275 - Building a Craft Isn't Something to Do Fast

Today we explore the craft of teaching, and the patience, creativity, and personal development in the journey. 

I share ten actionable missions for yoga teachers to enhance their craft, focusing on observation, storytelling, the significance of repetition in teaching, and more.

We also talk about the brand new Flow School Membership, where you can go deep with my creative sequencing method and meet with me and other teachers monthly. Join us here! 

Weekly stories by email from Bonnie’s HERE

Connect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), Website
Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:03.018)
Welcome to the podcast, my love. So delighted to be here with you. And today I want to tell you about going to the Oregon Ceramics Showcase. I went there about a week ago and I went there because proud mom moment. My 17 year old had two pieces in it. One that was for a scholarship and one that was just a top kind of recognition for high schoolers. So that I have a high schooler who is

already in this is so cool because the event is the largest gathering of pottery and ceramics in the United States and that's really that's really cool. So I didn't even know it existed but then I'm you know showing up with my kid and then I'm seeing all the booths that are set up each with each maker has brought their things and it's everything that you can have for bowls and mugs and plates things that you can

having the kitchen to decorative things, to a fun little whimsical things to like there's a lot of, know, whatever you can make out of clay, it can exist there. And it was really fun to walk around and talk to the different makers and buy more things that, you know, there's so many beautiful things out there. You go to those places and, you know, bring some of your monies with you.

Well, for real. And as I walked around, it was a delight to talk to people. And one of the things that I love as a yoga teacher, as somebody who, as a yoga teacher, I really believe that I'm showing up in the space as a creative and as a creative movement artist. And that anybody who takes flow school with me, which heads up, I have created online flow school

as a perpetual thing to be a part of. Like as of this release, it has been alive for one week as kind of soft launch. So it's gonna continue on. So it's a membership. We meet twice a month. You get all of the classes. I'm gonna keep referring back to them. We have a community that's just for Flow School. So there's gonna be a link in the show notes. So you can be a part of Flow School online. It's 65 bucks. So come do it. It's gonna be amazing. They're still in person as well. All right, but the...

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (02:28.386)
The more I talk about flow school, so jumping back and the more that I lean into helping teachers own their voice in the room, it really, it's really beautiful to me because it is an artistry, right? And the way that we lead a room is artistic because we hold different sorts of space and you can learn different things. You can learn how your body language affects the experience. If you walk around with your arms crossed,

That's a whole vibe. People, your arms crossed, you have your hands in your pocket, you're leaning back from people, you're standing above people. Like your body language says a thing, you squint your eyes, you're like, it talks, it talks. So there's things that we can learn in the skill of leading and in the skill of communicating with others and in empathy and in relational skills and in team building. love working with studio owners as well.

And teachers, because teachers, have to work with a lot of people from your students to other coworkers to studio owners as well for as a teacher. But there's a lot of ways that we have to navigate ourselves in a space that's not even, that doesn't even have anything to do with teaching the class. But then you go to teach in the class and I'm like, okay, like it's a movement artist, like artistry and this craft of building a sequence and creating an experience. That's what I'm here for.

and that you get to personalize it. That's what I'm here for. And so as I'm at this event with all of these potters and each of, not everybody was standing at their booth with all their pottery, but then there were some that were and then to talk to people and to see people of so many different ages. And my favorite was I think the older women, like they were,

I did not ask these women how old they were, but I truly believe that I think there was women then like in their seventies, at least, who had their pottery and are spicy. Like they were spicy personalities. were like, I'm it. And they love what they do. And they love the way that they do it. And...

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (04:53.132)
And it was fun, different types of personalities and the softness and the spiciness, but that people are showing up and doing something that takes time. Building a craft isn't something you do fast. It's something you do a little bit at a time. It's nothing that you rush into. It's something that you observe, that you get curious about.

that you make changes to and be brave enough to look at what the impact of those changes are and then switch directions is where you get out of your own way to maybe try something new and let it be uncomfortable if it's new and messy if it's new because you haven't done it before. So it should be messy and probably should be uncomfortable. That's part of building a craft is saying, happens if I do this?

