5 Principles to Become an Effective Yoga Teacher

1. Preparation  

Ever wonder how an effective yoga teacher prepares and what they do before class?

Preparation comes not by just practicing a particular posture that will be taught, although important. Instead, consider these two key elements within this principle of preparing to teach:

Be Prepared 

Be a yoga teacher to prepare to teach. Understand the nature and transformative vehicles found within the yoga practice. Understand that the practice is a lens through which we see the world and take steps toward making peace with the change that is consistently occurring. This acceptance will aid in creating the experience our students wish to have on their mats and in their lives. 

Each time we and our students step onto our yoga mats, we reconnect and live out this transformational concept. As teachers, we must prepare to offer this opportunity within our classes to help others arrive at this same understanding. Being grounded in this principle and understanding equips the teacher with the ability to step into a room and teach from a place of knowing. This is a place that the teacher has personally experienced. It is a place where the teacher can genuinely ask others to experience the disciplined work that is required within the yoga practice.

Technique  

Technique is also an important element within the concept of preparation, including mental, physical, and emotional preparation. Being willing to evaluate and reevaluate the effectiveness of the techniques you use to prepare to step into and hold space as the teacher is a valuable refinement tool. Refinement within your preparation techniques may be required daily, seasonally, and consistently.

Preparation Technique Tips 

• Be happy in your body. Work out, cross-train, eat, and rest well.
• Practice yoga daily, meditate, and pray. Do what’s possible with consistency.
• Be willing to seek guidance, self-study, and read spiritual and wisdom teachings.
• Take time to connect with your class before you start teaching.
• Be inspired. Pursue that which speaks to you and your passion.
• Be prepared. 

2. Tempo  

One of the things I love about teaching and practicing the Vinyasa (flow) style of yoga is the ability to vary the pace—set the tempo. Whether it’s the pace or length of holds, there is a beautiful ability to experience a fresh encounter just in the way that the tempo or rhythm is adjusted. 

In recent years, as my personal practice and teaching have evolved, I have come to appreciate the experience of slowing down. When we slow down and lengthen the time we remain in the postures, we can sharpen our awareness of the interior subtleties. Moving slower and becoming more thoughtfully organized in the transitions invites the ability to encounter the spaces between the poses. 

Tempo is the Baseline

For the Vinyasa teacher, the tempo is the baseline of the class. This even applies to other styles of yoga, as well. The teacher has the ability to set a tempo and rhythm that can quickly move practitioners into concentrated effort. 

This principle of teaching is powerful. The tempo and rhythm of a class has the ability to stand on its own. When the teacher sets the right pace, then everything else begins to fall into place, and there isn’t any need to try to add anything “extra” to the experience. Within the vehicle of a well-paced class, the student has all they need to experience the transformative effects of yoga practice. For the yoga teacher, dedication toward becoming a skilled “facilitator of flow” opens up the ability for the asana practice to support the type of transformation our students are seeking.

An Effective Yoga Teacher Varies the Pace

I love the juxtaposition that can be created within the asana practice by varying the degrees of tempo within the same class sequence. This juxtaposition invites the brain to stay attentive, and the nervous system can recalibrate through skillful movements supported by steady breath awareness. This creates a powerful experience of the present moment. Varying the pace offers time for students to explore and listen intuitively for guidance to create their own unique experiences on the mat. Within the varied tempo, we may receive invitations to linger, to build strength within longer holds, and to find more stability within the stillness.

What Tempo Does

• Determines level of intensity
• Teaches pranayama
• Teaches alignment
• Teaches method—approach, mood, and being

3. Emphasis 

What is being emphasized within the asana practice? It is more than just the physical expression of a shape of the body. Emphasis connects us to a deeper understanding within the interior and the potential that is available to us to create a strong mind-body experience. 

The yoga teacher has the great opportunity to invite students into this understanding. We can do this through sequencing the class and through the emphasis we plan for each class. With skillful sequencing, the effective yoga teacher has the ability to highlight the emphasis within each segment of the sequencing framework. Emphasis placed on the length of holds, tempo, and innovation within sequencing has a direct correlation to how effective and elevated the class experience has the potential to become. Emphasis comes as an expression of the teacher’s own understanding and practice, as well.

