The importance of transitions is often underrated both in a yoga class and in life. But in yoga, transitions serve an important purpose in a yoga class. Their job is to get a yoga practitioner from one pose to another. The goal is to transition safely between poses. Smooth and safe transitions help students maintain their breath to movement with each posture, keeping the student in a meditative movement.
For yoga students and teachers, the importance of transitions cannot be appreciated enough. There is a common phrase in yoga classes, “Mind the transitions.” This often means noticing the space between the poses and the space between inhales and exhales.
At the beginning of one of my yoga 300-hour teacher training, I took a class where the focus was transitioning. During the class, I thought it interesting that the transitions did not feel secure; they felt like big, unstable movements. While going through the class I thought, “someone is going to get hurt,” and 10 minutes later I hurt my knee. This was a big reminder to A) Always listen to my body when something doesn’t feel right even if a teacher tells me to do something and B) Avoid fancy transitions in favor of keeping my students’ joints safe and using cues to support them during the transitions in asana practice.
Why give focus on transitions in yoga?
Transitions can go above and beyond and be used to foreshadow a posture later in class or to cement the theme of a class if you have one. For example, focusing on using your core as you flow from high plank to down dog, could help later when trying a forearm stand that you are playing with getting into from a wide leg forward fold where you would use your core in a similar way. Drawing attention to the movement helps support the yoga student and the foreshadowing also provides comfort to the brain once they try on a new pose.
Transitions help return the body to neutral alignment. Safe transitions should go through neutral as a general rule because it reduces the chance of injury and it also helps with balance. This reset of alignment also helps reset the student physically as well as energetically. If a transition feels unstable, insert a pose as a transition to help support you and your students.
When teaching yoga, it is helpful to do transitions with your students that might be tricky to help support them and to use appropriate words to support them.
Inhale chair pose, exhale low lunge, step your right knee back and soften your right knee down, inhale low crescent (Anjaneyasana).
Adding that bolded portion helps set up your students to safely get into a low crescent and adding a low lunge in between chair pose and low crescent allows for a safe transition for students.
The importance of transitions when teaching online
One last reminder: Currently, there are increasing opportunities to teach online. Demonstrate postures more physically and verbally online than if you were in person with your students.
