We asked Deb and Shigeko about their most substantial lessons from the training, and here is what they each shared:

We learned a wide variety of “assists” that addressed the challenges of helping individual students during a flow class–how to observe students as they practice, how to assess individual situations quickly and efficiently, and how to help facilitate student access to poses during a flow sequence. These assists ranged from simple to elaborate, with and without props, and from hands-on to verbal cueing.

Our course was guided by the idea that “Everybody / Every Body is different.” As teachers, our role is to help students find ways to experience the benefits of a yoga practice adapted to their bodies, to their health conditions, and to any other varying circumstances.

—Deb

The biggest lesson I learned from this module is this: if assisting of the poses is done by a trained teacher, the students can feel much more space in the muscles, through the spine, or wherever the pose is intended to help liberate the body. Working intensively for three days both assisting fellow teachers and being assisted by them, I expected that I would have aches and pains at the conclusion. In reality, my body feels much better than before the training.

In my classes, I have done very limited assisting so far, but I will try, with their permission, to assist my students to come to different poses so that they can experience the liberation I experienced during this training.

—Shigeko