5 lessons I learned in my first year of teaching yoga

By Jesse Maione of Warrior Wellness

The time has come — you’ve completed your teacher training and you’re about to head off into navigating the big wide world of teaching yoga. It can feel nerve-wracking, exciting, and overwhelming all at once. Not to worry, these feelings are completely normal (quite human, in fact), and will ease up over time with practice.

Here are the biggest lessons I wish were passed along to me before I started teaching. Hopefully they will support you in your own journey to finding your voice and style as a yoga teacher. Take what resonates with you:

Teach what you’re comfortable with

This isn’t as obvious as it sounds. When starting out as a yoga teacher, there’s often a desire to make the best class possible by including more difficult or nuanced poses and transitions in our sequences. While it’s surely well-intentioned, don’t leave the basics behind. They create a foundation of knowledge that helps to gain confidence as a new teacher. Keep a log of go-to poses, transitions or sequences you love or regularly use in your self-practice. Use those as a basis for your teaching practice. Teach and repeat until you feel ready to spice it up. Then, you can begin to pepper in more difficult poses or elements to expand your repertoire.

Remember, you don’t have to know it all right away.

Teach with intention

When planning your classes, ask yourself the question “what’s the point of this?” for each pose or element of your class. This will uncover the why behind the pose, as opposed to only addressing what it is. Articulating the why behind a pose will increase your confidence in your teaching abilities while keeping your students engaged. It’s a simple concept that can make your students feel like they’re learning along the way. For example, cueing “reach your arms over head to lengthen the side body” is more intentional than “reach your arms over head.” This doesn’t mean you have to explain the why behind every single pose (that would be a lot of talking). Rather, pick and choose what you think is most valuable to share.

Choosing a theme to guide your class is another tool to help you teach with intention. Select poses, sequences and yoga philosophy topics related to the theme to create an impactful and thoughtful experience for your students.

Create an atmosphere

Whether your yoga class is in-person or online, there are many elements to consider that contribute to creating an atmosphere for your students. Think of this as setting the mood or tone for your class. First and foremost, arrive early, and have a clean and tidy space around your mat with props laid out that will be needed for class. This will let your students know how to set up for class. Next, think logistics like adjusting the lighting, the volume of music, and spacing between mats. Then, add in the extras that make it special. You may want to play calming music before class starts as people settle in, and light a candle, or incense. Consider the following questions when creating an atmosphere for your class: “what tone or mood am I setting for this class?” and “what would make my students feel supported?”

All of these small details can add up to create a welcoming and blissful atmosphere for your class.

Vary who you teach to and what you teach

Teaching yoga is similar to dating; you might not fully know what you like until you’ve tested out a few different options. In my first year of teaching, I took any opportunity to teach that came my way. It didn’t matter what the style of yoga was, who was in the class or where the class was, I always said yes. I taught power yoga, slow flows, yin, and restorative yoga in studios, gyms, parks and sometimes even in shopping malls. My range of students included studio-goers, varsity athletes, pre-schoolers, high school students, and a refugee group I regularly volunteered with. In doing so, I gained experience teaching to a variety of people that ranged in ability and age. It helped me narrow down my favourite style of yoga to teach, which allowed me to focus my energy on landing teaching gigs that excite me. Hint: I will never teach four year olds again — it’s not as cute as it sounds.

The benefit for new yoga teachers in this increasingly virtual world is that an online platform like Interval can support you in gaining different teaching experiences and growing your business. Interval allows you to be as flexible and creative as you like with your class offerings while growing your community and brand. You can host classes at times that fit your schedule, and teach in any style you like via live and on-demand classes. Without demands from studios, you can teach whenever and whatever to whomever. The best part is that you get paid without even leaving the house!

Let go of perfection

I have some relieving (and slightly terrifying) news for you — the perfect yoga teacher or yoga class does not exist, and never will! So, here is your permission to throw that idea of perfection out the window. I can guarantee you will mix up your left and right cues or forget to do a whole side of a sequence at one point or another. Not to worry — you are human, and being a yoga teacher doesn’t exempt you from making mistakes.

Worrying about perfection is often rooted in the idea that we’re not good enough to teach, or that we’ll fail or disappoint our students. The reality is that you ARE good enough and it’s not possible for everyone to love your classes. So instead of chasing an unrealistic ideal, enjoy your class in the moment, be present with your students, and try to laugh off any mistakes.

This leads me to my final point. Get out there, teach, and dare I say — have fun with it!