And what happens if I do that? And maybe I try it on and do a little experiment. And if it works, it works. And if it doesn't, then that's still information and everything is an experiment. So when it's a craft, you're like, well, what happens for a pottery? This pottery show I went to, right? What happens if you fire something at this temperature and what happens if you put this glaze on it and this mixture of things? And if the clay is this thick or this thin and what happens if it's porcelain, right? How does that make it different?

And so it's something that you discover as you go. It is the journey. Your craft needs a journey. It's not going to happen immediately. And it's something you're going to build a little bit at a time and walking with people on your journey is going to be pivotal because we don't do this alone. So here I was talking to one of the vendors and her name is Holly.

and Holly loves working with porcelain. And I have this piece on my desk that I'm looking at even right now, and it almost looks like coral. And it's porcelain, and it has roundish holes cut out of it. It's almost like the size of a three by five card. We'll put it as that, right? Three inches by five inches, but then with several holes in it that are kind of smooth and silky, and then all around.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (07:12.83)
those holes though that go all the way through the piece that's kind of thick. It looks like a piece of coral so there's like little holes in it. I was talking to her about this process and she says you don't have to press hard. So what she does is has a piece of porcelain clay and porcelain is different than other clays because there's not a lot of grit in it. It's a really fine clay and there's

and they're platelets that kind of rub on each other so it doesn't grip the same. But if she has this chunk of porcelain and she takes a wet cloth and she just gently wipes away the part that she wants to be coral looking. And as she wipes it away, the clay slowly starts to leave, right? She like wipes it out of some spaces and then it...

it has a whole different effect. eventually stipples it a little bit with some toothpicks, but it was so much about this slow process of gently wiping the porcelain. I something that then requires some persistence with and a lot of attention and a lot of intention and thinking about Holly making this piece and

that this piece is sitting on my desk and she sat there with this piece with her wet cloth and slowly was wiping away to make the shape that it is. It was nothing fast. It was nothing aggressive. It was something gentle. And sometimes I think when we are beginning something and maybe we see somebody and we're like, I want to be like that. I want to do that. I want it to feel like that. And I

I can think of the same thing. I can think of people I'm like, I love, I love the way that person's showing up in the world. I love what that person's making. I want to do something like that. I want to, I want to create an experience for myself that feels like that. want to create experience for the people that feels like this. I want to bring, bird this thing into the world. So a hundred percent, I hear out on those things. But a craft doesn't become a craft without a journey.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:27.66)
Because if you don't have the journey, you don't have the craft. You're gonna have the moment where you're referring back to things. Which takes me to, I have thrown a piece of pottery recently with a friend and I sat with her in her shed that she has a kiln and her wheel. And she sat with me and helped me learn how to throw a piece of pottery. I made a small cup. And as I was sitting there and watching her before I threw, she...

was referring to a couple of people that she has learned from. And there was a lot of people that she referenced that she's been learning from and trying to develop her craft. And one of the people, she's like, yeah, well, you know, she's just talking to me saying, you know, one of the people, one of the teachers that I studied with when I was over in France, and she likes to travel. So I was in France, there's this woman and then she...

talks about this whole method of this woman when we were throwing. So I'll leave that to a different story. But that person was referred to and then she referred to another teacher. can't remember where he was from, but this other very famous, successful, like excellent sort of potter that she has learned from who told her that she has to be the boss of the clay.

and don't let the clay boss you around, that you're in charge. And, you know, there's some specific things like that we were talking about that where like making the clay move or letting it try to move you versus it and being the boss of the clay. And I even, remember as I sat at the wheel, I was thinking that I was like, I'm the boss of the clay. Like it's gonna go where I'm gonna guide it. But if you ever thrown clay, it is a gentle thing. you push hard,

Like you have to push hard, but it has to be a firm, intentional hard. And it's a slow process. You can't do it fast. And all of this together feels really beautiful as an analogy to me because this, if we're truly interested in guiding and in leading an experience that changes people.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (11:51.082)
then we're interested in trusting the process and developing a craft that feels personalized to us that yes, students come for a particular time on a schedule, but they also come for teachers. And if a teacher shows up in the room prepared and trusting in themselves as much as they trust in the process and as much as they trust the yoga to deliver, because it's not just about us as teachers, it's like truly about trusting the yoga and trusting the students.

