As a yoga teacher, many thoughts and opinions come your way. Of course, during teacher training your instructors will regularly share wisdom from their years of experience, but that’s just the beginning. Once you start teaching ‘in the wild’, you’ll discover that studio owners, fellow teachers, and even students have many thoughts and opinions of their own, some of which they won’t hesitate to share with you.
I have certainly benefited from this advice, which includes gems such as ‘teach the students who return’ and ‘talk less when you teach, so that students have space to gain their own experience.’ But I also received some tips that left me completely baffled. Thinking about it, I was inspired to ask other yoga teachers what bad advice they’ve received over the years.
Advice from yoga teachers backfires
Below is a list of my, well, let’s call them “favorites.” Consider them the best of the worst.
Learn certain postures each lesson
Yoga sequencing can be polarizing. There are plenty of people who argue that every lesson should follow a set sequence of poses (or at least categories of poses), regardless of the teacher’s intent or the needs of the students on that day.
“I was once told to end every class by ‘offering an inversion,’ or encouraging everyone to freestyle in handstand, headstand, or pincha,” explains yoga teacher, trainer, and podcaster. Adam Husler. “I think that’s wild now. I only offer those when the class has built up to them, with clear steps and safe variations, not just a room full of people swinging upside down, because that’s exactly what you do before Savasana.”
Students appreciate a well-rounded experience, but that doesn’t mean teachers have to check off an imaginary list of attitudes in every lesson. Some poses, including the more active inversions, require enough preparation that you won’t be able to do them justice every time you teach.
Never teach the same lesson twice
For everyone who firmly believes that classes should follow a set order, there is someone else who believes just as firmly that each class should be completely unique.
I will never forget the feeling of overwhelm I experienced early in my teaching career when I heard a much more experienced teacher declare that she had never, and never would, take students through the same sequence twice. At the time, I was already struggling to maintain my full-time job on top of my new weekly teaching load. I regularly woke up late at night, staring at a blank page, desperately trying to think of something new and novel for the next day’s lesson.
Frankly, my students would have benefited more if I had gotten some sleep and taught something simpler and clearer instead.
These days I keep most of my sequences basic and familiar, rather than seeking novelty for its own sake. This saves my – and that of my students – energy and attention for the other postures and exercises, which I have consciously chosen to be in line with the focus of that lesson.
Obsessed with the details
For some teachers, the poses and sequences themselves are less important than the complexity of the exercise – and they advise others accordingly.
“A teacher told me not to end the sun salutation with prayer hands because this cuts off the energy; keeping the arms open keeps the students open,” explains yoga teacher and writer Sara Ezrin. “I was also told not to make loud or exaggerated exhalations or vocalizations as this took away the warmth and prana (life force or energy).”
Although construction heat (tapas) and other nuanced details matter, most teachers find themselves in an environment where helping students move, breathe, and connect with their bodies and minds with compassion is already a daunting task.
Mention yoga philosophy in every lesson
There’s no doubt about that asana (the physical practice of yoga) is too far removed from the larger historical and philosophical meanings of the practice in response to the focus on the physical body of most modern practitioners.
The conclusion many draw is that respectful yoga teachers should not only teach asana (and possibly asana). pranayamaor breathwork, and meditation) but also yoga philosophy in every lesson.
I don’t disagree. Although I do wonder if adding an unrelated reference to yoga philosophy to your gym, studio or corporate class is always the answer.
“I don’t think we need to bring a hodgepodge of yoga philosophy or misplaced quotes from the yoga world Bhagavad Gita in asana classes that are actually meant to be physical,” explains journalist, academic, yoga teacher and researcher Firdose MoondaMA. “We use modern asanas, created less than 100 years ago, to explain ancient philosophy and therefore decontextualize it. And that’s probably the opposite of respectful. It’s window dressing.”
Ultimately, we want to respect the origins of yoga and teach students the greater principles of yoga, not just form them. Although this can be done in many ways and not just by quoting old texts.
Project trust at all costs
In any yoga class, the teacher is the authority in the room. Although some take that idea more literally than others.
For example, a studio owner I taught for instituted a policy that no notes could be brought to class. She stated that it would look more professional if all the teachers had memorized their sequences as well as any readings they planned to share. Needless to say, during my classes I stopped reciting all but the shortest and most superficial quotes. I don’t think students felt more confident in my ability.
Others go even further with the idea of exuding confidence. Yoga Journal Editor-in-Chief Renee Marie Schettler was once told by a respected local yoga teacher to “never say ‘maybe’ in class.” The teacher’s reasoning was, “You have to be emphatic with the students to motivate them.”
Even if you accept that your role as a teacher is to motivate, rather than teach, encouraging students to make their own decisions in the classroom can be engaging. Schettler explains, “I defiantly offered a ‘maybe’ regarding taking an arm variation even after hearing this advice, and a student in her 60s came up to me after class and said, with literal tears in her eyes. She said, ‘I like that you’re saying, maybe you’ll do this or that, because it makes me feel like I’m doing okay and that I’m not doing yoga wrong and that maybe I belong here.'” Sounds like a motivated student to this. me.
Don’t offer students options
In the same vein, yoga and movement teacher Elena Cheung It was once said that offering choices is bad for the nervous system. This advice, backed by a similar magical “the teacher knows everything” thinking, can be problematic. Offering multiple options for every pose and transition in class may be a bit much – decision fatigue is a reality – but that doesn’t mean offering no options at all is the right thing to do.
Empowering students to customize their practice through options that meet their needs creates an environment of safety and self-direction. This may be the best way teachers can support a regulated nervous system in our students.
Don’t wear a watch
Another studio owner, who looked disapprovingly at my watch, once stated, “Good teachers don’t have to wear a watch; you have to know instinctively how long you’ve held students in each position.”
Look, I wish I had that superpower. But between remembering my order and points of interest for the lesson, giving verbal cues, observing student alignment, adjusting the heating and lighting, and occasionally remembering to take time with my own breathing, I’m okay with paying attention to my watch rather than relying on my own (often faulty) perception of time.
Teach for free
Many yoga teachers are drawn to the role out of a sense of service. Unfortunately, some of what is presented as advice is actually intended to capitalize on or even manipulate those good intentions. Yoga teacher and trainer Angus Knoop gives a perfect example. “I was told that for every paid gig you get, you have to teach a free community class,” he recalls.
If you are independently wealthy or teach purely for the love of it, this approach might work. For the rest of us, this advice is unrealistic at best and opportunistic at worst.
Ezrin shared a heartbreaking version of this “advice” given to her when her focus on teaching understandably became strained during the final days of her mother’s battle with cancer. “One studio owner told me I couldn’t travel or branch out or my classes wouldn’t grow,” she explains.
No matter how passionate you are about your role, there are times in every teacher’s life when other things should get your time, energy and attention. A “real” teacher does not teach like a robot. Students come to class not just for the poses, but for the authenticity of the teacher, and that comes from sharing what they’ve learned by taking on the same challenges as the rest of us on the mat. Sometimes your own answers to these challenges are the best.
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