The CueCraft Blog

Essays on yoga sequencing, cueing, lineages, and the craft of teaching with presence.

Why CueCraft: structure is what frees you to be present — Teachers don't lose presence because they care too little. They lose it because they're holding too much. Here's the philosophy behind the tool.
Two ways to design a class: Standard and Visual Designer — One is fast and style-led, made for your phone. The other is a hands-on canvas for your iPad or laptop. Here's when to reach for each.
What makes a good sequence (and how we score one) — A class isn't a playlist of poses. It's an arc. Here's what we look for, and what the quality score in CueCraft is quietly checking.
Sun salutations: the foundation, and how it shifts by style — Around 80% of most classes is built from a small set of shapes. Learn these cold and the rest of teaching gets a lot quieter.
Power Vinyasa, explained: roots, attributes, and the shape of a class — Born from Ashtanga, popularized in the 1990s, and built on Sun A and Sun B. Here's where Power Vinyasa came from, what makes it Power Vinyasa, and the eight-phase shape almost every 60-minute class follows.
Direct cues vs embodied cues — "Press your heel down" and "feel the floor rise to meet you" are both doing a job. Knowing which job, and when, is most of the art.
First flows to practice teaching, before you get fancy — Two simple sequences to rehearse out loud until the structure is automatic. Master these and you can build almost anything.
The gap between finishing training and teaching with ease — Training teaches you yoga. It doesn't quite teach you to teach. The bridge isn't more studying; it's more reps with structure.
The lineages we cover, where they come from, and why each works — Vinyasa, Power, Ashtanga, Hatha, Slow Flow, Yin and more. A short, honest map of how the styles relate, and what each one is for.
How a voice-coaching class tricked me into yoga — I came for an MBA elective. I stayed for the part of me that finally went quiet. A story about corporate stress, the body, and remembering.
The Yoga Sutras, applied to a Tuesday at the office — Patanjali wasn't writing for monks on a mountain. Read plainly, the Sutras are a remarkably practical manual for a stressed mind, even at a desk.
Four books that shaped how we think about practice — Two are about yoga. Two are about the nervous system. Together they explain why a set of shapes on a mat can change a life.
Yoga is just stretching — That's what they say. And honestly? They're right. Until, quietly, they're not.
The real innovation: practice the asana, not just the sequence — Most tools help you build a sequence. CueCraft helps you actually know every pose in it (the cue, the deepening, the watch-out, the assist) so teaching gets lighter.
For the overwhelmed 200-hour grad: permission to be new — You don't feel like an authority yet. Good. That's exactly on schedule. Confidence isn't a prerequisite for teaching; it's the residue of having taught.
For the 300-hour teacher: expert and beginner, at once — By now you've practiced thousands of times. The next edge isn't another pose; it's holding mastery and humility together, entirely in service of the student.
The phases of a class, and how they shift by style — Every class moves through phases. But a vinyasa, a hatha, and a yin class arrange them very differently. Here's a simple, visual map with timing.
Chunks: memorize a class the way your brain actually works — Don't memorize sixty poses in order. Memorize a handful of chunks (Sun A, a standing series, a closing) and let the class assemble itself.
What makes a studio worth teaching at? — Where you teach shapes who you become as a teacher. A field guide to light, culture, mentorship, and the autonomy to be yourself inside a house style.
The world's strongest yoga ecosystems (outside India) — Where yoga has grown into a living ecosystem, for teachers and serious students who want weeks or months of practice, training, and community. India is the origin; this is everywhere else.
Five Austin yoga studios you have to practice at — Present Practice, Sukha, Flow, Wild Heart, and Black Swan: five standout Austin studios, each with world-class teaching and its own signature blend of strong practice and spiritual balance.
The ten most scenic yoga classes I've ever taken — Cliff-edge aerial in Uluwatu, sunset on a Thai beach, a bamboo cathedral in Canggu, rain on a remote shala in the Cook Islands. Ten rooms where the practice and the place became the same thing.
Why teach yoga? — If you're asking the question, you've probably already answered it. An honest, slightly funny case for teaching the thing that changed you.
Breath as a teaching tool: the exercises worth weaving into class — Box breathing, 4-7-8, the calming power of a long exhale, and what breath retention actually does. Plus an interactive pacer you can practice with, and exactly how to cue each one.
Teacher profiles: what's your signature? — Every teacher you love has a signature: the thing that makes a class unmistakably theirs with no name on the door. Here's a fillable worksheet to find yours (or decode a teacher you admire).
Scoring the room: building a yoga playlist by class arc phase — A good class has a shape; your playlist should draw the same curve. How to score a 60-minute power vinyasa arc, invert it for yin, and run it live without staring at your phone.
Eight ready-to-teach yoga class playlists, sequenced by phase — Eight complete, phase-sequenced ~60-minute playlists you can teach tomorrow — three power vinyasa flavors, a folk acoustic flow, a traditional vocal flow, a kirtan chant, and separate yin and restorative sets — plus how to build your own around a CueCraft class.
Mudita: being happy for other people, on purpose — Schadenfreude is enjoying someone's suffering. Mudita is the Sanskrit word for its opposite, and it might be the most underrated practice in the whole system.
You don't need to be flexible to do yoga (I'm proof) — "I can't do yoga, I'm not flexible" is the most common excuse, and it gets the whole thing backwards. The story of how an Alo Yoga thumbnail proved it.
Over-gripping just makes it harder — A buried Twix bar can hold your full bodyweight if you set the anchor right. Trusting that, instead of white-knuckling, is the whole lesson the mat keeps teaching.

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