And if we can show up in the room and give students that experience, it changes people. It changes us as teachers and it changes one student at a time. And I am here talking on this podcast because I was changed because of teachers. I am here leading flow school because I was changed because of teachers and because I found a home in myself. I found the bravery and curiosity to sit with myself and you know,

My life is so different than before I started practicing yoga. And I think yoga shows up for people in really transformative moments that yoga shows up when people are ready to move. And I'm in the vinyasa world, right? When the vinyasa and the creative sequencing worlds. And I think especially in that world, there's something beautiful about it because it's about transitions. And I really try to focus on that in flow school where it is a transitions practice. Yes, we're trying to make a 10-pose flow, but we're not teaching 10 poses. We're teaching 20 things. We're teaching 10 poses.

and 10 transitions. And that's the entire focus of the class. It's just that. And it's beautiful. And it's less, but more. It's better. And I love that that's the method in flow school. I love that the focus is to do less, better. I love that I get to teach that in person. I love that it gets to be online. This membership model, I'm doing it through Studio B. So if you have a Studio B membership, Studio B is an online practice space. I have an online practice space for like,

five years now. So if you want to take a class with me, come take a class. So you're gonna have a practice membership or you can have the flow school teacher membership. The flow school teacher membership gives you all of the practice classes as well. And then all the teaching classes. And there's so many more teaching classes to come, but there's a beginning place. So you're not gonna get through everything in a week. So you can go start. And there is gonna be more coming and rolling out weekly and monthly. And like, this is what we're doing. And then we can meet up live as well.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (14:16.418)
or we're going to meet up live. like there's some amazing things there, yeah? But right now in this podcast, as we're talking about developing your craft, about not doing it fast, but thinking of it as a journey where we're not trying to wrestle our way in there and like push our way forward. But we're gonna take a step and we're gonna take a step and we're gonna take a step.

and maybe some of them feel terrifying but also exciting and we take a step.

And if we start to take the steps to be the type of leader that leads with curiosity and bravery, it can't not filter into the other parts of our lives, y'all.

Truly, truly. And the ways that we move from thing to thing and how we honor the places that we're in, it is part of it. It's part of it. I wanna give you 10 things right now. And maybe one of these will superlound and maybe you bring out, take a note and you're like, okay, 10 things, I'm ready Bonnie, ready, set, And you like play bingo and you're like, I'm going, I'm gonna.

get as many of these as I can, right? Maybe you're like all 10, ready, set, So take what lands here. But I'm thinking of 10 ways to develop your craft, specifically them for yoga teachers, right?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (15:48.014)
10 missions for you. Number one, as you continue to develop your craft as a movement artist and as a leader, right? I want you to keep attending classes as a teacher. And specifically, I would love for you to talk to a teacher ahead of time. So have it be somebody that you have a good relationship with and be like,

I've been really interested to watch students more in a class and I'm wondering if it'd be okay for me to come to class if it would feel okay to you if I came to class and I'm going to practice but I'm going to kind of set up off to the side and you're going to find me watching students because I just want to like I haven't had a lot of experience observing students outside of my teaching but you know like teaching is totally different than being able to see in the room then

I kind of want that experience. So have a conversation with the teacher before. That can also be a time that if that teacher wants feedback, they could ask for that. Because it's kind of nice to ask for it without kind of expecting that a teacher is gonna give it to you if they show up in your room or asking them for it, you know, after it's like, how did I do? And they're like, I was just here for me actually. I don't have feedback for you. So, you know, it gives us an opportunity to have that conversation.

So if you have that conversation, you say, would love to observe classes to observe the students. This has nothing to do with your teaching. It just is about them. I mean, it does have kind of something to do with their teaching, right? But I just want to see how it lands for them. And maybe it's something you trade off and on, right? And you know, lot of studios, if you're teaching at the studio, then you can just take classes for free. That's a usual thing. And so you could do this.

You could also just assist a class and you're not getting paid for this class that you take anyway. And you might need to talk to a studio owner and say, I would love to assist a class even once a month. And that means you're going into class and then you're walking the room and you can give hands-on adjustments. So this is especially for places that are okay with touch or direction that is like minimal touch, but then you're there to support students.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (18:10.688)
And if that's not okay, then you're taking a mat and maybe you're having a chill practice, but you're in observation, not like weird observation. And you can only really see the people that are closest to you. But encouragement to you is to take classes as a teacher.

