Every yoga room has a smell before you say a word of your opening—the space itself, the scent you have added on purpose, and the students walking through the door. In twenty years of teaching, I have watched teachers plan carefully for lighting, music, and cueing, and...
The second class I ever taught went off the rails before I said a single word—and then I spent an hour making it worse. I hadn’t planned to teach that night. The regular teacher, Bryan, couldn’t make it, and my hand shot straight up before I’d thought it through. I...
The craft nobody taught you in your 200-hour For over a decade, I taught private yoga to Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams. Somewhere along the way, I realized I’d been teaching privates wrong. Not because I didn’t know yoga. Because nobody had ever sat me...
A student gets up and walks out mid-savasana. You unlock the studio, set the music, and nobody shows. Someone asks you a question you cannot answer. Welcome to the realities of teaching yoga, and nobody warned you about this part. I have taught yoga for over twenty...
The first article I ever wrote for Yoga Journal gives advice to yoga teachers about how to deal with medical emergencies in class. Despite every studio’s and teacher’s efforts to create a safe environment, such medical emergencies do happen in yoga...
