One of the upsides of the total systems renovation the pandemic brought to our studio life at Carolina Yoga Company is that we now require preregistration for class; no walk-ins are accommodated.
The benefit of knowing exactly how many students are coming, and just what they are, is huge. We can tailor the class to the students who will be there. And we can set up the room to fit everyone with room around them.
We do that with props. This has been a surprise silver lining in my classes, where I usually cued for props but didn’t use them in every class. Now I do, setting up the room with prop stations before every class. Students lay their mat down at a station—conveniently, mats are just about bolster width, so it’s easy to maximize the spread out in the room without hurried shuffling to fit someone in at the start of class. It’s also great for seeing how many students we are waiting for in the last minutes before class starts.
I think my students have developed a new appreciation for props as a result of always having them on hand. It’s easy to grab something that’s already at your mat, instead of crossing the room for it. And as my class is Yoga for Athletic Balance, we use the props not only to add ease and support to yoga poses, but also to up the challenge. We balance on blocks and bolsters and blankets; we use blocks and bolsters to give us feedback about where our bodies are in space. Thus this funny silver lining has deepened and broadened the student experience. That’s a win.
