Tips for attending a live Yoga class via Zoom
You may be very comfortable with Zoom by now – but here are a few tips for getting the most out of a Yoga class via Zoom.
Your camera does not have to be on during class. Of course, I love seeing your faces and I miss seeing you during our practice – but Zoom classes are definitely different than in person classes. There is no reason to dress up or tidy up for our class! Feel free to do what feels best for you, turn your camera or audio on to say Hi! Or Bye! But only if you like. When you turn off your video/camera, your name or photo will come up so I’ll know you are there. Please mute yourself during class – that way you don’t have to concern yourself with any background noises in your space. (I will mute you if you forget, no worries!)
Occasionally there are technical difficulties on my, or your, end...or somewhere out in space! Just take a deep breath and relax...if the problem is on my end and I have to ‘reboot’ it should take no longer than 5 minutes. If the problem is on your end, you may be able to ‘step’ out of the class and re-enter or you may have to reboot the computer – give yourself a few minutes to try a few fixes before giving up. Remember we are here to become more flexible!
Plan for your classes. Prepare yourself a nice space to practice safely. Remove distractions and obstacles, put your phone in another room, let folks around you know you will be ‘in class’ for a little more than an hour. Be fully “available” for your practice – including the rest period at the end. This is your time...honor that!
If you are attending class via the recording, make the same arrangements. Try to complete the class just as if you were attending live. Choose a time when you won’t be interrupted and can give your practice your full attention.
Whether you attend a class in person, via Zoom or a recording, always honor your body, mind and mood. Give your best effort, and adjust, skip, or modify postures as needed.
Thank you for respecting my work and your investment by not sharing the links to classes or recordings. Of course, please share my website or contact information with friends you think might be interested. I’m happy to talk with folks about our my philosophy and our practice.
“You Should be Grateful…”
I can still hear my father at the dinner table when I was young….
“You should eat those peas and be grateful for them...just think of the hungry children in Africa”.
If my father was trying to illicit happy, appreciative feelings in me, he failed. Now not only was I still thinking about gagging on peas, I was thinking about hungry little children...and wondering how I could mail peas to Africa.
This time of year in particular, I see many suggestions for gratitude practices. On the surface, they look fine. But, I believe that for gratitude practices to serve us, (and for us to actually do them) they need to feel good. Obligations to not generally illicit happy feelings and we are less likely to do something simply because we are told it is good for us.
Now-a-days my gratitude practice looks more like this: I imagine a happy time, a time when I felt calm, comfortable, inspired, and/or delighted. I bring this experience into my awareness along with all the sense information – where I was, who I was with, what I saw, smelled, heard, etc. Many of this memories were in nature, or with people I love. I breath the sensations of th happy memory through my body and stay with it for as long as feels right.
I have enjoyed this practice and find I can often connect with happy emotions and sensations, but sometimes the memory ignites an intense longing that doesn’t feel so happy. I may find myself missing the people, places or experiences from my past and feel quite sad. So, in those cases, I switch to a less “charged” memory, and if I can’t really think of one – I make one up. It works! I stay with the practice until I can connect with happy, goose-bumpy feelings in my body.
The point of this kind of gratitude practice is not paying for an experience by appreciating it, owing a debt of gratitude, it is simply to use an enjoyable memory – or an imagined future event – as a catalyst to bolster pleasant feelings. And pleasant feelings lead to more pleasant feelings and help rewire our brain and nervous system toward happiness...and feeling happy is something we can all appreciate.