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George’s Introduction
Sequencing needs a route. I’m George, a BWY yoga teacher, creator of the Online Yoga Lesson Planner, yoga card deck maker and enthusiastic sticky-note doodler.
This guide is not ten activities to teach in order. It is a ten-step planning method for deciding what your class needs, what should stay familiar, what can change and how to turn those decisions into a clear yoga class structure.
I have replaced abstract advice with forty classroom examples. You will see the method used for beginners, chair yoga, online teaching, mixed-level groups, peak poses, workshops and six-week courses. If a step sounds sensible but slightly foggy, the examples show what it looks like on an ordinary teaching day.
The Formula at a Glance
Use these ten decisions. They move from calming the planning noise to creating a formula you can reuse.
Calm the Planning Noise
Begin with one decision. The first two steps stop the search for a magical perfect sequence and give you something useful to plan.
1Record the Questions, Then Choose
Your inner planner may produce twenty questions at once. Write down the important ones, then choose the class purpose, the likely group and the time available. The plan becomes easier when those three facts are visible.
Beginner evening class: You start with a page of possible poses. The useful facts are simpler: twelve beginners, sixty minutes and a purpose of exploring steady standing. You choose Mountain, supported weight shifts, Warrior II, a chair-supported balance, a floor transition and rest.
Chair-yoga cover class: You do not know the group, so your mind invents every possible difficulty. You write a reliable route with seated arrival, joint movement, supported standing, seated breath awareness and relaxation, plus a fully seated option for every standing activity.
Small online class: Your creative flow travels across the room, but two students practise in bedrooms. You replace it with a sequence beside one chair and write where you will change the camera angle before anyone has to guess where your feet went.
Mixed-level substitute: You are covering another teacher’s class and cannot predict the experience level. You choose a familiar route, prepare one smaller version and one more demanding development, and leave two activities marked optional rather than planning three different classes.
Planning action: Write the people, purpose and available time at the top of the page before choosing activities.
2Stop Chasing Perfect Sequences
There is no single correct order for every group. A useful sequence has a clear reason, a teachable route, appropriate choices and enough time to finish. Another teacher may make different decisions and still teach a coherent class.
Tree Pose class: One teacher begins on the floor with foot and ankle movement. Another begins standing with weight shifts at a chair. Both routes can prepare Tree Pose because each introduces the balance task in a manageable way.
Gentle morning class: You normally begin lying down, but several students dislike getting to the floor twice. You start seated on chairs, move to supported standing and come to the floor only once for the final quiet section.
Restorative class: Your draft contains six supported shapes because six looks complete on paper. During rehearsal, the prop changes feel rushed. You choose three shapes, allow time for setup and make comfort the measure of success.
Peak-pose class: Your plan builds towards Crow, but the room includes students who do not want wrist loading. The class explores hand pressure, squatting and weight transfer, while Crow remains one optional expression rather than the test everyone must pass.
Planning action: Ask whether the route serves this group today, not whether it would win a sequencing competition.
Start with People and Training
Plan from reality. Your training gives you a professional boundary. The students in front of you determine how you use what you know.
3Teach Within Your Scope
Your yoga teacher training shapes how you sequence, cue and adapt. Use it confidently, but do not treat one inherited sequence as suitable for every setting or teach specialist material beyond your competence.
Breathwork class: You have training in comfortable breath awareness and equal breathing, but not long retentions. Your plan uses natural breathing, a gentle equal count and an ordinary breathing option instead of copying an advanced ratio from social media.
Shoulderstand exploration: Your training includes the pose, its setup and alternatives. You still plan Legs Up the Wall and a supported Bridge route because training gives you choices; it does not make one inversion appropriate for every student.
Pregnancy in class: A regular student tells you she is pregnant. You ask about her needs, work within your training and prepare ordinary alternatives. If her situation requires expertise you do not have, you refer rather than improvise specialist advice.
Chair-yoga setting: You understand the poses but have less experience teaching people who use mobility aids. You simplify the first session, allow extra transition time and learn what the group can do instead of treating the chair as a normal mat at waist height.
Planning action: Mark any activity that needs specialist knowledge, individual assessment or a referral before it reaches the plan.
4Reuse One Base Plan
My practical starting point is to reuse one coherent plan across a six-week block. This is not a universal rule. It is a way to reduce preparation time, help students recognise the route and let your teaching become more responsive.
Six-week balance block: Week 1 introduces foot pressure, supported Tree and rest. Week 2 repeats the route with longer pauses. Week 3 adds a hand-position choice. Week 4 develops supported Warrior III. Week 5 lets students choose their route. Week 6 revisits the whole journey.
Chair-yoga course: The class keeps the same arrival, seated mobility and relaxation for six weeks. The standing section develops from seated heel raises to supported standing heel raises, then to a small balance choice behind the chair.