And then of course, take classes as a student. Because we learn things when we take other people's classes. We learn things that we want to do better and we learn things that maybe we don't want to do at all. We're like, didn't, the way that they did that didn't land for me. Okay, cool. So I'm not going to do that. Ooh, the way they did that was incredible. I haven't even ever thought of that before. Right? So we learn from each other. Cool. Great. Cause we know that every class that we teach, all of us is an experiment.

You could come to my class, you could do this, and you'll walk away with things like, I don't like the way Bonnie did that. I'll be like, cool, that makes sense. This class is my experiment and it's coming from me and you don't have to like it all and vice versa, right? So it's okay. That's okay. So play with that. That's number one. Number two is the 95 % rule. To me,

that is 95 % of the time you are watching your students. That means that if you are guiding and you are on your mat, so especially for teachers who are on their mat, sometimes when you get on your mat, you get really invested in the moment of your practice and you're looking down at the ground and you're looking forward, which oftentimes your mat is then perpendicular to the other mats and you're in your own practice. But even if your mat is, runs like just like the other students, but then there's a mirror.

Are you looking at yourself in the mirror? Are you looking at the people around you and behind you? Right? So 95 % of the time you're watching your students. Even if a pose is typically looking forward, like think chair pose. That's like looking forward, right? You're gonna do chair pose. Maybe you look forward for a split second, but then you're looking sideways. You do chair pose looking sideways at them. You do warrior two, looking sideways at them. Right? You do tadasana, looking forward.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (20:24.524)
or not looking sideways at them, not looking forward. If you have your head down, you don't need to demo those poses because they can't see you because their heads are down and they're looking backwards at the back of the room, right? Down dog, forward fold, standing splits, like they're not looking at you. So 95 % of the time you are watching them. So the idea of this with these missions is that you do them one at a time because we're not here to shove into a

We're here to wipe away a little bit of porcelain, one swipe at a time, to slowly reveal the shape of the thing that we are making. We're not here for fast. Building a craft isn't something you do fast. So just pick one of these. Number three option. If you're usually on a mat, then get off your mat.

And a way that you can very easily do this, if this feels really uncomfortable, and especially if you're new to teaching, is walk to the back of a room. Sequence a turnaround flow. Tell people at the beginning of class that it's a turnaround flow that can be really helpful. Sequence a turnaround flow where you face the back of the room, even if it's just for one pose that you're facing the back of the room. Helpful if it's a little bit more than one pose, like make it three poses or something, then turn them back forward. But if you go to have them turn around to the back of room,

you can get off your mat and walk to the back of the room so they can see you. You just stand between two mats and then they can kind of look sideways at you, right? That's a way. Also, when they turn sideways, walk to that side of the room. This is truly the easiest way to get off your mat if you are having a struggle with that. So this might all end for everybody. Some people have to teach without a mat in class. That's a whole other ball game, right? So if that is anything for you, walk to the back.

walk to the side, do some sort of pose where they have to look sideways, skandhasana, right? And go to the side and demo, stand there, queue it up where they can actually see you. And side note that if you teach where they turn to the back of the room, tell them to turn to the back of the room, not to the back, not to the, side of the mat, because the back of the mat is often called the front of the mat by people, by teachers when you do a turnaround flow.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (22:50.826)
It can feel confusing because the front of the mat still is facing the front of the room. So I found it helpful to cue to the back of the room and the front of the room if you're going to do a turnaround flow. So just heads up on that. OK, another option for one other class because we're only doing one thing at a time. So we're really doing when we teach, we're doing a lot of things, right? So these are just some some things you could pick up and try. Number four. This one gets to be really big sometimes in flow school.

is don't teach breath for the first two times that you're teaching your flow per side. So that means you're teaching your flow four times with no breath. Once on the right, once on the left, second time on the right, second time on the left. We are fairly trained in a lot of teacher trainings to cue some sort of breath and breathing in and out, even if you're not moving with your breath or to breath pace, that's what I call it.

where you're having a movement on each breath. And even if it doesn't have to be big movement, but even reaching your arms up and over your head and hands to heart, right? Like you can breathe in as you reach your hands up, lower your hands to the heart, exhale. So take out all breath, like remove it and teach two passes of your flow where you're just teaching the poses and you're just letting people hold them and learn.

