It’s interesting after 15 years of practicing yoga, I realized I never actually knew what fascia was. I’ve heard teachers refer to it countless times, but I never thought to ask or explore it more deeply until now.

I also really appreciated the breathwork teachings. When I first started practicing yoga, I remember being introduced to a wider variety of pranayama techniques. Lately, it feels like many classes default to four-part breath or ujjayi breath, and I had almost forgotten about some of the other pranayamas I had previously learned. Revisiting them felt both familiar and refreshing.

These reflections have me curious about both the broader shift in teaching styles and my own evolution as a student. Recently, I’ve noticed that my practice hasn’t been living up to its full potential, as I often find myself in classes that emphasize the physical aspects of yoga. My goal is to start practicing more regularily at home so I can focus more on the pieces where I feel I may be lacking. This leaves me wondering how I might approach my own teaching in the future, and where I want to place my focus when I begin facilitating.

Anatomy Exploration: I most appreciated the encouragement to approach the topic with curiosity instead of expecting ourselves to be overnight experts. Before the video, the que to notice where the skeleton meets the floor was very helpful and eye-opening to think about where bodyweight applies pressure. The blue/red photos were super cool! And appreciated actually doing the poses with the photos to feel the colors.

Pranayama (Breath): I was disappointed to hear there aren’t “magic points” for perfectly counting my breaths, lol. But seriously, I appreciated the encouragement of making breathwork accessible by having us facilitate without creating an arbitrary benchmark for breathing. I also loves the brief shoutout to natural breath because I honestly think it’s one of the most impactful breaths. The info around tapping and face touching was very helpful from a trauma-informed lens.

Science was never my thing (I dropped biology in grade 11 so I could focus on communications and the arts lol), but I understand why it's important that I understand the skeletal system, muscular system, and nervous system so I can keep myself and others safe during practice. The contraction → stretching visuals with the colour coding helped it click.

Breathwork was the biggest takeaway. Kapalabhati, which we always did at the end of Modo (I forget what they called it there), is the one that really hit. I forgot that after learning that breathwork, I would use it in my actual life to calm down when I was anxious. I had a flashback to doing it in my car before arriving at the parking lot for my old 9–5.

Tbh, I didn’t even realize at the time that I was using yoga as a tool to regulate myself, I just knew it genuinely worked better than any other tool I tried to rely on previously. I’m also familiar with Ujjayi and lion’s breath, but I had never heard of alternate nostril or bee breath. Those were interesting too, especially Sarah K's comment! 

I also really appreciated all the variations on poses in this session and the discussion around that perfect yoga pose for the camera, it was a great reminder that all of our bodies are different and every pose is going to look different for all of us and that those muscles are still working and stretching 

That said, I definitely felt a shift in my energy. As I kept moving, my body started to wake up and feel more energized/ready for action. Even if my focus wasn’t perfect, there was a clear sense of circulation and activation. So while mentally I felt a bit scattered, physically I felt more present and switched on by the end of the sequence. 

I definitely need to pay more attention to the breathing techniques. Like others mentioned, I also tend to hold my breath during movement. 

I noticed that in the first demo that Jen provided she was inviting participants to basically begin by embodying their energy through movement t, and I thought about how valuable it might be for someone to start moving randomly and realise that say swaying quickly from side to side might mean that they were nervous/excited, or that some people might find a lot of pride and self-assertion in creating their own movement and owning that movement and the feelings behind it for themselves. Lastly, I appreciated how student-lead this movement exercise was, meaning that Jen was inviting the participants to move in a way that reflects their energy, to express that for themselves, rather than offering an activity where students are meant to be mirroring and exactly copying the teacher who is giving orders: this aspect of the PYP approach is really interesting to me, the idea that people are creating their own experience through participation in a group. I assume this is partly to do with countering the highly authoritarian and hierarchical atmosphere of a prison, but I think there's something more important there around dignity and choice.