Yoga lesson planning software
Top 10 Time Saving Features: Drag & Drop Yoga Genie Lesson Planner
Below are the 10 time saving features within The Drag & Drop Yoga Genie Lesson Planner (included within The Yoga Teacher Lesson Plan Kit). Since 2010 I’ve spent well over 10,000 hours updating it. It now has over 1000 shared yoga lesson plans, over 1000 poses to choose from, and lots of easy to use features. It’s a labour of love and my gift to the yoga teacher community.
Time Saving Feature 1
Teaching Steps
The lesson content column has the teaching steps. That means you’ll never again need to waste time wading through yoga magazines or books to research how to teach the pose. All you need to do is quickly glance at the “lesson content column”.
Time Saving Feature 2
Benefits
Having a bunch of benefits to hand is great if you want to sound knowledgeable and wise.
To be honest with you, I have a shockingly bad memory. I mean, it’s embarrassingly bad. I have the kind of memory that when I die, a scientist will extract my brain to figure out just how it got so bad.
If you’re like me and suffer from a poor long-term memory, but have a reasonable short-term memory (like most people), all you need to do is spend a few seconds before class reading the benefits of each pose. Then during a class when you say, “Boat pose strengthens abdomen, hip flexors and spine” your students will look upon you with eyes glazed with awe.
Time Saving Feature 3
Stick Figures
My graphic designer (bless her) spent several months creating these cute, eye-catching yoga stick figures.
She almost quit half way through, but I told her that her cute colourful creations would brighten the lives of thousands of yoga teachers worldwide. No, really that’s what I said. I was half joking at the time, but a few years have passed and over a 1000 yoga teachers are using Drag & Drop Yoga Genie Lesson Planner. They also come in five other colours just in case you don’t like blue.
Time Saving Feature 4
Video Tutorial
If you read time saving feature #2, you’ll be aware of my poor poor memory. Well, that’s why I’ve included a link to a short video tutorial. Simply click the link, watch the video and voila, you have just jogged your memory on how to teach the darn thing.
Time Saving Feature 5
Modifications
How the heck are you supposed to remember all the modifications? You don’t need to. Simply open the yoga lesson plan that you created with The Drag & Drop Yoga Genie Lesson Planner and look at the modifications column. For example, if you were teaching boat pose, a quick glance to the modification column will have you saying: “Loop a strap around the soles of your feet.”
Time Saving Feature 6
Alternatives
The alternative column will provide you with useful alternatives. For example in boat pose, a quick glance at the alternatives column will have you saying: “Bend your knees” to students who are struggling in the full pose.
Time Saving Feature 7
Precautions
I was terrible at giving precautions during my yoga teacher training!
My teacher trainer would always say, “George, you forgot to mention the precautions“. Now all I have to do is quickly glance at the precautions column and know exactly what the precautions are. I now fully understand why my trainer was so adamant that I mention the precautions. If you’ve been teaching for any length of time, you’ll know that most of your students (if not all of them) have at least one weak area (e.g. wrist, lower back, neck, high blood pressure, etc).
Time Saving Feature 8
Sanskrit
Find it hard to remember the Sanskrit for all the poses? Me too! That’s why I included the Sanskrit column on the yoga lesson plans.
Albert Einstein couldn’t remember his telephone number.
I didn’t make that up!
The story goes that a colleague asked him for his phone number, and Einstein reached for his telephone directory to look it up. “You don’t remember your own number?” the man asked, startled. “No,” Einstein answered. “Why should I memorise something I can so easily get from a book?” He supported the theory that we should not clutter our brains. Doesn’t that thought make your poor long-term memory feel a wee bit better?
Time Saving Feature 9
Preparation Poses
The Drag & Drop Yoga Genie Lesson Planner conveniently gives you two or three preparation poses to choose from. That means you’ll no longer have to waste your precious time researching follow up poses in yoga magazines and books.
Time Saving Feature 10
Follow-up Poses
If you get the “follow-up poses” wrong, your students will leave your classes in droves!
The reason is that a yoga sequence needs to flow.
Your sequence needs to logically go from one pose to the next so it feels almost like a dance. For example, you wouldn’t go from standing to sitting to standing. That isn’t a flow. That’s a car crash. Fear not if you struggle coming up with suitable follow-up poses because The Drag Drop Yoga Genie Lesson Planner (silent “Hoorah” in your mind) will come to your rescue and give you two or three follow-up poses to choose from. That means you can create an infinite number of yoga sequences as easy as shelling peas, taking candy from a baby and shooting fish in a barrel. Though if you get an urge to take candy from babies and start shooting fish in barrels, please find some peas instead.
