Learning the Hot Yoga dialogue!!

During my hot yoga 26/2 training progressed, my study of the dialogue evolved throughout the process, and thus I thought it merit-worthy to create a post sharing some of my tips and tricks. When I embarked on the 200 hour hot yoga certification, the task of learning the dialogue seemed behemoth, and at the start I had searched online for decent articles to motivate and inspire me but to no avail. So here lies your motivational and inspiring learning guide.

As an ex-secondary school English teacher, awareness of distinct learning styles a la Gardner is present, however due to the nature of this task at hand – i.e. memorising a complete script, I think there is scope to venture in and out of different styles to keep the learning process fresh, engaging and prevent a plateaux in learning.

I discuss each exercise/activity as it evolved and developed in my two month study period, however a list of content for ease and organisation is here, which I will come back and create anchor links for next time!

Coded Scaffold

Scaffold Wall

Read & Recite

Recite, Recite, Recite

Record & Review

Taking A Break!

Simple Reading

Section Scaffold

Pick & Mix

Picture Mapping

To set the context, I undertook my 200hr Hot Yoga 26/2 TT with a yoga school in London, structured over ten weekends, every other Saturday and Sunday meeting together at the yoga studio. My course began the very same day that the UK national lockdown began, and subsequently, the gyms and yoga studios had to close! So we had our first day of the course together and then no more! Adaptations were made, minds were flexible and the course was taken online, with group meetings, online practices, pre-recorded lectures and posture labs, and a whole innovative approach to spending 20hours online together every other weekend. It was actually really, really cool, and the way we could all be together and learn, and cover everything we needed to do, and teach each other, and break off into little groups, and share, and learn so much – yet all within the comfort of our own home, warm and cosy, snacks at hand, optimum learning conditions. Being at home, during Lockdown, doing a 200hr yoga teacher training, was a blessing! Perfect conditions. So yes, I studied the dialogue a lot!

In the beginning…

It all starts with reading right? Wrong. Personally, I could read the dialogue ten times over and it wouldn’t really stick. In order for any brain activity to be occurring, I have to immediately get to work on creating meaning for my brain to hook in to, if I am able to retain and regurgitate this stuff. For me this meant creating a framework around the dialogue to make my mental tags from. This is referred to as a scaffold – something which supports the learner but will be gradually removed.

Coded Scaffold

My coded scaffold consisted of noting down the first letter of each word for each of the ten rounds of pranayama. This sounds tedious but actually, when you are already reading and repeating a line verbally, it is another helpful crutch to be noting down the first letter of each word as a way of tracking you through each sentence. I actually intended on reading the dialogue and then writing it down, but found this to be just as effective and slightly lazier way of doing that. So I would read a line, and then repeat it, jotting down just the first letter and that would then produce a sort of code for that line of the dialogue.

So the first inhalation of pranayama – “Inhale, elbows up, elbows back, chin down, spine long, full lungs” becomes EU. EB. CD. SL. FL.

I did not include notation for the words ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’ as these were already easy handles to grasp but you could also include them.

When I had completed this process for the whole of pranayama, I then had a coded map for this section of the dialogue. Recalling the dialogue from this coded scaffold was so easy, it really was. I think partly because creating this scaffold is also such an effective learning activity in itself. This meant that the results were confidence-boosting and pretty fun. To be able to read, retain and repeat the first chunk of the dialogue, quickly and easily, is an extremely inspiring and motivational way to begin. Just create the code, then look at it and say what each line means. Easy.

I very quickly moved through pranayama, whole of half moon, with backbend and forward bend, all three parts of awkward and eagle too. That in itself is quite a huge task! Half-moon and awkward alone contain several different parts, but this coded scaffold really worked! I did all of this in a small notebook.

Scaffold Wall

My next step was to create larger ‘map’ to make a big, easily visible display on my bedroom wall. For this I used A4 paper and permanent marker pens and simply copied out (or again, use it as a learning tool, and re-create your code from memory) and blue-tacked to the wall (see image below). From here I could literally lie on my sofa and practice reciting the dialogue using my scaffold. Simple.

