The Only Four Yoga Sequences You’ll Ever Need

I understand the desire to be creative with sequencing, I really do. But sometimes we really get in our own way. If you’re someone who agonizes about creating a new sequence for every class, then take comfort in my offering: you only need four yoga sequences.

Here’s what you need:

• sequence to a backbend
• sequence to an inversion
• sequence to an arm balance
• sequence to a complex standing pose

That’s it. Once you have the skeleton of these four classes in your back pocket, everything else is a variation on a theme.

Let’s take a closer look.

Sequence to a Backbend

A sequence to a backbend needs to build slowly and smartly in order to support your students to a safe and expansive experience. I’ve been to many a class where a backbend gets tossed in at the end (“if wheel is in your practice, then go for it!”) rather than mindfully sequenced. I understand and appreciate the intention (we all need a bit more backbending in our lives!), but your students’ bodies will be sooooo much happier when you take the time to prepare for these larger openings.

You’ll need to warm up these parts of the body:

• Hip flexors – open those suckers buy incorporating lunges and thigh stretches like anjaneyasana and crescent
• Spine – specifically, you need to train the upper back (thoracic) to extend as the lower back (lumbar) and neck (cervical) are stabilized
• Neutral hips – train the line through the ankle, knee, and thigh to remain neutral in the pelvis (ie: don’t turn out the legs)
• Core – you’ll want to train the core engage in a lengthened position (eccentric contraction) as part of protecting the lumbar spine from hyperextension
• Shoulders – depending on which big backbend you’re doing, you’ll need to warm up the shoulder girdle in different directions (ie: wheel, you’ll need to do poses where you get the arms above the head in external rotation, while in dhaurasana (bow) you’ll need to work the arms behind you in extension).

I would suggest something like the following for a flow/power class:

• Warm up: sun salutations modified with plenty of lunges to start opening the hip flexors; focus on training neutral hips and engaging the adductors.
• Mobilize and engage: get the upper back and spine involved through progressively deep twists and backbends. Use this opportunity to integrate core engagement with the extension of the upper back. Also, incorporate poses that warm up the shoulder girdle towards your peak.
• Targeted hip flexor stretch: before the peak, I like to do a juicy hip flexor opener, such as saddle, supta virasana or anjaneyasana with a thigh stretch.
• Peak: variations of your complex backbend; have several progressive versions so that there is something for everyone.
• Cool down and counterpose: forward folds, outer and inner hip stretches.

Backbends are the sequences that keep on giving. We ALL need more backbending our lives, due to our collapsed posture and sitting habits. There are so many good variations of this sequence; it will never go out of style.

Sequence to an Inversion

When sequencing to an inversion, you are usually training muscular intelligence rather than a specific muscular opening. Sure, the hamstrings need to be opened to get into most inversions, but – unless you’re doing a very complex inversion that requires backbending – the actual poses are pretty much like tadasana upside down.

Here’s what you need to think about:

• Open the hamstrings. The preparatory poses for most inversions involve “walking in” and “stacking your hips over your shoulders,” which requires very open hamstrings. Use active forward folds to warm them up, such as pyramid, prasarita padottanasana, utthita hasta padangustasna, revolved triangle, standing splits.
• Squeeze your legs together. I call this “midline,” where your thighs are neutral in the socket and you’re strongly engaging your adductors for support. Your legs must be active, straight, and engaged in order to provide leverage and direction for lift off. Practice this activation in poses such as crescent, chair, lunges, and forward folds.
• Educate the shoulder girdle: to do inversions, you need to get your arms straight and over your head. You also want to train the upper arm in external rotation and the forearm in pronation. I love working this action by having students hold a block between their hands in chair pose. It’s evil, but it works.
• Educate the ribs/core: Many of us “pop” the ribs forward when doing inversions. A core warm up can help to fire these muscles up and train the psoas (primary hip flexor) to anchor and stabilize the legs into the core of the body.
• Educate hands/wrists: teach your students (in poses such as plank, chaturanga, or any pose with their hands on the floor) how to press into index knuckle and finger tips down to avoid sinking in the wrist. Help them turn their hands into little feet that they can stand on properly.

I would suggest something like the following for a flow/power class:

• Solid warm up of surya A and B’s (depending on level of students)
• Mobilize/educate: neutral standing poses and standing forward folds to train openness and engagement through hamstrings and legs; also trains neutral hips, which you need when you start kicking up to avoid chaos. Use these neutral poses to train the adductors to squeeze; you’ll need this when upside down. (If the legs aren’t stable, the whole pose will topple.)
• Educate the arms: you also need to teach the connection of shoulder blades down into the hands. For example, when you’re doing handstand, you have to keep the arms straight. Support for the pose comes from the shoulder girdle.
• Educate the shoulders: in my training, we balance the action of pulling the bottom ribs in (serratus anterior engagement) with hugging the shoulder blades slightly together (rhomboid engagement). These two opposing actions work together to train the shoulder blades to stay anchored on the back body and provide the necessary support for the body weight. In pincha or headstand, you need to teach students how to pull the shoulder blades into the back to create the necessary stability to invert.
• Cool down: the cool down should stretch the adductors and outer hips, as well as give students a chance to rest their upper bodies.

