This is a short transcript of Tara Judelle speaking about evolving yoga teaching toward embodiment and somatic inquiry. She describes moving away from directive cueing toward creating repeatable sequences that allow students to explore, step off the mat, investigate edges and resistances, and develop agency and freedom in movement and life. The excerpt contrasts prescriptive instruction with invitation and uses metaphors (mats as boxes, ‘jazz’ as bodily music).
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Foreign. I would start to create sequences that.
I would start to yield away as the facilitator.
So I was trying to get away from.
I say this, you do that. I say this, you do that. I say this, you do that.
Because I don't feel in the end.
That'S going to give people agency.
And then I started to create sequences.
That I would ask them to repeat.
Several times, also pulling away so that in each sequence they would have more opportunity to explore.
And even that was really, really difficult.
For people to not have the do.
This, do this, do this.
But I can trust that my body.
Remembers if I cued them through a few times.
And then inviting people to step off the mat, I think is such a.
Pure practice of seeing where your edges are, where your resistances are, where your freedom lies.
And I can say that.
It'S gotten easier over the years because I think.
People are starting to get more and.
More tastes of investigative practices or somatic practices. And.
And what becomes really curious as the facilitator is how can I invite them to it?
So I try to.
I try to make it a slow drip into the class and.
See what is possible.
But I also am learning over time to also invite people, if they want, they can stay on the mat.
But what I see is, I think.
It'S the clearest arena to see where we. I mean, mats, for example, are hilarious. Like, the whole thing of yoga is to get out of the box, and then we put ourselves in a box. And these boxes are usually rectangle rooms and rectangle buildings and rectangle boxes. And it's very curious, like, what is it all doing to our awareness?
How are we shaping it in those ways?
So I kind of feel like I. I pursued the end game of.
Of asana, and now I'm kind of.
Interested in jazz.
You know, like, if this is the body's music.
And as. As I think a lot of us know. But newer students forget, like, asana was never yoga. I mean, it is yoga, but it was never the initial intention. And I think I have to ask, and I have asked myself, like, does this lead to this? And what I've seen over time is as students find more freedom to step out of the mat, to step into the room, to color outside of the.
Lines, to use more a part of their bodies, to trust themselves.
And it feels to me more. And I've seen they get more agency and freedom in their life.
