes will become more popular because people are tired of crowded classes and they are missing out on the individualized, slower paced experience.

“I have people on waiting lists to get into my classes and I don’t advertise. I would love to see yoga move in this direction and have teachers offer smaller, more intimate classes,” noted Lawrence.

James sums up what she’s learned in Lawrence’s class and how she’s benefited from her personalized class structure.

“The great thing about yoga is that it assumes that you will be a life long student. Even yogis are still learning. Competition or achievement is downplayed in exchange for feeling good in a posture. There is not this feeling of ‘am I doing it right?’ Certain asanas (postures) are more challenging than others. but one week I could be doing it right on—and the next week –UGH!—but it doesn’t matter. We are all permanent learners.”