what the experience of the pose is. This does two things. First off, it allows the students to highly focus on the posture and where their body should be in the posture or where they want to play with their body and the position and the nuance and the way they want to personalize it. So they get a highly focused on that and it takes away one more thing for them to learn because

It's a lot of things to think about. So it simplifies it for its students. Other thing it does, number two, it simplifies it for you as a teacher. And we're still gonna add breath in, right? We're still gonna do it. And this one is sometimes really tricky for people in flow school. Do you have to do this? No, but the experiment is interesting. And you probably need to experiment more than once because experimenting is messy because if you've never done it before, it's gonna feel hard and it might feel uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or bad.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (25:16.716)
or can't be right, right? There's more than one way to be right. So when you do this as a teacher, this means that you have to say less things, which is great because there's a lot of words we're trying to get out of our mouth. And there's a lot of ways we want to try to bring some personalization to the experience in the room. And if we don't try to worry about breath, of when you inhale and when you exhale, it leaves more room for the cueing, which is perfect.

I really needed because I love teachers passion for teaching vinyasa. I mean, I teach full of school. These are vinyasa teachers or people who want to be vinyasa teachers and teaching the body movement is sometimes not top tier in a teacher training because there's a lot to learn. That's just a base. It's just a beginning and learning how to sequence.

is an even lower tier in a teacher training. You really have to have specialized programming for those sorts of things. This is why flow school exists and the flow school membership is an up level from everything that I have been doing already. So this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. But when I guide this and especially because flow school, I teach people how to move to breath pace and teachers how to do that. I don't teach breath at all the first two passes.

simplifies it. It allows students to really just be with the pose and with themselves and then I bring breath into it but the catch is I have already taught those things four times twice per side so I actually have to say less cues by the time I start to give breaths. So if I start to teach the breath and breath to movement and then strip away cues so I'm doing an editing process we all know that editing is work.

because we want to say more words and really give people the experience. But people have already felt it now. So you can say less. And then there's room to give the breath. And the nice thing about this is it brings in this moment of new layer for breath. makes it special in a different way. And you really

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (27:39.622)
need to know where you want to put the breath on which postures and which transitions before you get to the room. Please. It makes such a difference and it will help you and your teacher brain because it is a whole thing to leave breath pace. And if you want to just join flow school for a bit to learn how to teach breath pace, do that. And you're going need to come to the practice time. So it's very helpful. So leading cueing.

like leading movement to breath pace is a part of your craft. It is a skill to practice and to learn and the pacing of it. And it like changes the whole experience. But you gotta plan the breath ahead of time. It's really hard to do that on the spot because sometimes transitions need breath. And if you don't give it, the flow is too fast. And then sometimes it's too slow. And then you cue and inhale a couple of times in a row because then

He wanted the next pose to be an exhale, but then he didn't think about it ahead of time because then the next pose needed to be an inhale. Then the next one actually that was an inhale, right? All of this sounds confusing just to even listen to it because then that's the experience of students in the room. They're like, wait, they said inhale and then it talked forever. And the exhale was like way over here. So was I supposed to hold my breath? So it's part of the craft of learning how to do that. So do it separate than the initial learning.

Try it on. Okay. Next idea. Idea number five, your mission to play with your craft is to tell a story. When I think about themia class, it is by telling a story. Very much like this podcast, this exact podcast, this episode, because the story I told was about going to this pottery ceramic showcase.

and about Holly who made this porcelain piece that looks like a piece of coral and how you don't have to press hard and how it's a little bit at a time right so I told a story and that story is then an analogy it relates back to the movement it relates back to the lesson that you're trying to teach so in yoga we're teaching movement and especially if you're interested in vinyasa and creative sequencing we're teaching movement and

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:03.768)
We're teaching trust in ourselves and we're teaching mobility, strength and flow and like flexibility is mixed in there, right? So we're trying to be stable, mobile and strong and learn new things and have our brain and our body and our breath turned on, right? So what kind of stories can we tell that help people lean into that process and trust it? Lean into themselves and help build a home in themselves.

What kind of stories do we tell? And this is one of my favorite parts, but it's exactly like using the ceramics piece and relating it here to you. You can do that in class. And this is what I think about for theming and I call it storytelling. So here's an example for you. You can take this and use it. Yes, so tell a story. I want you to begin with, here's a prompt. I want you to begin with, I've been trying something new. You set them up.

