Why I don’t let a tool generate my classes for me

Somewhere over the last few years, “just generate it” has quietly crept in to become an acceptable answer for almost anything.  Emails, essays, presentations, and increasingly, yoga sequences.  Type in your peak pose, your duration, hit a button and…ta da….here’s your class plan.  I understand the appeal, I’m under as much time pressure as the next person, and we all know that planning done well can take up a lot of time.

So, yes, I’ll admit, I did it….once.  On paper it looked ok, but the class did not land well.  Where I was confused, my students were unmoved and baffled.  It just didn’t flow like it should.  There was something missing - an element of - who wrote this and why has it been sequenced this way? It didn’t feel like it was anyone’s class. It was missing its heart and soul.  The very reason why your students come back to your class week in, week out.

What actually makes a class feel like a teacher’s own

My yoga teaching career started in 2020, and the classes that I feel proudest of aren’t the technically perfect ones.  They’re the ones where a specific choice I made - a strange, slightly stubborn transition, an unexpected peak pose, a change in pace that any purely ‘optimal’ generator would smooth away - is the whole reason that the class actually worked.  That specificity is the yoga teaching craft.  It’s not the icing on the cake, it is the whole cake.

When even the best-designed tool, or the most personable AI agent is deciding what comes next, or how fast you’re going, or what modifications you’re offering, your own teaching nuance just isn’t there.  You get a competent class, but you don’t get your competent class.  And, trust me, your students will notice.

But it’s ok to use a tool if you’re a new teacher….?

You’ve duly undertaken your 200-hour training.  You have an extensive practice background, and you know your Padahastasana from your Padangusthasana (Ok, ok, I still get them muddled…).  But your sequencing voice, what makes your classes your own, the most important piece of the teaching puzzle is still in development stage.  And that’s not the scary part, it’s the fun part where you discover what makes people tick, how to push and challenge, when to back off and find ease, how you create that perfect end of class where no one wants to move out of Savasana.  That all comes from you.

The danger with turning to a class generator early on is that that is what becomes your voice.  You forget what you’ve spent all this time learning and instead start to develop fluency in a tool’s choices instead of your own.  And before you know it your classes are starting to sound a lot like Jenny’s down the road who has been using the exact same tool as you….

When is a tool a useful tool

Let me be clear, I don’t think that digital tools are the enemy here.  On the contrary, a well-designed offering that makes your life easier whilst supporting your teaching craft is now something that I don’t want to teach without.

The whole premise behind Sequence/OS (https://sequenceos.app) the tool that I ended up building is just that.  Full disclosure, I built this myself exactly because I was frustrated by multiple notebooks and half-remembered classes. From the bottom up, I started building the tool that I knew would help me, and ultimately all time-pressured yoga professionals.

The part that if found mattered the most for me is possibly the smallest thing on paper.  When I have a genuinely blank mind and I feel stuck, Inspire Me offers me a gentle nudge in the right direction rather than a ready made decision.  On it’s own that distinction sounds fairly minor until you’ve tried using a tool that does the opposite - a tool that will quietly start making the calls for you.

Alignment notes and a teachers-eye area summarise common mistakes that sit behind every pose too, but they’re there to help me deepen my own knowledge and judgement.  More of a second opinion than a direct instruction.

Everything else, creating, finding, adjusting and practicing, the music that is readily available, the community of teachers to bounce ideas off.  All of that is embedded in how I now plan and teach every week.

How I use it in my sequencing

When I sit down to plan my week now, I know that I can easily find the class I want, adjust it, practice it and add it to my calendar so that when I arrive at class I am ready to go.  The hours that I used to spend flicking through notebooks, searching for a class that I knew would land well, engaging my aging brain to remember what worked and what didn’t…is now achieved in one sitting; for me that’s usually a Sunday morning, and my teaching week is mapped out with a clear and calm brain.

Somewhat unexpectedly, because my headspace isn’t filled with the what and where and how when I arrive to teach, I have found that my mind is clearer to enable me to teach better.  Cues come to me more easily, my focus is more present within the room and my students get more out of their class.

Sequencing in this way hasn’t only changed the shape of my week, it’s changed the way my classes are taught.  My Monday evening vinyasa flow class now sets up a deeper stretch for the Men only class, which is then re-shuffled into my Tuesday morning slow flow without a full re-write.  My classes feel more connected, and I notice the difference standing at the front of the room.  I think, over time, that my students are feeling it too.

So it’s over to you, you have spent time, money, and energy passionately building your own teaching style, and that’s exactly what makes your class yours.  Choose a tool that supports you instead of replacing you.

Frustrated with class planning? Try Sequence/OS for free. https://sequenceos.app

I have been actively teaching yoga since 2020 and am the owner of Liz Mellor Yoga and creator of Sequence/OS (www.sequenceos.app), a sequencing and teaching tool built to support yoga professionals.

I come from an operational background and have a busy mind that is calmed by yoga and fuelled by a desire to make life that little bit easier.  My love for yoga started back in 2002, on an extended trip to California.