Ignite Your Fire

This week’s inspiration comes from the Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura), which is our center of willpower, confidence, and transformation! It’s the inner flame that helps us digest -- yes, food, but also life itself -- our challenges, fears, and experiences.

When this chakra is balanced, we move through the world with courage, clarity, and a strong sense of capability.

A Solar Plexus–themed class pairs well with deep core work, energizing twists, and intentional heat-building to burn away stagnation, doubt, and outdated beliefs about unworthiness. Every breath and movement becomes fuel for transformation! 

Make it your own: reflect on your own relationship with the Solar Plexus. How have you personally worked with confidence, willpower, or transformation in your life or practice? Maybe you’ve overcome self-doubt through teaching, leaned on your inner fire during a big transition, or experienced how core work shifts your energy beyond the mat. Share a story, an insight, or even a simple truth you’ve learned about resilience and self-belief. When you weave in your own lived experience, it helps students connect to the teaching in a more authentic and human way!

Fluid Freedom

The sacral chakra (Svadhisthana) is our center of creativity, enjoyment, fluidity, and connection. Energetically located in the pelvis and associated with the element of water, it governs how we relate to movement, emotion, and the world around us. When it’s balanced, there’s a natural sense of ease, adaptability, and joy in both body and mind, like water flowing effortlessly around whatever it encounters.

This chakra invites us to soften the edges, embrace change, and explore the full spectrum of sensation and expression. Just as water can be calm or powerful, gentle or unstoppable, our sacral energy allows us to move between stillness and motion, playfulness and depth, without getting stuck in one state. When we connect to this energy, we open ourselves to new ideas, deeper intimacy, and the freedom to move in harmony with life rather than resisting it.

Make it your own: open up Spotify and search "Sacral Chakra Yoga". See what songs other yoga teachers have incorporated into their Sacral Chakra classes, then roll out your mat and move with the music. Spend 2-3 songs in pure flow state, and see what arises with no agenda. Just pure practice. If any of the songs made you feel totally present, add them to your playlist this week and share that energy with your students.

Root Down Deep

The theme of this class is the Root Chakra: our energetic foundation for safety, stability, and presence. When this chakra is balanced, we feel grounded, calm, and secure in ourselves and our choices. When it’s imbalanced, we may feel anxious, scattered, stuck in survival mode, or disconnected from our bodies.

The energy of this Chakra in flow is moving with intention, connecting to the mat beneath us, and allowing a sense of steadiness to grow from the bottom up.

Make It Your Own: think back to this weekend -- what were some moments off the mat where you feel most grounded? (For me: walking barefoot in my backyard, cooking a nourishing meal, + using brahmari breath). Tell your students about one of these moments mid-flow; it helps them understand how to take their yoga off the mat! 

Tending Softly

This week’s dharma talk is a continuation of last week's take on Yoga Sutra 2.28: "Through sustained practice, impurities are removed and the light of wisdom shines."

Think about moving with the energy of tending. Not fixing, not forcing; showing up with gentle care. I invited students to think of their practice like gently tending to a garden. We softened. We made space. Slowly, mindfully, with ease.

We explored the idea that impurities (those mental, emotional, or physical patterns that block our clarity) aren't always loud. Sometimes, they whisper. They settle in slowly, like weeds growing around the roots. And when we rush past ourselves, we don’t always notice them!

This slow flow became a way of tending inward: one breath at a time, one shape at a time. Cultivating the conditions for clarity. In nature, growth happens in the right environment and in it's own time. It's the same with us. 

The reminder I offered in class:
We don’t have to be hard, or harsh, or fast to change.
Softness is powerful. Slowness is potent.
And the light within us shines brightest when we move with love.

Make it your own: Share a moment where going slow changed everything: a time when a gentle approach helped you see more clearly. Or talk about something you've cared for over time (a plant, a space, a relationship), and how that consistent, quiet effort made all the difference!