Questions to Ask About Sequencing and Emphasis

• What are the learning goals? What do I want my students to learn?
• What contribution can I make as a teacher toward my students’ experience regarding emphasis?
• What benefits will be accessed through the emphasis I’ve chosen? 

4. Connection

Through our preparation and emphasis, we are able to create connections with students. This helps us guide them to make the connections they desire within the practice. As we teach, we are learning. The idea of student and teacher become interchangeable. 

An effective yoga teacher must become clear on the principles they are emphasizing within their teaching. The teacher will then strengthen their ideals and beliefs through this principle of emphasized teaching. 

Teachers must teach what they need to learn. We become better teachers through the act of teaching, and through this experience, we learn and grow.

“Every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own learning that they will one day no longer need him. This is the one true goal of the teacher.” – The Course in Miracles

5. Self-Study 

Look in. There is a concept called “living your yoga” that I love. This concept and way of living expands the yoga practice to encompass big-picture thinking. It helps eliminate any compartmentalization, including simply applying the practice within certain areas of our lives. Instead, the yoga practice becomes relevant when it is applied to all areas of our lives. 

Within this mindset, we become immersed in the practice and it becomes our preferred way of living at all times. This concept requires contemplative self-study—knowing the practice in a way that we can truly incorporate the teachings into our daily living. It is a disciplined and dedicated effort. To effectively teach others, we must teach from the only place we can—from who we are, and where we are in the process. In order to teach the practice, we must know the practice for ourselves.

We are constantly teaching something to someone. Our actions, our thoughts, and where we place our attention all demonstrate and teach others about what we believe and what is important to us. It is the same in regard to teaching yoga. We teach our students what is important to us within the practice through what we emphasize. Through this demonstration and emphasis within the teaching setting, the teacher also learns.

“We can teach from experience, but we cannot teach experience.” – Sasha Azevedo

Asana is Only One Piece of Self-Study for a Yoga Teacher

The practice of yoga postures (asana) is just one piece of self-study. The physicality of asana is a reflection of a much bigger experience awaiting the practitioner. This physical expression is often the first impression of yoga that is primarily “seen” in the beginning. It is an exterior reflection that barely represents what is taking place on the interior within us. However, this is a place to begin.

I often reflect back to when I began practicing yoga. This was my first impression of the yoga practice. I can still see myself looking in—looking into a room where a group of people were moving and transitioning their bodies into varying shapes. I was intrigued. Instead of looking in, I wanted to step in and learn more. I felt an invitation that day to come in. I had a sense that what I thought I was “seeing” was only a glimpse into a profound, life-changing experience that was awaiting me.

Self-Study Calls Us to Go Deeper

The yoga postures are certainly a necessary vehicle—a disciplined piece of self-study. They are vehicles that help to take us on a journey, a sustained journey of a lifetime. A journey to live into and out of our yoga practice. This journey requires the principle of self-study from us. The pursuit through wisdom teachings that inspire and challenge our thinking. Self-study calls us to explore, linger and to trust with faith in a discipline that will take us into uncharted territories. These territories may feel foreign at the start, yet feel like coming home at the same time.

Self-study is like a road map for this adventure that awaits us through the journey of yoga practice. Self-study helps us gather information and tools to support our steady progression along the entire path of this practice. As we begin to trust the practice, we find guidance for the experience of living on and off the mat. 

We come to see that there is beauty in not arriving. There is a fullness to be found in being right where you are, in the present moment. It is a practice of becoming aware of this present moment.

Living Your Yoga Practice

Living your yoga requires daily discipline and a willingness to be uncomfortable and vulnerable, and to seek and see truth through the tensions of life change. Self-study equips us with the ability to trust in the process of growth and transformation. Through this disciplined effort, we do what’s possible with consistency and find the ability to create the quality of embodied ease. As we release effort, struggle softens.

Self-Study Habits to Cultivate

• Seek cultures, communities, and relationships that support healthy living, accountability, and feedback.
• Cross-train within the yoga practice. Explore a variety of styles, teachings, and practices to support an expanded view.

As a teacher of the practice, self-study is a requirement. It is mandatory to teach and guide others from a place of knowing.