Great yoga teachers are also great students. Attend classes regularly to keep your practice fresh and your teaching sharp. Learn from others, stay curious, and let your students benefit from your continuous growth.
Yoga teachers: if you want to become almost everyone’s favorite teacher, I encourage you to go to class as a student this week and every week! Not only is it good for your student-hood, it will make you a better teacher.
Take classes with a teacher’s ear—listen for what works and what doesn’t. Stay attuned to the choices, both conscious and unconscious, that your teachers make when you are in the classroom. Feel your way through transitions that are useful; notice how it feels and how the room looks when something doesn’t land. Set up in different parts of the room to see what the student experience is like there. The view from the back and the front could be vastly different; being closer to the door or window or farther from it may affect the student experience a lot.
It’s especially useful to be a student in the very classroom(s) where you teach, so you can notice things that you won’t see when you’re teaching. Strive to have the same experience your students have, down to using the studio-issued mat. You may find that your hands slip in downward-facing dog or your knees need some extra cushioning in tabletop, and these observations can translate into creating a more positive experience for your students when you offer modifications in your next class.
Make note of anything that works particularly well, and consider how you would do things differently when things don’t work well. It can help to put this down on paper or to write it down immediately after class. For example, my don’ts would be having the music too quiet (I find this a distraction), shining bright light in students’ eyes, and not telling students what to expect in the course of the class.
let me plan your next class
Feeling uninspired when it’s time to plan? I’m here to help!
Give me your email and I’ll send you my go-to class plan with ideas for every minute. This is the class I teach when my energy is low—but it’s the favorite of my students from 20 to 80 years old! I’ll even give you tips on how to adapt it for various class formats.