N.B. – I also found that as I moved through learning the rest of the dialogue, these initial poses where I had created a scaffold, were slightly harder to then recall completely from memory and the scaffold had become more of a crutch that it was harder to let go of. Thus I used less scaffolds throughout the process, but absolutely recommend this method at the beginning to kick off the process with some momentum.

Read & Recite

I found that I naturally started to think about the next few postures as I would come to the end of practicing up to the water break. At first, just thinking in my head what I assumed the words would be given that I have a strong knowledge of the actual postures when done physically. Then I’d take a look at the script and mentally, and casually, compare what the actual words were. Reading the script this way, perhaps also helped retention, as the brain activity of noting what I’d got right and other details which were mentioned in the dialogue again served as memory tags and helped me ‘chunk’ memory together. Every now and then, when I was pottering around my bedroom, I might grab the dialogue and just quickly read over head to knee, standing bow and balancing stick, and quickly practice reciting these whilst still pottering around, tidying and what not.

I’d then just practice reciting the whole dialogue from start of pranayama to end of balancing stick.

Recite, Recite, Recite

I then moved totally off script – like, didn’t look at it at all for ages, days, weeks, but I recited the dialogue up from the start to the end of Stick, relentlessly. When I was in the shower; when I was doing my evening skin-care routine; sometimes even when I was lying in bed before going to sleep! I couldn’t get enough of saying it in my head. It became like a chill-out activity. Just a little lie-down and say the dialogue. Sit on the balcony, relax, say the dialogue. Whenever the question of what to do with myself arose, the answer was always just lie on the sofa and say the dialogue. For a good couple of weeks I did this, and again just naturally started to move forward to including the next few poses.

Before I knew it I was almost at the end of the standing series – and what is note-worthy, is that I did not use any scaffolds or learning tools, I simply thought about it, read it and recited it. Consistently.

Record & Review

Another helpful step in my process came from recording myself delivering the script. I found that the added element of recording it, added a certain pressure which served as a good test of memory and timing when delivering it, and I tried to start thinking about intonation and emphasis at this point. I also enjoyed the fun of recording it and wanting to get it perfect so it felt like a challenge. This was an enjoyable stage of my learning process.

I would then listen back to it afterwards, script in hand – and this was a really helpful and important part of the learning – and note things I had missed out and things I had said wrong. For me, this self-assessment and correction really cemented these parts into my memory and I had an easy time recalling them the next time I practiced the dialogue.

This record and review stage really strengthen my knowledge of the dialogue and I was beginning to form a subconscious mentally map of how the small sections of each pose corresponded to the body and the movement happening as the pose progresses. The reason I say this is subconscious, is because I don’t think at the time you necessarily know this is happening, but later down the line, it becomes more apparent, and I will return to this point.

I also toyed around with video filming sometimes, again to practice my presence and delivery style, and just to mix it up and keep things fun. By this point – practicing up to Tree and then listening or watching it back would take a good hour, or little longer, so this became a good solid daily practice. In each day’s To Do thoughts, I would just be sure to involve recording myself saying the dialogue and watching it back – simple! This became it for a while.

Take A Break

This was not actually intentional – more the mood and vibe of the Lockdown – I stepped away from the studies for a bit. Perhaps I was a little bit bored, wanting to make progress and be teaching people, with this great handle I had of the dialogue and the practice in itself, but stuck at home and stuck with myself. So I just put my energy into other things, other creative avenues. I found less time for the dialogue and spent more time out riding my bike, reading books, blogging, making Youtube videos, anything that wasn’t the dialogue.

Our next TT weekend came around and I found I had made zero progress, which was fine, as I was ahead anyway so now I was just where I was supposed to be, and I still remembered most of it, just a bit rusty. However as soon as I went back to the studies, bam, it came back, and it was better than ever. I think taking a break from the learning and letting the knowledge just marinate in there is a really important part of the process. Just like when you work muscles in the gym and then let them rest in order to build, this is a suitable analogy for the dialogue-learning process. Study hard, and then step away, let that fresh knowledge get covered over by new fresh stuff, so it becomes more embedded, deeper into the memory bank. Not sure if memory does work like this, but it serves as another nice analogy.

