There are only so many times that you can either guide your students, or yourself, into pigeon pose before you become totally bored. After a while, you may feel like a broken record repeating the same directions ad infinitum.
Now is the time to get creative and exercise your imagination — for your own benefit and, most importantly, for the benefit of your students.
The Strength of Simile
While you don’t have to attempt complicated metaphors, you should challenge your tongue to tout sweet similes that are guaranteed to deepen anyone’s yoga pose and practice.
When you are planning your class, or practicing in your own home yoga space, try to imagine what every pose or movement is like. Ask yourself, “What is twisting my spine from the base up, like?”, “What is rocking my knees side to side in this hip opener, like?” Get creative, ignite your imagination, and your answers might be, “Like a wash cloth!” or “like windshield wipers!”
Functional Imagery
Using creative language and functional imagery are extremely effective teaching tools. Functional imagery is often used by physiotherapists to help create the somatic ability to perform new movements. Using images that our brains recognize and comprehend helps us to execute these movements as we make direct correlations and links between our body and a clear picture of what it should be imitating.
Here are a few of my favorite functional images for you to try at home and with your yoga students:
Beach Ball
When instructing half moon pose, have your students picture themselves leaning up and over a giant beach ball. Invite them to feel the even arch of the ball up the side of their body.
To gauge the effectiveness of your imagery, have your students try the pose first using your standard teaching technique. Then guide your yoga students back into the pose using the imagery and notice the difference in their yoga poses.
Waterfall
My favorite simile to teach is when my students are in standing forward fold pose (Utanasana). I tell them to let their torsos hang heavily, like a waterfall pouring from their hips down over their legs towards the ground. Without a doubt, the idea of heavy water falling to the earth works for most of my students, and I can actually see them soften and sink deeper into their forward fold.
Building Blocks
A fantastic image to use, in sequence with the waterfall, is a tower of building blocks. When you are ready to have your students slowly roll back up to a standing position (mountain pose) from passive standing forward fold, invite them to imagine each vertebra at a time being stacked perfectly upon the other like building blocks. Once they have come all the way up to standing, let them close their eyes and feel the perfectly stacked tower of blocks reaching tall towards the sky.
Functional imagery via simile has helped me explain the inner sensation of poses and the goal of movement while keeping my teaching fresh and creative.