Weekly drop-in class: Attendance changes, so you keep a recognisable spinal-mobility route but treat every week as self-contained. New students receive the first version; returning students explore a different range, pace or point of attention.
Seasonal class series: You use one stable structure for six weeks while the theme changes gently: grounding, steadiness, patience, confidence, choice and reflection. Students meet new ideas without relearning the entire route each Thursday.
Planning action: Duplicate a strong completed plan and decide what stays familiar before deciding what develops.
Change One Useful Thing
Let change earn its place. The next two steps replace frantic novelty with a small development that has a clear teaching purpose.
5Notice Your Planning Habit
Planning habits are not personality verdicts. They are patterns you can see and change. Notice whether you tend to overfill, rewrite, chase novelty or rely on memory without preparing useful options.
The overfilled plan: Your sixty-minute draft contains forty activities. You circle the class purpose, keep the twelve activities that support it and move the others into a future-ideas list. The plan loses weight and gains a beginning, middle and end.
The endless rewrite: You change the opening three times because none feels special enough. You choose the clearest version, rehearse it once and use the saved time to plan the transition into standing and the final rest.
The novelty chase: You find an impressive transition online on Wednesday night. Instead of dropping it into Thursday’s mixed-level class, you test it in your own practice and keep the familiar transition until you know why the new one belongs.
The memory-only plan: You know the regular group well and assume you can improvise. A new student arrives and you cannot remember your chair option. Next week you still teach responsively, but the chair, wall and resting routes are already written down.
Planning action: Name the habit without judging yourself, then make one practical correction on the page.
6Make One Weekly Change
If you want variety, change one useful element while the main route stays familiar. The change may be an option, a teaching focus, a transition, a breath practice or an ending—not necessarily a new pose.
Week 2 balance class: The route stays the same, but students pause for one breath after every weight shift. The change is attention and timing, not another balance pose.
Week 3 chair class: You keep the seated-to-standing route and add one wall-supported option for students who want a different base of support. Nobody has to relearn the whole class.
Week 4 hip class: The main sequence is unchanged. You replace the final guided relaxation with a body scan because the group asked for more help settling after movement.
Week 5 online class: You keep the familiar standing route but demonstrate one transition from a second camera angle. The useful change is visibility, which is more valuable than adding a new shape.
Planning action: Write the weekly change in blue at the top of the copied plan so its purpose stays visible.
Repeat, Notice and Adapt
Familiarity creates space. When the route is recognisable, students can notice more and you can teach the people instead of reciting the page.
7Use Purposeful Repetition
Repetition is useful when it builds familiarity, confidence or understanding. Repeat the route, but keep observing. Familiar does not mean compulsory, identical or mindless.
Sun Salutation route: In Week 1 you teach every transition slowly. By Week 3 students recognise the pattern, so you use fewer words and invite them to notice how pace changes their breathing.
Chair sit-to-stand: The group practises the same chair-to-standing route each week. One student uses both hands, another uses one and another pauses halfway. Repetition supports different developments without turning the class into a test.
Tree Pose series: Students repeat supported Tree on both sides for four weeks. Instead of removing the chair, you offer choices: fingertips, one hand, both hands or toes resting down. Familiarity makes choice feel normal.
Breath awareness: You return to a comfortable equal count at the start of six classes. Students no longer spend the whole practice decoding the instruction, so they can notice effort, ease and when natural breathing is the wiser option.
Planning action: Keep the repeated element clear, optional and connected to what students are learning.
8Connect with the Students
A formula is useful only while you remain available to the room. Watch how students arrive, move, rest and respond. Their experience tells you when to continue, simplify, pause or leave something out.
Low-energy evening: Seven regulars arrive looking tired after a hot day. You keep the familiar route but shorten the standing section, use the chair earlier and begin the floor transition eight minutes sooner.
A new beginner: The group knows the sequence, but one new student is continually looking around. You slow the first side, demonstrate the transition and let the regulars use the quieter second round they already recognise.
Online observation: A student repeatedly disappears from camera during floor transitions. You ask whether the route is working, then offer a standing version beside the chair rather than assuming silence means comfort.
After-class feedback: A student says the repeated balance route helped her feel progress, while the final transition felt rushed. You keep the balance section and remove one floor activity next week so the ending has room.
Planning action: After class, record one thing students used well, one change you made and one decision for next time.
Build Your Structure and Formula
Create a dependable route. The final two steps turn your observations into a reusable class structure and a formula that still leaves room for real people.
9Create a Reusable Class Structure
Your structure is the broad journey through time. It can be simple: arrive, prepare, explore, reduce demand, rest and close. Adjust the minutes to the setting instead of squeezing a sixty-minute class into every timetable.
30-minute online class: 0–3 minutes: arrive and check the space. 3–7: simple preparation beside a chair. 7–20: one standing exploration. 20–25: reduce demand. 25–29: rest or quiet breathing. 29–30: close.
