25 Forward Bends & Hip Openers
20-hour Online Intensive with
Live Sessions
Starts Oct 11 + 6 Months Access
This 20-hour workshop offers a deep dive into the families of seated and supine forward bends and hip openers—two categories of postures that share common foundations in form, function, and energetic qualities. Across live sessions on Zoom (10 hours total) and guided independent study with high quality videos (10 hours), you’ll learn to approach these poses with clarity, confidence, and insight.
Together we’ll explore twenty-five postures in detail, stepping into an “Asana Lab” approach that emphasizes how to see, understand, and skillfully respond to the varied ways students meet each pose. You’ll learn effective verbal guidance and demonstration techniques, as well as safe and supportive use of props, modifications, and variations for students at different levels of ability and readiness.
We will cover:
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Benefits, risks, and contraindications for each pose
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Core alignment principles and energetic actions
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Practical strategies for observation and demonstration
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Adaptations and progressions for diverse students
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Sequencing these poses for calming and integrative practice
By the end of this workshop, you’ll have a more nuanced understanding of forward bends and hip openers, greater confidence in teaching them, and a toolkit of modifications and sequencing strategies you can immediately apply in your classes.
20 Hours of Learning
Live Interaction
20 CEUs
6 Months of Access
Dawn Johanssen, RYT 500, U.K.
"My students are all so different from one another. It really shows up in Forward Bends and Hip Openers. With deep insight, Mark helped me learn how to work with my students in these poses in ways that I can really empower them to guide themselves. I was still pretty weak on anatomy, and now I know enough about the nuances of hips, hamstrings, and spinal flexion to feel a lot more confident with all of my students." - Dawn
Course Dates & Times
Course Opens October 11
Live Session 1: Oct 16, 10-11am
Live Session 1: Oct 30, 9am-12pm
Live Session 1: Nov 13, 9am-12pm
Live Session 1: Nov 20, 9am-12pm
(All times Pacific time zone)
Full Course Access for 6 Months
Refine and deepen your knowledge and practical skills for teaching seated and supine forward bends and hip openering asanas to a diverse array of students, regardless of their special and unique conditions and intentions.
Teaching People, Not Poses
Teaching yoga invites us to guide our students in their postural practices in the most informed ways, with insights and techniques that help ensure that their practices are safe, sustainable, and transformational. We want to relate to our students in ways that honor and respect their unique and changing conditions and intentions – not in the one-size-fits-all ways that are all too common in yoga. This intensive focuses not just on the fundamentals of each asana, but the various ways to guide them based on real students, in all of their beautiful diversity.
Benefits of This Course
Provide Your Students With Well-informed & Inspirational Guidance Through A Deeper Understanding of Forward Bends and Hip Openers
APPLICATION
Knowing the basics of seated and supine forward bends and hip openers from personal practice and teacher training is a good start. Here we greatly expand on that learning to consider the finer details of the realities of asana practices – plus how as teachers we can best use this knowledge in guiding our students.
INTEGRATION
Just as yoga is a holistic practice, teaching asanas must always be considered as part of the whole fabric of yoga practice. In this intensive we integrate forward bends and hip openers with core concepts and principles of yoga practice in ways that make it a natural part of practicing and teaching.
CONFIDENCE
Bringing it all together, your expanded and refined knowledge will increase your confidence and ability to teach safe, sustainable and deeply transformational classes to a diverse array of students. With deeper knowledge and better skills, you will more be at your creative best in all of your classes.
What You'll Learn in This Course
In looking closely at each of 25 seated and supine forward bends and hip openers, we start with the fundamentals of each asana, introduce and review its basic anatomy and bio-mechanics, and even tie it into yoga history (where did it come from?) and philosophy (why do it?!).
With each asana, we explore its benefits, risks and contraindications, alignment principles, energetic actions, modifications, variations, use of props, hands-on adjustments, and options for sequencing for different students, classes, and styles.
Moving from theory to the practice of teaching, we cover various verbal cues that emphasize different qualities of each asana, alternative forms for offering visual demonstrations, and detailed exploration of tactile cues (hands-on teaching).
This expanded knowledge of forward bends and hip openers will directly enhance your skills in designing class sequences, offering modifications and props, giving hands-on adjustments, and more deeply appreciating each one of your students.
It is, from start to finish, a practical course on teaching forward bends and hip openers that you can apply in your classes from the beginning of the course.
Why Study With Me
For more than three decades, I’ve been dedicated to the art and science of teaching yoga. Along the way, I’ve authored the most widely used yoga teaching textbooks worldwide and guided thousands of teachers in deepening their knowledge, refining their skills, and honing their authentic teaching voices.
My approach is both scholarly and practical: rooted in history, philosophy, and science, while always focused on how yoga comes alive in practice and teaching. In this training, you’ll have my personal mentorship and guidance, including direct support for your Independent Study.
With a deep study of yoga history and philosophy, human anatomy and physiology, social and interpersonal dynamics, and Eastern and Western theories of being and consciousness, I bring a non-dogmatic, accessible, and integrated perspective to my trainings that makes yoga a more refined resource for healthy living.
Who This Course Is For
NEW & EXPERIENCED TEACHERS WELCOME!
Designed for new and experienced yoga teachers (& yoga teacher trainers), this course builds upon your current knowledge and helps you develop the refined skills for guiding students far more safely and effectively in their practices.
This course is for teachers who want to guide the practice from a deeper well of knowledge and understanding of how unique students experience forward bends and hip openers – and then make it your own in your unique and creative ways of teaching yoga.
- If you've ever been uncertain or confused about why different students have different experiences in forward bending and hip opening asanas...
- If you are unclear about optimal alignment and energetic actions for unique students with different body type...
- If you want to improve your knowledge of alignment, cueing, and sequencing...
- If you want to learn more about helping students with injuries and special conditions...
- If you want to teach from a deeper well of your own knowledge...
This Course Is For You!
Benefits of Online Learning
Both in-person and online workshops and trainings come with their own strengths and weaknesses, and neither one is superior. My online workshops and trainings offer the same quality as my in-person offerings do, and even include some added benefits. When deciding what's a good fit for your development as a yoga teacher, consider your options and what will best suit your unique needs.
FLEXIBLE SCHEDULE
+ BALANCE
PLAYBACK CONTROL
+ SELF-PACED LEARNING
STUDY FROM ANYWHERE
+ GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
MORE ACCESS
+ TIME FOR INTEGRATION
Heidi Crandall, E-RYT 200, RYT 500, Florida
"I've been leading 200-hour teacher trainings for a few years now and just feel really lucky to have studied forward bends and hip openers in Mark's online 300-hour YTT. It's truly amazing how he seamlessly ties together yoga philosophy with anatomy and technique. before they felt so separate. He help me get clearer about the path of the teacher. One thing I liked about the online learning was how it was both self-paced but also had all the live sessions with Mark on Zoom. Amazing!" - Heidi
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FAQs
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Jimmy Corneyre, RYT 200, France
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JOIN AN UPCOMING EVENT
• 25 Forward Bends & Hip Openers
• Classes in Santa Cruz, California
• November in Cologne, Germany
• December Hamburg, Germany
• Winter Solstice Retreat, Mexico
• Yoga Teacher Training – January 2026
LATEST PUBLICATIONS
Breathing: The Art & Science of Pranayama (2026)
Yoga Sequencing Audiobook (2026)
Teaching Yoga Audiobook (2025)
Yoga for Better Sleep Audiobook (2024)
