So, last night was the first class.  There were five students there—not bad as the schedule had only been posted for four days—ranging from a couple in their mid-20s to an older gentleman who took a couple of classes forty years ago.  Body types ranged from the ectomorph to the endomorph.  One has major joint pains (before beginning), another is recovering from a shoulder injury and another has had sinus issues for the last three years.  I must say that it was a very satisfying evening.

Now for a bit of a critique:  Class was in the aerobics room, this was a bad choice for a number of reasons.  The echo in that room is horrific and even those without old ears had a hard time understanding what I was saying at times.  There is no tempurature control and the air conditioning vent blew cool air throughout the class.  One wall is lined with mirrors, highly distracting and even I had trouble in vrksasana because I had no easy point to fix my gaze.  I’m moving the class to the multi-purpose room on the main floor.  It has no echo, a slightly padded floor and is not constantly cooled—there are fans in there if it is too hot.

Class started a little stilted and I had a hard time eliciting anything other than silence from the students most of the time.  I am sure it was mainly due to us being a group of strangers that had never really met until class started.  Toward the end, however, I got a bit more response.  One won’t be coming back for a while, she enjoyed what she could do but her joints just gave her too much pain.  Her goal is to lose some weight and give it another go.  I hope I can get her back in class sooner as bidalasana and marjariasana both helped to relieve her sacroilliac joint pain.  Her workout buddy won’t be attending Wednesday classes as she’s in therapy for her shoulder.

Things I’ll work on improving tomorrow:  Try to get more student involvement.  Ask why they’re taking the class and if they have any favorite poses.  Ask for names . . . I have no idea why I didn’t do that last night!  There’s a question for you, dear reader, if you have taught a yoga or similar group class what have you done to help break the ice?

Just a quick update on Wellsphere.  Each of my posts here at Everyday Yoga also show up on the Wellsphere; so, if you’re reading this over at Wellsphere be forewarned that I’ll copy comments to my posts over to my blog at Everyday Yoga so my regular readers can see what you folks have to say.

Namasté