45-minute chair class: 0–5 minutes: arrive. 5–12: seated mobility. 12–28: supported standing and balance. 28–35: seated return. 35–43: relaxation. 43–45: close and allow time for an unhurried transition.
60-minute mixed class: 0–6 minutes: arrive. 6–15: prepare. 15–37: standing route. 37–47: main exploration with choices. 47–52: move down and reduce demand. 52–59: rest. 59–60: close.
75-minute workshop: 0–8 minutes: arrive and introduce the idea. 8–20: prepare. 20–45: develop the route. 45–58: main exploration. 58–65: reduce demand. 65–73: rest. 73–75: close and name the takeaway.
Planning action: Write the time beside each broad section before you fill it with activities.
10Write Your Sequencing Formula
Your formula is the reusable decision-making route inside that structure. It should help you answer what comes next without forcing every class to look the same. Write it in plain language and test it with real plans.
Balance formula: Arrive through foot pressure → prepare with ankle and hip movement → explore weight shifts → develop supported balances → choose one main balance → return to two feet → reduce demand → rest.
Chair-yoga formula: Arrive seated → mobilise comfortably → prepare feet and legs → offer supported standing → return to sitting → include breath or hand focus → relax → close with plenty of transition time.
Peak-pose formula: Name the movement task → offer a small useful version → prepare the main demands → build one demand at a time → offer the peak as a choice → plan the exit → recover → rest.
Gentle-evening formula: Arrive quietly → make small comfortable movements → explore one simple theme → pause often → move to supported floor positions → reduce words and light → rest → close without rushing people back into Tuesday.
Planning action: Test the formula against three different classes. Keep what guides you and change what creates unnecessary rules.
One Complete Six-Week Example
Watch the formula work. Here is how a sixty-minute mixed-level balance class can develop without rebuilding the whole lesson every week.
Learn the route
Arrive through foot pressure; prepare with ankle circles and weight shifts; explore supported Tree; develop supported Warrior III; return to two feet; move to the floor; rest. Keep the chair available throughout.
Add a pause
Repeat the route. Add one natural breath after each weight shift and let students notice how completely they return to two feet before the next balance.
Change the hands
Repeat the route. In Tree, offer both hands on the chair, fingertips, one hand or hands at the hips. The change explores support rather than declaring the chair beginner equipment.
Develop one task
Repeat the route. In Warrior III, explore a slightly longer reach through the lifted heel while the hands stay supported. Students choose range and duration.
Offer ownership
Repeat the route with fewer words. Students choose their Tree and Warrior III options, and you spend more time observing than introducing new shapes.
Review the journey
Repeat the familiar route. Ask students what feels clearer and which support helps them practise well. Keep the useful answers in the next version of the plan.
The plan did not stagnate. The route stayed stable while attention, choice and one physical task developed. A new student could still use the Week 1 versions, while returning students had something genuine to explore.
Common Questions
Keep the answers practical. These are the questions yoga teachers often ask when they first try a reusable formula.
Do I have to repeat a plan for six weeks?
No. Six weeks is my useful starting point, not a commandment. A drop-in class may need a self-contained plan every week, while a course can develop one route deliberately. Keep what reduces preparation and improves learning.
Will students get bored?
They may get bored if nothing has purpose, but repetition is not the same as doing nothing new. In a repeated Tree route, one week can explore foot pressure, another support, another gaze and another the transition back to two feet.
What if different students arrive?
Keep the broad route and change the demands. If two beginners join a regular balance class, use the chair from the start, teach the first version clearly and let familiar students choose a development without turning the room into separate camps.
How much should I change?
Start with one change you can name. Add a wall option, extend the rest, alter one transition or change the point of attention. If you cannot explain why the change helps this class, save it for another plan.
Can the formula include breathwork or philosophy?
Yes, when it serves the class and sits within your training. For example, a steadiness theme might use one short teaching idea during arrival, return to it during supported balance and close with comfortable breath awareness rather than adding three unrelated talks.
Online Yoga Lesson Planner
Put the formula to work. The Online Yoga Lesson Planner lets you choose from thousands of poses, easily arrange sequences, and copy completed lesson plans to quickly create a 6 or 10 week course.
For example, create the Week 1 balance plan, copy it five times, then make one purposeful change in each copy. Your reliable base stays visible and your course grows without six encounters with a blank screen.
George’s Conclusion
A useful formula evolves. Write the people, purpose and time first. Reuse what works, change one thing for a reason, watch the students and protect the ending. The formula should remove unnecessary decisions so you have more attention for teaching.
Before your next class, write your broad structure and one plain-language purpose. Build the smallest clear route that serves both. Afterwards, record what happened. That note is not paperwork; it is the next version of your formula beginning to introduce itself.