Your teaching persona should be authentic to your day-to-day self, but that doesn’t mean you would share with your students in the same way as you would with your friends. I explored how to find the right balance in an article for Yoga Journal, “Balance Professionalism and Personality In Yoga Classes.”
Yoga fosters connection, including a connection between teachers and students. But sharing too much personal information with your students can damage the classroom dynamic. How can you maintain appropriate professionalism as a teacher without seeming distant or robotic? How can you be personable without being too personal? The key could be to have a clear intention to serve your students, and to use details in the service of that intention.
Like most things in yoga, the key is to find the right balance and to be clear on your motivation. Why are you telling a story or sharing a detail, and how does it help your students in their own experiences?
In the online course Professionalism for Movement Teachers, we explore all the relationships that yoga teachers have: with their students, their colleagues, their money, and more. The course is part of Carolina Yoga Company’s advanced studies (500-hour) yoga teacher training, and it’s open to anyone who wants to find the right balance of professionalism and personality—of disciplined effort and fun ease—in a career teaching movement. Read more here!