Pull The Weeds

This week’s dharma talk is inspired by Yoga Sutra 2.28: "Through sustained practice, impurities are removed and the light of wisdom shines."

Last week, we talked about releasing what weighs us down. This week, I took that idea deeper by framing it as digging up the weeds! I'm talking about those sneaky habits, patterns, and thought loops that quietly take root when we’re not paying attention. In yogic philosophy, these are the impurities that cloud our inner clarity. Left unchecked, they spread like weeds in a garden, crowding out the ease and spaciousness we’re working to uncover.

I invited students to reflect: What’s overgrown in your inner landscape? Are there beliefs or reactions that feel automatic? Stories that feel heavy? Each movement, each breath in practice became a quiet act of pulling up those weeds and clearing space for something more nourishing! The reminder I offered in class: Yoga doesn’t plant the flowers for us, it gives us the tools to clear the soil.

Make it your own: Share a story about tending to a garden or even a houseplant -- how weeds (or even dust!) build up when you're not paying attention. Talk about the satisfaction of clearing space and what beauty that space makes room for!

Space Cleared for Clarity

This week’s dharma talk is inspired by Yoga Sutra 2.28: "Through sustained practice, impurities are removed and the light of wisdom shines."

We often think of ~impurities~ as physical toxins or unhealthy habits, but in yogic philosophy, impurities are anything that clouds our clarity (old thought patterns, stories, commitments that drain us, or even physical clutter in our spaces). Over time, these layers build up, weighing us down without us even realizing.

I framed this talk around the idea that letting go is a form of self-care. Just like we clean out our closets to make space for what we love, we can clear the mental and energetic clutter that blocks our light!

I invited students to reflect: what are you carrying that you don’t need? where are you gripping out of habit? Ultimately, this talk reminds students that wisdom is revealed when we clear what’s in the way.

Make it your own: Share a story about how it felt for you to clean out a cluttered area of your home. Talk about what you found deep in your closet/drawer that was taking up space, and how it felt to let it go (if you don't have a story about this, maybe it's your sign to go clean out your closet, hehe). 

Fiery Clarity

This week’s dharma talk is all about finding clarity in the heat of summer (physically and mentally, of course). This season can be fast, fiery, and full of outward pull. While that energy is def exciting, it can also leave us feeling scattered + stuck in our heads.

Through gentle neck release and twists, this class invites the body to unwind and the mind to settle. We anchor into Yoga Sutra 1.2, (the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations) and Sutra 1.3, which reminds us that when the mind quiets, “the seer abides in their own nature.”

In this flow, we use movement to create spaciousness. We let the physical practice spiral us back inward, back to the clearest, truest self.The self that has been there all along but needs some clarity to unveil!

Make it your own: Share a moment when the busyness of life or the heat of the season had you spinning + feeling mentally cluttered or emotionally reactive. What helped you come back to your center? Invite your students to notice when they’re caught in the swirl of thoughts and gently guide themselves back to the breath, back to their body, back to what is real.

The Inner Light

This class theme draws inspiration from the summer solstice, the longest + brightest day of the year that happened last week. The summer season often pulls us outward with plans, activities, and bucket lists, and it can be easy to compare our summer with what we see others doing. But the solstice is also an invitation to turn inward. To remember that we carry light inside us, no matter what’s happening outside.

The dharma talk anchors in Yoga Sutra 1.36, which encourages us to meditate on the inner light that is free from sorrow. That light is always there. It's steady, quiet, + unwavering. Sometimes comparison takes over and the brightness within feels dim. But yoga is one way we start peeling back the layers. Breath by breath, shape by shape, we come back to that quiet brilliance that has always been there.

Make it your own: Share a time when you felt disconnected from your inner light + felt yourself comparing your life to others. Talk about what it felt like to reconnect with the part of yourself, deeeeep in there, that's always bright. Invite your students to use today’s class as a reminder that their light is not something they have to earn or chase. It is already within them.

