4 Nature Quotes to Share in your Next Yin Yoga Class
A theme is a great way to shape a unique yoga experience for your students. You can have a theme for any style of asana that you teach.
If you were to create a theme in a yin yoga class around the water element, a theme could show up in these 4 ways:
Meridian theme: Sequence yin yoga poses that correspond to the water element. The kidney and urinary bladder meridians are the yin and yang organ pairs for water. These poses would focus on stimulating the back body, the insides of the legs, and the hips.
Music theme: Build upon the asana sequence by playing music related to the healing frequencies for the kidney and/or urinary bladder. If you have live instruments, rain sticks or shakers can evoke a watery sound.
Taste and colour theme: Weave in taste (salt) and colour (black and grey) associated with the water element by providing students with small salty treats (if that is allowed in your studio), or wearing black or grey clothes!
Storytelling theme: These would be the words that you share to effectively convey the theme. You may have created a sequence, but your students may not always be aware of all the hidden meanings. You don’t want to list out your complete process, but share in class what you’d like them to pay attention to or reflect on as food for thought.
Season: Water corresponds to the winter season. Teach this class during winter.
Emotions: Water is associated with the emotions of wisdom and fear. A potential theme is to consider what water has to teach us about the wisdom of being adaptable and softness as strength.
Personal anecdotes: A short anecdote, when done correctly, can help students apply yogic understandings to their own lives.
Be creative: Use your personal interests and hobbies to find the storytelling theme. If you are into astrology, can you use the water theme for a water sign?
As you can see, there are many ways to build and layer on a theme. What I like to do and what works for me is to share a few words at the opening, reference the theme a few times throughout class, and come out of silent savasana with a quote, and end by slightly tweaking my closing words to once more touch on the theme.
I’m not a teacher who does long openings where we ground and I talk for the first 10 minutes. I am not against them, and in fact, I appreciate a slow beginning to get me centred, but I typically teach 60 minute asana classes, and am mindful of keeping time to the asana practice.
In a recent training that I participated in, I worked with one of my colleagues on creating a yoga sequence. I had timed it based on my experience teaching, and my friend in training said that we would need more time in between poses, so my timing would need to account for that.
When we ended up teaching our practicum class together, she said later that my original timing made sense for me and the time that it took for me to say what I needed to say. It was a lovely comment to hear from her, especially as she had a different but equally impactful teaching voice to me, where the words flowed effortlessly out of her, setting us in a guided meditative state. She also took the time she needed to create the space, which lined up with the 10 minute opening we were recommended to incorporate in our practicum class.
This is how I’ve been teaching my 60-minute yin yoga classes.
Yin Yoga Class Outline
Opening:
Grounding (seat directions, 3 collective breaths)
1 minute breath awareness
Theme
After the breath awareness, I generally share a brief explanation of the class theme, typically going into what it is and why it is important.
Asana Practice:
Sharing the theme throughout the asana practice requires knowing when to speak and when to stay silent.
When you speak, your words can be an anchor for students to focus their concentration on during a pose that they may find very sensational. When you stay silent, you do not disturb their state of quiet and relaxation, but allow them the space to go deeper. Notice it next time that you speak in a yin yoga class, and your words can ruffle the stillness of students, as they start to shift in reaction to what you say.
Closing:
Savasana
Keep savasana quiet. No talking. Some teachers don’t play music. I play instrumental music but sometimes don’t, depending on what happened in class. If I feel there was a lot of sound healing, then I might choose no music during savasana.
Quote
This is a quote that ties back to the theme, and can be a poem, a passage, or a quote I found from social media.
3 breaths of affirmations or OM
4 Nature Quotes to Share in your Next Yin Yoga Class
Here are some of my favourite nature-themed poems and quotes that I’ve shared in yin yoga class.
Joy Harjo Remember
This is a beautiful poem that I love to read for National Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Canada. I also like to read this poem in classes themed around gratitude for the land we are on and connecting to the earth as our home and our body.
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Breathe, You Are Alive!
One of my favourite works by Thich Nhat Hanh that never fails to inspire me to be my higher self now. I highly recommend this work. I have used the breath practices and shared quotes on community and breathwork in class.
This text is more esoteric for the demographics I teach, but certain passages speak to our interdependence with nature. With passages that are not full poems, I often read a few sentences and then add in a few of my own words.
We see that we are at the same time a rock, a river, a cloud, a squirrel, a rose. The elements are our ancestors. See yourself as nature, as being one with nature. With this understanding, harmony and respect of life are possible.
***
Seeing that we are the sun, we give up the candle’s habit of fearing the wind. We see ourselves and our life everywhere.
***
Every one of us has the seeds of awakening, insight, compassion, and loving kindness. Once in touch with these, we inspire confidence in the people around us. We have to help each other practice as a Sangha. When we see a group of people living mindfully, we have confidence in the future.
Eva Wong, Being Taoist
I love this book for sharing ancient Chinese texts on Daoism. This book was so helpful for me as I was trying to recover from an unexpected spell of sickness that took me a year to gain my strength back.
This is a grand book for understanding the philosophy of Daoism, and I like to choose passages there to explain why this practice is called yin yoga, emphasizing the benefits of yin energy in an overstimulated world that demands us to react now and instead understand that slow living and taking a pause is true privilege, and we can practice this mindfulness in yin yoga.
Of all the things in the world, nothing is softer than water. Water is accommodating and yielding, but its depth cannot be plumbed and its boundaries cannot be measured. Rising to the sky, it becomes rain and mist. Falling to earth, it becomes springs and underground lakes. Life cannot exist without water.
***
Water is soft yet strong. Strike it, and it cannot be injured. Pierce it, and it cannot be punctured. Grasp it, and it cannot be held. Its strength can wear down stone and metal. Its sustenance can nourish the whole world. It can float in the sky as clouds, squeeze through narrow valleys as streams, and spread across wide-open plains as lakes.
***
The Tao is like water because it is soft and smooth. Its softness and weakness can overcome the hard and the strong. We do not know where water comes from and where it may go. We only know that even though it does not act, it benefits the whole world.
***
The Tao cannot be confined in shape and form because the formless is the creator of all things. Stillness is a manifestation of virtue, and softness is the foundation of the Tao.
The Ram Dass Tree Analogy
This is a very popular quote by Ram Dass. It uses the analogy of looking at the trees in a forest and how they are all different but we don’t judge them for their differences, as a way of how we should approach humans.
This nature quote on non-judgment is highly applicable in yin yoga classes where you want to encourage student self-esteem and inspire excitement in their present journey. I often use this quote to encourage a mindful practice where we don’t compare ourselves to what other people are doing, but use the collective energy to show up as ourselves on the mat. Being honest with where you are at today, whether that means go deeper, take a break, or stay in your comfort zone.
When you go into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees… and some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens and some of them are – whatever. And you look at the tree, and you just – allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is, you sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way, and you don’t get all emotional about it, you just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that, and you’re constantly saying, “You’re too this,” or “I’m too this,” or – that judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees, which means appreciating them just the way they are.
There are many ways to theme a class, and these are some of the ways that I have seen it done, and what I like to do. I hope this inspires you to try them out, and find what works for you.
Yoga teachers who can be authentic to themselves while being respectful to the practice are the wisest space holders.