Acroyoga Pre-reqs - THIS is why you should be STRICT with them!

We are mid europe trip and full in our acroyoga teaching flow!

And both at the past festival events I have been reminded of the importance of sticking to strong pre-reqs.

So this email is going to be our hot take on the importance and appropriateness of pre-reqs, and why we think this way.

I would also add that we have been in enough workshops now where we see that our approach is different to most.

And it has of course changed over time with experience, so lets start there...

When we first started teaching at festivals (and I'm going to focus on festivals as that is where pre-reqs are most relevant because it's a big mixed group etc.) we probably like many other newer teachers had the mindset to have as many students as possible in our workshops.

I think this is partly an ego thing, where as a new teacher you want to prove yourself, potentially overcompensating for imposter syndrome, or you want to show that what you're teaching is interesting enough.

And it's also partly from good intentions, you don't want to turn people away, you want people to like you and so on.

But this definitely has a detrimental effect on the class.

As a result in our first years of festival teaching we were probably more relaxed and adaptable about students not meeting pre-reqs for our workshops.

Recently we had some good reminders of how that has changed, and for the better, but also that we need to be mindful to choose the right pre-reqs.

The example that comes to mind is a class we taught at two different festivals recently. Our hands free icarians.

This is in all honesty a very advanced workshop if people are trying to achieve the full-skill goal of a bird cascade to rev star and handspring, done in tempo and fully hands free.

The first time we taught it, we used a pre-req of a reverse star and a reverse handspring without spotters.

We tested the pre-reqs in the workshop (as we usually do), and firstly some of the reverse stars were not very stable, but it technically was a reverse star, and also the handsprings were not great in general (low and inconsistent).

In that workshop we essentially downgraded the difficulty a lot and did everything with hands for the most part and gave the hands free option which only a few could manage.

When it got to the linking in tempo part of the workshop the majority of the class simply couldnt link because the reverse stars were not stable enough.

We left that first workshop feeling fairly unsatisfied with how it went, in the sense that most students didn't really get to the hands free elements or the linking element, which in our minds was the main point of the content.

It was of course still a valuable workshop and people improved their hands free skills and exits, and icarians, but it did not feel like an advanced workshop to us.

So at the last festival we just taught we had another opportunity with this workshop, and this time we changed the pre-reqs just slightly.

We changed the reverse star to a hand free reverse star, although the organisers thought it might be too limiting and we wouldn't get many students.

So we agreed on either a hands free reverse star or a mono reverse star, which also requires a good deal of stability. Plus the same reverse handspring.

And of course the workshop went much better in our experience.

It felt like we could focus on the main elements of the skills that we wanted to, the linking, and even though some of the class still struggled with hands-free reverse stars, everything else just went smoother and easier, and we could really give valuable input on the technical elements of the content.

We literally left feeling like we taught the workshop much better than the few weeks before, but in reality it was probably mostly down to just setting a stricter pre-req for the class.

The stricter pre-reqs benefit everyone pretty much, and it has multiple knock on effects.

Firstly classes are safer because people are working on skills appropriate for their level and not above.

Secondly the classroom management and teaching management is much easier as teachers, so as a result you can focus on teaching more.

Classes are faster/more efficient, because the class normally progresses at the speed of the lowest level students, so it can slow the whole class down.

Students stay in their sweet spot and don't get as frustrated, because the content is the right level of challenge based on the pre-reqs. 

Overall this leads to better experiences of the majority of students in your class, and as a result they will probably find you a good teacher.

Even if it upsets one couple who you have to ask to leave the class because they dont meet the pre-reqs, it is a better experience overall, and you're actually helping the person you ask to leave because they can go to a workshop that is more appropriate for their level and they will enjoy or benefit more from it.

So consider this your reminder to be aware around pre-reqs.

As a teacher, maybe specify how solid or how much or little spotting the pre-req should be done with.

And check the pre-reqs and enforce them, dont be afraid to ask students to leave your class for their safety and their own benefit.

As a student try to fight the instinct to join a workshop where you think you can do the pre-req, the mindset is often "I'm skilled and quite capable and that skill is similar to some other ones I do so it should be fine."

In reality this means you will need to spend a part of the workshop learning the pre-req, which is not going to be taught in the workshop of course, because its the pre-req, so you're already playing catch up before you've even started.

To finish on a positive note, this is something I think the acro world and festival teachers are all getting better at over time.

We have certainly improved in this aspect of our teaching in the past years, and we've seen a general improvement at most acro festivals we join as well.

So keep up the good work everyone, and hopefully we will see you at an acro festival soon!

Cheers,Cas