Inversions are awesome and mind blowing. Teach them at a wall. Create benchmarks that clearly indicate to students whether or not they should proceed to the next “variation.”

Sequence to an Arm Balance

Sequencing to an arm balance is a fun and interesting challenge. Very different parts of the body need to be warmed up than for an inversion or backbending class. How you warm up for the pose will depend greatly on the particular arm balance that you are doing, as they all have unique requirements.

Generally, here’s what you need to think about:

• Get the core fired up. No core, no arm balance. I like to start off with supine core exercises if I know that my peak is an arm balance. When you establish core integrity early on in the class, students can bring core awareness into every pose that they are doing.
• Teach the hands/ wrists: similar to inversions, you have to teach students how to use their hands properly to avoid wrist compression.
• Teach to the shoulder girdle: like backbends, you need to teach students to become aware of – and stabilize – their shoulder girdle. Draw their awareness to scapular stability in poses such as plank, chaturanga – as well as in non-shoulder weight bearing poses such as warrior 2.
• Open the hips: depending on the arm balance, you will have to open the hips in different directions to help them get to the pose (the exception here is classical vasisthasana, which is basically tadasana on its side!)
• Teach to leverage: much of the time, the ability to do an arm balance is not about strength as much as leverage. Doing eke pada galavasana or koundinyasana (A or B) depends on being willing to bring the upper body forward enough of the pivot of the elbow so that the lower half of the body can become light. Teach this action (shifting forward) in transitions such as plank to chaturanga.
• Don’t fatigue them. Don’t overdo your prep to the point where they’re wiped out for the actual pose.

I would suggest something like the following for a flow/power class:

• Core primer: a little supine core arm up to get their shoulders and legs integrated into the center of their bodies.
• Sun salutations as a general warm up.
• Standing poses and hip stretches that help to open the hips for that particular arm balance. For example, if you’re doing eka pada galavasana, it’s helpful to open the outer hips first in poses such as pigeon, standing pigeon, or awkward pigeon. Most arm balances (crow, koundinyasana, tittibhasana, etc) will require deep hip flexion at the very least. Poses such as lizards and standing poses with binds can help to get the body prepped for this kind of flexibility. Look at your peak arm balance and note what needs to be warmed up. For example, parsva bakasana and dragonfly will require twisting, while tittibhasana will require hamstring opening. Prepare for these openings as needed.
• Alternate standing poses with prep poses on the hands. Don’t do too many poses on the hands in a row; the upper body will get too fatigued.
• Peak: have non hand weight bearing options available. For example, if your peak is side crow, provide an option to do a revolved navasana instead. Plan for alternative (challenging!) options so that everyone has something to work on.
• Cool down: counterpose with gentle backbends and hip flexor openings.

Sequence to a complex standing pose

Complex standing poses – revolved triangle, revolved half moon, ardha chandra chapasana – are challenging and also stabilizing to practice. I won’t go into these too much, but I will say that you can create an excellent, kick ass class by taking your time to teach the necessary actions in strong preparatory poses.

For example, if your peak pose is ardha chandra chapasana, then take your time to really teach your students about the external rotation of the standing leg, and do poses that help them to open the hip flexors and quads. Complex standing poses are delicious and incredibly satisfying. They’re also stable enough to be done in the majority of all levels classes. Best of all, your students will develop more appreciation for their standing poses when you take the time to really suck the marrow out of teaching the alignment.

Shake It Up

Now that you have four sequences at the ready, you can shake it up! Dial up the heat by creating more challenging transitions; or dial the sequence down (all the way to hatha!) by adding modifications and fewer power transitions. Intelligent sequencing can be applied respectively to hatha, power, flow or vinyasa classes; it’s how you teach the poses (pacing, transitions, timing) that will determine your class style.

Moral of the story? You don’t have to create new and wild sequence to create an amazing class experience. As my friend Mel says, “Are you a classical movie, or are you sitcom?” Be a classical movie. Teach confidently from the backbone of your four solid, intelligent sequences. Then spice it up without needing to recreate every sequence from scratch!

PS: Still worried about being boring? Read this!

Want more? Check out my continuing education courses in Yoga Sequencing and Teaching here.