Our Approach

Our Approach to Practice

If you go to any crowded yoga class in yoga-saturated metropolises like Los Angeles or New York, you’ll likely hear the word vinyasa used in a few different ways.

“Do a vinyasa” refers to the common mini-sequence of three poses that link the other poses together in any movement-based class, as so many now are. Additionally, the terms “Vinyasa yoga” and “Vinyasa Flow yoga” are terms used to describe classes that have a moving, dance-like, rhythmic pace with limited instruction and little time for stillness.

These are all accurate uses of the word. But to get its deeper and older meaning, you should link the word vinyasa with krama. Vinyasa means careful placement and krama means step. Vinyasa krama refers to the process of putting things in order. And that is what YogaPoser is all about.

Each yoga student’s practice is as individual as their DNA: singular and unique. And each moment of a practice is an opportunity to see things as they are and to choose the best next step. We recognize in all of our teaching that the best next step for one person is likely to be different from anybody else’s in the room or the world.

Telling everyone in a studio to do the same thing is more convenient for the teacher and requires little thought from the practitioner. This may work well early in a student’s practice, but it doesn’t work well forever. Each practice evolves differently and needs different things.

At YogaPoser, we constantly cue our students to observe each moment fully. From holistic choices that take into account the entirety of a person to the minute choices like, for example, where to put the little toe, we base what we each do on accurately seeing each moment.

This practice is successful for a number of reasons:

First, each student does the work that is most effective for her or him. They hear and see and take action based on their unique experience. They do their own yoga. In a physical sense, which is where so many great practices start, this works better.

Secondly, our training methodology allows for all types of practice. We don’t try to steer our student teachers to teach a particular type of class. “Yoga for all” means many styles of class.

Finally, and most importantly, we require the student to participate in the training process by being highly aware of what is at hand. In all yoga practices, what we are trying to get at is the “now.” We seek to experience the thing that happens when our actions are neither colored by outdated, inaccurate residual patterns of movement and thought nor propelled by projecting our desires and fears into the future.

Yoga philosophy views avidya (lack of clear vision) as the root cause of all human suffering. We give our students a way to look clearly at what is happening now. And such clarity teaches that inevitably, we all find the right path.

Teaching the practice of looking at what is happening now is our way of truly making our students happier.