You have them in their beginning posture and you say, I've been trying something new and then tell them what you've been trying. Now it's going to be a real story. Like it has to come from you. So what have you been doing that's new? And maybe you realize in this moment, you're like, I haven't been doing anything new. Maybe you have felt stuck. Maybe you haven't been learning anything new. Maybe you haven't been trying anything. Maybe you haven't, you're like, actually I need to turn my curiosity and bravery knob up.

Both of those two. What have you been trying that's new and how's it been going? What are you learning? I bet those lessons of things that you're learning are very relatable to those students trying something new in the room today. Have they ever done the sequence you've taught? I don't know. Have they done it today if you already taught it? Nope. Are they going to be challenged in some ways?

Maybe in ways you didn't even think were challenging and then all of sudden they're challenging for them. Yeah. So you can tell them, I've been trying something new and tell them about it and relate it back to them trying new things today in class and leaning into the process. And at the end of class after Shavasana, and when you're ready to send them out, right? Say thank you for trying new things with me here today in class. And maybe there's some other new things out there in the world that

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (32:29.474)
you can play with too. So you send them out with it and it can be that fast. It does not have to take a long time. You're not there to story tell for 10 minutes. You're there to drop it in and you're there to move, right? Let them hold it. Let it tie right back to the movement. So try on that story. Okay, another mission. Mission number six is to do a half sunay at the back of the mat. I love teaching half sunays at the back of the mat.

So a half sunay that people usually do is a chaturanga up dog down dog, right? I use a half sun day where I go to the back of the mat and actually do the forward fold, tadasana forward fold at the back of the mat. I teach that part of a sunay all the time. And I love it because it's easier than stepping to the top of the mat and it's different. So it already turns people's brains on. You're using the back of the mat, which usually doesn't happen. And you can walk yourself back.

and then walk yourself forward again. You can stand all the way up. It gets people standing up without having to do the step forward. And the step forward is sometimes taught really tricky for a lot of people. And I really encourage you, if you are having people step to the top of the mat, especially pretty early in class, 95 % rule, watch your students. Is it hard for them? Is there a different way you can teach it that makes it easier? There might be. But getting them standing all the way up,

especially towards like the beginning of class is really helpful. It feels really good. And so having people eventually get to a down dog and walk their hands back to the back of the mat, doing some half sun A's, flow on with that and then getting back down. Great. So my encouragement for you is to do a half sun A. So crawl your hands to the back of the mat, forward fold, stand all the way up, hands overhead to dasana, hands to heart.

You can do some cactus arm back bend. can forward fold. You can have a chair fold stand. mean, there can be a whole little thing you do that, right? There can be a lot of things. You can do some single leg things like there's an infinite waste. Like there's so many things that you can do there and you can incorporate into a longer flow too. So use the back of the mat. Okay. Number seven, your mission is in our goals of

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (34:51.262)
Really trying to show up with people. Your mission for number seven is to say five students names during class. You're going to call them out. Learn people's names. Maybe that feels easy to you. Maybe you're like, I'm already saying 15th and great. Move on, do a different one. Maybe you're like, wow, I don't remember anybody's names. So this is your mission. And say five people's names. Hey, good job, Shivani. Right? All right, see you Shivani. Yes.

Yes, great foot. Good foot placement. I don't know, like I'm saying weird things, right? So you can say things in class out loud where you're calling out people's names, right? And yeah, Javon, reach your right hand up even just a little bit higher. Yes, that's it, right? Yeah, or.

I see you Alex. I see you Alex. I see the way that you're opening. Yes, love it. Right? So even just calling out people's names and this is, this is an important note. This is not calling out people's names when they are doing the hardest pose or the hardest version of the pose in the room. This is not calling out the people who are doing handstands and arm balances.

and flipping their grip and dancer and dropping down in the full splits. This isn't that. I'd actually encourage you to not say any of those people's names or to not say them. Don't say those people's names in those moments. They're doing the things that are most demanding because sometimes that happens. Are the people that are being noticed? Are the people who are doing the hardest thing, the hardest looking thing? And that might not be the person who's actually doing the hardest thing in the room.