I found that when I returned to my studies, what I had learnt was still in there and actually the next few poses seemed to stick even easier, like just adding to this pre-existing bank of memories. Before I knew it, I was already thinking about Cobra, the previous few postures just sank right in.

Take-away: Taking a break is an important part of the process!

Simple Reading

From here, simply reading back over the script, in scrupulous detail, examining exactly what it said compared to what I was remembering/reciting. When I practiced teaching a few postures in the next TT weekend, I received feedback of it being “polished” and I think this simple close-reading technique made that happen. Once we have the memory, it is about refining it by looking closely at what has been retained and how accurate that actually is. Another important stage.

Section Scaffold

This idea evolved from my satisfaction in refining my memory of the dialogue further – and coming back to what was mentioned earlier about forming a subconscious map of the sections of dialogue contained within each pose.

In my mind, I was suddenly more able to see how the dialogue developed throughout a given pose – for example, Eagle has five mini-sections in the dialogue - the first section describes set-up of arms, next is the sit-down and set-up of legs, the next sections details weight distribution, and what body and face are doing, then there is another section which details arms, then legs, then the final section is the change. Each pose can be broken down like this, and as the mind moves through the dialogue it becomes more clear what section needs to come next and what kind of details are mentioned in that section. It was here that I realised I had somehow learned a deeper pattern within the script which correlated with my knowledge of the poses physically. A Penny-Dropped moment occurred, when I realised I pretty much knew all the poses up to Cobra inside out, structurally and word-for-word – which is pretty amazing outcome which just gradually happened! Over two and a half months.

Another activity did based on this, was to make a postcard for each pose, breaking down into sections, and then going through each one and writing details in pencil of main points, things I forget or things in BOLD which needed emphasis. Again this is another area of attention once basic retention is good – where to put emphasis and switch up the pace or volume during delivery.

Now I had created a pack of cue-cards for all the postures, which I could literally glance and recite that posture near perfectly. Or go through in detail and practice the refinements of delivering the dialogue. A great study tool!.

Pick & Mix

Using the cue-cards mentioned previously, I can now either just go through them sequentially and say the dialogue, or pick one out at random and say the dialogue for that posture. It’s quite fun, and there are lots of cues on the card so it is a bit like a puzzle, where you have some of the info but have to fill in the blanks and say it perfectly. It’s also good as if time is limited, as you can just pull a few cards, or even just one and quickly test yourself.

Picture Coding

As I was moving in to learning the floor series, from Cobra onwards, I recalled an incredible memorisation activity from my school teacher days. It was a technique that we often used to aid children to learn lengthy pieces of text such as a Shakespearean monologue. This technique involves, drawing a simple image to represent each cue in the dialogue. You will then have a coded image map for the whole pose. Again it is like a puzzle, and when looking back it is very easy to recall the actual words based on the images. I did this exercise and learnt cobra and half locust immediately, and full locust and bow are half way there. This is pretty impressive based on how little time I spent studying. I will be using this technique for the remainder of the script as it is so fun to get the initial grasp of the script with and appeals to my creativity and learning style. See images.

Other points

This is obviously just the process that worked for me, and may not be exactly how your brain works, and people all study and learn things in a way which is unique to them, hopefully. I will also add, that there was a while in my studies when although I had a grasp and could retain more of the dialogue than my peers in my TT group, my accuracy was not the best and in places I was rushed and messy, just saying whatever I could remember and thought was next. I was certainly not word-for-word verbatim. But again, I think this was an important part of the process for me as I just jumped onto the dialogue and hung on for as long as I could each time. And eventually my grip became more accurate so it paid off in the end

Please feel free to leave a comment if this is helpful, or you have some other ideas which work for you. Love to hear from you and thanks for reading!