Rhythm of Resilience

This dharma talk is inspired by Sutra 1.20, which outlines the qualities needed for the mind to become steady.

In my class, we focused on the rhythm of the breath as a living symbol of resilience. It is the rhythm of returning. Each time we come back to the breath, to the mat, to ourselves, we reinforce our inner strength. We remember our why. And with each return, we deepen our wisdom, what the yogis call prajna.

I encouraged students to stay with the breath through both ease and effort, to feel how it carries them through the practice. And when things got challenging, instead of pushing, we softened into rhythm. We let that rhythm lead the way.

Make it your own: Share a moment in your own life/practice when you tried to force or power through something. Contrast that with a time when you chose to soften, coming back to your breath, and moving with soft rhythm instead of resistance. What shifted? How did wisdom surface when you softened back into the cycle?

Encourage your students to let their breath be the quiet metronome of class. Noticing it. Honoring it. Returning to it over and over again. This is the practice.

The Discipline to Remember

This week, we’re diving into the role of memory, or smṛti, as a spiritual tool to keep us aligned with our whyyy.

When we set a goal or intention, it begins with inspiration, energy, and belief. But over time, especially with long-term desires, that spark can dim. Motivation fades. Distractions multiply. Doubt creeps in. And that’s exactly when we need to remember why we started. Smṛti invites us to return to what matters most, again and again.

As you begin class, ask your students to reflect on why they stepped on their mat today, and invite them to come back to that when moments get tough.

Make it your own: add a purposeful moment of challenge into your class (a chair pose? a lunge complex? a pistol squat?). Use this part of your sequence as a way for your students to practice using memory as a means to keep moving forward.

Separate, But Together 

Yoga literally means union. It's a practice of bringing together all parts of ourselves. This week’s inspiration is a soft yet powerful reminder to check in with the full self: the body, the mind, and the soul/heart. 

From that place of gentle awareness, use the movement practice to weave everything back together. To reconnect and remember that we’re separate parts that come together to make e a whole being. 

You can thread this theme throughout class with little moments of inquiry:
✨During the warm-up, invite curiosity: What does your body need right now?
✨As movement builds, ask: What’s your mind saying? Is it helping or adding noise?
✨After savasana, prompt: What’s your heart whispering beneath the surface? 

Make it your own: Share a story about a time you felt scattered -- like your head + heart were in different places -- and what helped you find your way back. This flow is a chance to guide your students through that same return to center. 

Shimmer of Stillness

This week’s dharma talk builds on last week's, and it's about finding a shimmer of stillness within movement. I'm talkin' those fleeting, luminous moments where time seems to pause because we’re so fully absorbed in what we’re doing.

You know that feeling when you’re driving and suddenly arrive at your destination with no memory of how you got there? That’s mindless absorption. Disconnected + autopilot-y. But there’s also the opposite kind of absorption. The one that feels full and rich, like when you’re doing something you love and hours pass without you noticing. Talk to your students about this difference between being zoned out and being zoned in. 

Make it your own: Share your own story about a time where you were on autopilot + being mindless, and talk about how that's the opposite of what yoga asks us to be. When finding stillness in a long-hold of a pose, invite your students to notice if their mind is taking over (mindless), and redirect them to the moment (mindful). Suggest they bring curiosity to when those moments appear in class, and in life off the mat.

The Courage To Stay

Last week, we explored the power of beginning. This week, we’re building on that with the next layer: the strength it takes to keep going. Because starting is one thing. Staying is another.
 
Sutra 1.14 teaches that dirgha-kāla, practice over a long duration, is what creates a steady foundation. It’s about returning to the work, especially when it gets hard. This week’s focus is virya, or vigor: the effort and energy it takes to move through those “I want to quit” moments.

Make it your own: Share a story about a time you felt tempted to walk away (from a project, a commitment, or even a pose), and what happened when you stayed. Invite your students to reflect on where they might be in the “messy middle” of something, and what it would look like to stay for just one more breath.