There might be somebody in the room who it looks like their practice is like the most chill, like they're taking the simplest version of everything, but they are on the verge of excruciating pain and theirs is the practice that actually feels the hardest in the room and you just don't know it. So if you're congratulating Bob for his handstands, when like Mary over here is struggling.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (37:10.83)
like struggling in a tabletop, right? You don't know, like you don't know. And I have been that student, I have been that student when I was in a good bout of low back pain. friends, I went to a class, I was visiting a friend from, was out of town, staying at her house, I went to her yin, her gentle class.

everyone again it was like a restorative class and super chill and she was laying on our back and then we were in tabletop and I walked out of class I was in so much pain I was in so much pain and I walked out and I was riding with her and I just walked around the building and I cried and if people looked at me they wouldn't have guessed it they would have guessed it

that that was happening and you don't know. You can't look at somebody and know what's up with them. They're having an internal experience that they are not sharing. You can only see the external environment, but there is a whole internal happening. So say five students names, but not about the hardest thing. Okay, number eight, your mission is to try designing a flow circle that does not include

Chaturanga Up Dog and Down Dog. And if you wanna know what that means, then come to flow school. Also, that means you're just creating a flow that does not include Chaturanga Up Dog, Down Dog. Make it anywhere from five to 10 poses and then repeat it five times per side and teach it. And then teach it without breath the first two times and then with breath the other times. If you're interested in teaching breath, you don't have to be. Number nine.

That's what makes me laugh. I want you to actually give people a five minute Shavasana. If you have moved them, like a majority of the class, I want you to give them a five minute Shavasana. And bonus, you have to end on time. If that's an hour long class, you got to finish it in an hour. And that is hard. I love a 75 minute class and a 90 minute class. That's like golden. But if you don't have it, end it on time. So give them a five minute Shavasana.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (39:39.094)
and ended on time. Number 10 is to repeat your class. That means you have to write down your class. That means you have to have a plan. And that means you have to teach that, pay attention. Where do you, like, what are you doing? And then teach it again. And this is what I teach in Flow School. It's really helpful to get buy-in from students where you tell them, you're like, we're gonna do this class all week. Monday, you're gonna learn what we're doing, where we're going.

And it's gonna be like a whole brain game experience because we're gonna like dive into this. Wednesday you're gonna come back and be like, oh yeah, that's right. And we're gonna start to move brain to body. And by Friday when we do this a third time, this is about how we're gonna really start to flow with it because you're going to be reminded that, oh yeah, this is what we're doing. Oh yeah, I know this, oh yeah. So you'll be able to get out of your brain and into your body and into your body and out of your body into your breath.

how we're gonna go on this journey together. So you're just into that. This is how we're doing it. This is how we're doing class. And if you teach that class once a week, you're teaching the class all month. You can teach that class multiple times a week, all month. You can teach just one class a month for Vinyasa, and you can hone that. And then you get better at teaching it, because the first time you might have your notebook and you might mess up sides. But by the time you teach that, the 10th time for the month, you've got that.

Now your students got that and they feel confident and successful. I guess why you feel confident and successful too, because you know how to guide that in a way that people actually understand because you're using the 95 % rule and you're watching them. That's pretty damn powerful. So repeat your class. And if you want support in these, all of these things, come to Flow School, right? Join the Flow School membership. You can talk to me live time. We have two Zooms a month. We have a master class and a sequencing session where you get to bring your sequencing and we practice queuing together as a group.

Yeah, then you get all the lessons and then come in person. Yes, there is options. And I love this for us. Building a craft isn't something you do fast. We're here now.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (41:50.99)
I'm here now, I've been here, I'm gonna be here next year, I'm gonna be here the year after that. This isn't something we do fast. That's something we do trusting the process. This is something we do a little bit out of time. We don't press hard, we just keep going. We're persistent and attentive and have a lot of intention.

And it really does create something beautiful.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (42:24.974)
Thank you. Thank you for being a teacher. Thank you for tuning in and listening. If you try any of these missions, I would love to hear about it. Pop this podcast in social media, put it in your stories, tag me, tell me about your experience with it, share with other people, share with a teacher friend. I would love to hear about your takeaway, your biggest takeaway. Let me know if you have any questions. You can find me on the gram at carrot underscore bowl underscore Bonnie. Used to be thought I would be a food blogger, but I'm not.

Carable Bonnie or email me hello at Bonnie makes calm. Hmm. I have a beautiful day.