It’s easy to assume that yoga class comes down to hip-hugging spandex, the ultimate playlist, and mastering a flawless headstand.
However, when I started teaching yoga three years ago, I quickly discovered that one of the most challenging aspects of leading classes was not something that could be purchased in a store or even taught during a 200-hour yoga teacher training course (YTT). It didn’t even take the students through Warrior 2 and Extended Side Angle. It ignored all internalized expectations of how I should show up as a yoga teacher and finding my own teaching style, allowing my process to evolve and change, just as my experience as a student had over the years.
But this realization came after much trial and error, and teaching my first yoga classes felt like being thrown into the deep end. To feel less alone in the process, I tapped into my community. Finally, I asked several yoga teachers in my area how they got over that hurdle. It turns out that the challenge of developing a teaching style that works for you is much more universal than talked about in YTTs or training manuals. What they shared made a huge difference in the way I approached myself and my teaching.
How to find your unique yoga teaching style
While trying different approaches is a normal part of learning anything, ultimately you will want to identify your own authentic teaching style. Below are the pieces of advice that helped me get comfortable with my style.
1. Let go of expectations
Audra Carmine remembers some of her early teaching experiences in Portland, Oregon, as “trying to emulate an idea of what a yoga teacher is, rather than just being a yoga teacher.” It’s a challenge familiar to most new yoga teachers.
Carmine explains that when she started teaching just over sixteen years ago, it was less common for people with children to be yoga teachers. Many people asked her how she would combine motherhood and teaching. She remembers thinking the question was quite ridiculous. Yet it still led her to think she had to live up to some ideal of a yoga teacher. She started to feel like teaching yoga might not be the right choice for her.
Everything changed when she had what she now calls her “teacup moment”: a moment of clarity during her early teaching days while washing a teacup after class. She realized that it simply didn’t work to be anything other than herself as a teacher, and decided to show up as herself instead. She began to weave personal stories into her dharma conversations. She also began explaining ancient aspects of yoga and drawing parallels with current issues.
After she stopped trying to live up to her expectations of what it meant to be a yoga teacher, her experience started to feel more like channeling than performing. Within a few months, her classes were consistently full.
“People crave connection. And connection doesn’t happen when there’s this shiny veneer,” says Carmine, describing the change that happened when she started teaching from a more authentic place. “Connection happens when one person is vulnerable, and that gives the other the freedom to be vulnerable.”
2. Avoid over-preparation
Many yoga teacher training courses will tell you to be yourself and let your teaching evolve. However, finding your natural style as a new yoga teacher is often easier said than done, especially if you’re still getting used to reading a room full of students and memorizing pose cues.
Teaching yoga and showing up comfortably involves a learning curve, even if you’re used to public speaking in a different environment. Gary Applea yoga teacher in Denver, Colorado, had been practicing law for 36 years and teaching at the college level there for twenty years when he completed his 200-hour yoga teacher training. He quickly discovered that teaching yoga was very different from teaching at a university.
Like many new yoga teachers, Appel initially planned his sequences in detail. “I would go into a classroom with this great plan and then I would see from the classroom… that what I had planned wasn’t going to work,” he recalls, noting unpredictable factors such as the size of a class and the general atmosphere of the classroom. For example, he remembers designing involved, energetic flows, but found that his students’ movements and energy on their mats before class were quite low.
Appel found teaching yoga to be a much more intuitive activity than giving lectures and that tailoring to his students was preferable to implementing a planned flow. Yet it took him years of practice to be able to let go and allow a lesson to unfold. He notes that planning can be helpful when you’re initially finding your style as a teacher, although he eventually felt comfortable showing up to class without worrying “about what the next step would be.” Nowadays he doesn’t plan his lessons at all.
He notes that meditating before class and connecting with the breath helps him remember his intention, let go of his ego, and connect with what students need.
3. Stay committed to your practice
Maintaining your own practice can be a challenge. But prioritizing it will not only give you inspiration for what you teach, it will also help you teach from a more grounded space on days when you’re dealing with complicated emotions or fatigue.
Julia Deltzer, who also teaches yoga in Denver, Colorado, emphasizes the importance of staying connected to your own ever-evolving practice, even if you’re just starting out, juggling jobs, or teaching multiple classes per week or day. She explains that it is essential to teach in a way that suits you, even if you have a busy schedule. Deltzer also finds that it supports her familiarity with what it feels like to be a student, which in turn helps her relate to the people in her classes.
“What really helps me find my voice is saying the things I sometimes needed to hear,” she says, noting that staying connected to herself and her journey with yoga better positions her to share relatable, universal insights during classes, such as reminders of strength and dignity.
4. Allow yourself to be a beginner
Teaching yoga, like practicing it, is a process. Your teaching style becomes more authentic the moment you let go of any perceived need to perform or attachment to specific outcomes, including post-class validation.
My first year of teaching, I focused less on creating different sequences and more on getting comfortable with other essential aspects of leading a class, such as cueing, observing students, and ultimately improvising. That gave me the space to ultimately share yoga in a way that feels authentic to me.
It will take time to discover your teaching preferences, including how, where and why you teach. You may prefer to teach slower hatha flows and restorative practices, even though you enjoy taking vinyasa classes. Or maybe you want to teach yoga in the park to small groups instead of full classes in a yoga studio. You may find that you don’t feel like teaching weekly yoga classes, but rather want to give spontaneous yoga classes to friends during beach vacations. It takes time and the mind of a beginner.
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