Every teacher has a moment where class planning feels like archaeology - digging through memory for the progression you used last quarter, the modification that worked for that one client. A library is the cure: not a database for its own sake, but the specific exercises you actually use, stored so you can reach them.
What goes in a library
Not every exercise you know. The ones you return to. There's a meaningful difference between the exercises living somewhere in your head and the exercises that earn a place in something searchable and retrievable.
Filter by three questions: Would you teach this tomorrow? Does it have a clear progression or regression you can name? Can you attach at least one strong cue to it? If the answer to any of those is no, the exercise isn't ready for the library yet - it belongs in a notebook, or a future session, not the place you reach from when you're planning Thursday's class.
If you can't attach a cue to it, it's not ready.
Start smaller than you think
The temptation when building any system is to build the complete version before using it. It feels responsible - comprehensive before operational. In practice, it's what kills every exercise database a teacher has ever started.
Twenty exercises you actually use, fully described, beats two hundred half-finished entries. Start with what you taught well last week. Add an exercise after you've taught it well - not before, not while planning it. The library grows from the room, not from ambition.
What to save with each exercise
Keep the fields short enough that you'll fill them in. Every extra field is a tax on every future entry.
- Name - what you call it, not what the manual calls it
- Muscle focus - one or two areas, not a full anatomy lesson
- Level - foundation, intermediate or advanced
- Notes - common errors, the modification that works, what to watch for
- Cues - your best one to three, ready to use
That's it. The more fields you add, the less you fill in. A sparse but consistent library beats a thorough one that stalls at exercise twelve.
Cues are the most valuable thing to save
This is the underused half of any exercise database. The name you'll remember. The progression you can reconstruct from a photo or a manual. The cue that made something click for a whole room of students - that you will absolutely forget before next Tuesday.
Saving cues alongside the exercise is what turns a list of names into something genuinely useful at planning time. You're not just remembering what to teach; you're arriving at the mat with the language already in hand. For a deeper look at what makes a cue worth keeping, this piece on reformer cues that actually stick is the right place to start.
Building the library in practice
The most reliable method is also the simplest: add one exercise after each class you teach. Not before - after. You just taught it. You know what cue you used, you know what worked, and if something surprised you, you know that too. Write it down while the class is still in your body.
After six weeks of teaching four classes a week, you have a real library - not an intention, not a blank spreadsheet, but entries with cues and notes drawn from actual rooms. That compounds faster than any planning session at a desk on a Sunday afternoon.
A library makes planning compound
The payoff isn't the library itself. It's what happens when you sit down to plan a new week. You're not starting from zero - you're selecting from a set of trusted tools you've already tested, already cued, already know work. Planning stops feeling like construction and starts feeling like curation.
That shift is why structure and library belong together. Once you have exercises you trust, the next question is how to arrange them into a class that feels intentional from warm-up to close. This guide to planning a balanced mat class shows how the two combine - a repeatable form filled with exercises you already trust.