Here at AREA Yoga, we have a great variety of teachers from many different yoga schools and backgrounds. We seek to share our teachers’ knowledge and style with the AREA community as a whole – even if you can’t make it to each teacher’s class. “Tea with Our Teachers” is our way of fostering satsang – a forum to discuss our yoga practice.
I sat down with Anna to discuss her take on prenatal yoga. Having never been pregnant myself, and having never taken a prenatal yoga class, I was curious to learn about the prenatal practice and experience.
AY: What drew you to teach prenatal yoga?
AA: I’ve taught yoga for 10 years. In 2006, I had my son and from that experience – being pregnant while being a yoga teacher, giving birth, and so forth – I started teaching prenatal. I find it rewarding in a different way than teaching to regular folk.
AY: How so?
AA: Pregnant women have to deal with a constantly and quickly changing body. During my own pregnancy I found it to be an incredible lesson in all the things we strive to do as yogis. I was forced – against my will I might add – to be incredibly present with everything happening inside me, like never before or after. And I think about that when I teach prenatal: these women are going through this hyper presence-producing process and I get to support and direct it in a positive way.
AY: It’s very yogic: your own experience has given you a unique awareness. How do you tailor your classes for the needs of your students – both in terms of the physical practice and the emotional/mental/spiritual practice?
AA: There are a few things pregnant women can’t do, such as twists and extreme backbends, so this rules out a whole set of things I would cover in a regular class. The sun salutations are geared toward pregnant women, with step backs, no jumping, wider stance, and so on. I give a few variations for each posture and coming into and out of it, as there is a marked difference in what a women can do in early pregnancy versus in later pregnancy. In terms of the emotional/mental/spiritual, I do exercises that build on a woman’s intuition, her own inner reserves. Prenatal yoga is for the current moment, to stretch and strengthen the woman where she is that day but then to also prepare her for labor, giving birth. There is so much sensation. During labor of course, but also throughout the pregnancy. I’ve stopped using the P word [ed. note: pain] and focus on bringing women into their sensations, in warrior, in badha konasana, in pigeon. This is so elemental in yoga and yet for a pregnant woman, this is so in her face. IT is coming, there is no way out, so I hope to create in each class some feeling of sinking into what is, rather than what we hope for, usually a lessening of sensation. What is fascinating to me is that it is easier for pregnant women to get to these places than the rest of us in yoga.
AY: Very thoughtful Anna. Can a woman who did not practice yoga before becoming pregnant start during her pregnancy?
AA: Absolutely! As long as there are no medical reasons not to of course. It is like a basics class in that way, but with even more caution.
AY: Aside from what you mentioned earlier about getting into the experience of a pregnancy, in your own experience, and speaking of the experience of your students, what would you say are the benefits of prenatal yoga?
AA: Movement is a great benefit. As the baby grows it becomes more and more difficult to move yet movement is how we all, and especially a pregnant woman, can keep the aches and pains at bay. Movement also leads to a comfortable rest, for the body, and for the ever roving mind. On that note, mindfulness is a great benefit of prenatal yoga. There are so many fears and anxieties that come up during pregnancy and prenatal yoga helps ease these worries because we practice being in the present moment, shifting our attention to the breath instead of to our thoughts. Finally, the benefits of prenatal yoga include help for labor. We do postures and breathwork and imagery and meditation techniques that, practiced throughout the pregnancy, can greatly help during the birthing process, regardless of whether it turns out to be a natural birth or a cesarean, with medication or without.
AY: It sounds like your class truly is a sanctuary. I just have one last question, what’s one thing a day that pregnant women can do throughout their pregnancy to cultivate this mindfulness you’re talking about?
AA: Taking 5 minutes each day to sit or lie still, close the eyes, follow the breath with the mind, and whenever the mind wanders away from the breath, bring the mind gently back to the breath. I know you asked for one thing, but I’ll add a physical experience to the above: take 5 minutes a day to move how the body wants to in that moment, it can be standing, sitting, lying down, all fours, watch the breath while moving with one’s intuition.
* The only thing better than taking a restorative class for relaxation and renewal is a massage, and our 
* I regularly give my two favorite books, BKS Iyengar’s 
Join Erin for the perfect post-Thanksgiving dinner remedy: a workshop designed to make you move and sweat! The workshop will incorporate a variety of sun salutations, deep twists, invigorating inversions and bandha/core work. Not suitable for brand new beginners.
AY: What does “restorative yoga” mean to you?
