Next time you’re chopping veggies or doing chores, put on a yoga video—but watch it with a teacher’s eye. Observe the sequencing, cueing, and pacing. What makes the class special? Reverse-engineer the magic to bring it into your own teaching.
Yoga teachers: pop on a yoga video next time you’re chopping videos. This isn’t for your practice; it’s for your teaching!
You can find classes with a wide range of teachers online—and you can learn something from each of them! If there is a class you especially enjoyed participating in as a student, watch it again as an observer, without participating. What makes it special? Is it the teacher’s sequencing, cueing, pacing, language? Or something else?
Reverse engineer the parts you like best to discover ways you can recreate the magic in your own classes. Here’s a favorite quote of mine: the humorist Finley Peter Dunne wrote that is the duty of newspapers to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I love this idea: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And I would apply this in a serious way to yoga teachers.
I’ve learned a lot from watching master teachers who comfort the afflicted by reassuring students when they are confused and who afflict the comfortable by challenging those who would benefit from it.
When you watch more teachers, you’ll be developing your own unique voice, so you can serve your students best!
If you want to see how I teach movement, click on over to my virtual studio! There, you’ll see both direct-to-camera classes and a vault of live classes with students present. There’s a free seven-day trial to get you started.
