Leading a class is when you get on your mat and call out what you are doing while you are doing it. Any dedicated yoga student could easily lead a class. There is a time and a place to do that. Leading an advanced practice class where everyone is at the same level is one example, or, when you are practicing with friends. Leading is not necessarily teaching. Leading can often be a lot like playing “Simon Says”.
Teaching a yoga class is standing up in front of a group of people and talking them into and out of postures. Part of teaching is also noticing what your students are doing and helping them improve their postures.
In the first teacher training program I took, my teacher taught us how to teach a class. She did not want us demonstrating or doing any of the poses with our students. She said that wasn’t teaching. I remember this as being difficult. It was so much easier to have the students follow what I was doing. My teacher didn’t even want us to raise our arms up in the air as we gave the cue “Inhale, reach your arms up.” Once she asked me to sit on my hands while teaching. That’s how hard it was to stifle the instinct to do the poses with my students. I am ever so grateful to my teacher for insisting that I learn that skill. I know a lot of yoga teachers who never made that transition from leading to teaching and they can’t seem to get up off their mats now to teach.
There are several reasons why you should learn how to teach a class rather than lead one:
To help your students improve their posture. The hardest thing to do is to see one’s self. Having a skilled teacher’s eyes on you and having an adjustment or an assist to improve your posture is one of the reasons I like to go to class, otherwise I could just as easily practice at home. Sure, there is the energy of the group that helps with your practice, too. (And, yes, assisting and adjusting can be problematic, but that is a topic for another blog post!)
To keep from getting burned out. Some students may be drawn to teaching yoga because they think that they will be able to get paid while practicing. In the beginning when you are only teaching one class a week you can get away with practicing with your students. However, if you are looking to make a career out of teaching yoga and you are teaching several classes a week and more than one class a day, you will burn yourself out practicing with your students. I teach nine classes and five or six privates a week. I couldn’t practice with all my classes, I’d be exhausted! On some days, I might not feel up to doing a Level two Vinyasa class. But that is what I have to teach if that is what is described on the schedule. You have to honor the class description for your students. And, you have to honor your own body as well.
Listen to your body. Maybe this is my problem as I have never heard other teachers admit to this, but I find that it is difficult to listen to my body when I am up in front, leading the class. There is an adrenaline rush to being in front of the group. I feel I want to do my best and perform each posture perfectly. I find that I push too hard when I practice with my class. Practicing yoga is a right brain activity. It is important to pause and feel. Teaching yoga is more of a left brain activity. When I am responsible for bringing people out of Savasana I find that I cannot relax myself.
If you have an injury or don’t feel well. I have been teaching since 2000. Over the years I have had various injuries, some related to yoga and some not. Of course, I took some time off when I broke my wrist while snowboarding, but I was able to get back to teaching yoga long before I could put weight on my hand. There have also been times when I did not feel great, but couldn’t get a sub and had to teach anyway.
Standing up in front of a class to teach is not something that you can naturally do. There are tips and techniques about what to do as well as what not to do. When you are practicing on your mat you probably never think about what to say to get into or out of a pose, you are probably just focused on the posture. But, to teach a class you need to be efficient and precise in your speech to move people into and out of poses safely and without losing their interest by taking too long to say what you need them to do.
It takes a fair amount of experience practicing on your mat to know how to get into and out of poses and how to say that most efficiently. Good teachers are those ones who do their own practices and don’t just take someone else’s classes. You can tell a teacher who has spent time on their mat playing with postures and figuring things out. They are able to draw on a richness and depth of experience that you don’t get simply by parroting back what you have heard another teacher say.
My 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training Program starts in September. Part of the program is called The Art & Craft of Teaching. This is where I teach these skills of how to teach and not lead a yoga class. The Art & Craft of Teaching is also open to newer yoga teachers who may want to improve their teaching skills.
