1. Tone and style of teaching

2. Cueing of movement (the nitty gritty)

TONE: We’re all having to adjust to meet the unique needs of teaching remotely during a pandemic. It may be helpful to consider that the brain is a survival organ basing safety on predictive mechanisms. Survival comes before performance. 🧠

Lowering threat is KEY right now and there are ways we can help do that. 🔑

To meet this goal during a time when we don’t feel a lot of control and agency in life on macro collective level (this is also indicated for trauma informed teaching), it may be key to use an **invitational and exploratory tone** when cueing and teaching as in: “You might try...

“What happens if...”

“Experiment with...”

“Play with...”

“It may be interesting to...”

“When your leg feels like it’s going to fall off its time to switch sides” (humor is key!)

“You might notice the difference between ___ and ___”

“Let’s take a moment to play around with/riff on this...”

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CUEING:

Visually Demonstrating movement over zoom and other remote learning platforms may be more challenging as we struggle to find the right angle in the camera etc.

Seeing and being seen via remote online teaching presents a unique challenge demanding that we rely on verbal cueing more heavily.

The problem is that verbally describing movement from an internal (body part and sensation focused) perspective can be energetically draining for teacher and student alike. Good news is that verbal cues come in different flavors! 🍧

A majority of people will struggle to translate auditory cues into motor output and are not auditory learners. Many are operating from a baseline level of fatigue right now. .

🧘🏽‍♀️Verbal Auditory INTERNAL cues are commonly taught in yoga and may be the hardest to use right now teaching remotely (for both teacher and student) Example: “draw the shoulders down the back, Spread your palms, index fingers parallel or slightly turned out, Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis.” .

challenges/cons with this form of cueing~

1. Seeing and being seen via remote online teaching presents a unique challenge demanding that we rely on verbal cueing more heavily.

2. Verbally describing movement from an internal (body part and sensation focused) perspective (INTERNAL CUES) can be **energetically draining** for teacher and student alike. We’re already operating from a baseline of emotional fatigue so it’s a good idea to work around this. Also a majority of people will struggle to translate auditory cues into motor output and are not auditory learners.

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Other forms of cueing that could be SUPER helpful right now. .

⛵️Verbal Auditory EXTERNAL cues VISUALIZATION/IMAGERY cues. Example: puff the spine out like a sail in the wind, imagine someone pulling you to the side by the wrist, shift your center like airplane wings.” This also encourages imagination, self-agency and discovery and motor learning. .

⛹🏽‍♂️EXTERNAL task/goal based and PROPRIOCEPTIVE CUES (may be most ideal remotely during high-stress) Example: “press into the band, reach for the wall, pass the block around your waist, as you squat tap the back of your hips against the couch...” Generally these cues involve a barrier (block, chair, lines in road if driving) or a goal (wall, block, ball, etc). Do the same exercise or movement in different positions/orientations too. This type of cueing potentially alleviates the need to granularly describe things. It may be a lot easier for students too. .

🖐🏽Obviously we can’t provide tactile cueing/hands on (adjustments) but I think it’s far superior to invite our students to use **their own hands** to bring emphasis and sensory information locally to increase movement capacity and awareness. We can also liberally use props for this purpose as they provide mechanoreception, make it easier to describe and carry our directives. 🧠

There and Back Again: A Stretch Receptor's Tale

Enhancing Proprioception & Interoception in Yoga

Proprioception on Physiopedia (check out the references section)