At the weekend yoga conference I went to a teacher’s session Robert Weber hosted on cueing. His point was that when you rely on demonstrating the poses, students simply try to reproduce your version exactly instead of learning to fill out the pose with their own unique body. This is a great reminder as teachers not to demo to beginners the full expression of a pose that we’ve gotten to over years of practice. We want to make yoga accessible and instead we scare the living daylights out of newbies that way.

Robert’s approach is to often not demo at all, just talk the students into the pose. I’m not completely onboard because beginners who aren’t auditory learners just aren’t going to follow the verbal instructions well. Although I guess if the teacher is not demo’ing they have plenty of opportunity to walk around and help people. The other issue I have is that with cueing only the class can get really wordy and you want to offer space to just be in the pose. It’s a question of balance I guess, and does depend on the level of the class.

*Anyways* we did a cool thing - we did yoga with our eyes closed. It was amazing. The simplest thing was so challenging. How do you get your feet into parallel without visual guidelines? What does parallel *feel* like?

We did a Sun Salutation B and I felt like a uncoordinated teenager. I had to really let go of my standards of preciseness when I couldn’t see my hand placement for Plank/Chaturanga. And then getting into Triangle was a trip - I didn’t know if my feet were lined up. It felt wrong but I assumed it was just because I felt dorky trying to stand up with my eyes closed. When I got into Triangle I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff. I had to keep my “gaze” at the horizon. I was convinced if I “looked up” at my hand I’d fall flat on my back.

Ain’t yoga grand? I love it that I can still find scary edges and cliffs.

I can’t wait to do this in my yoga classes. I’ll probably wait until people are in a pose and then ask them to close their eyes. I really suggest trying it out. It makes me realize how much mind stuff is generated by our sight. With eyes closed you’re forced to really feel the pose from the inside out.