Beginners Luck

An excerpt from my article about teaching beginners over at LoveYogaAnatomy.com.

Read the whole article here.

 

Teaching is a special skill and teaching beginners well is probably the hardest of all. Here are some of my suggestions for teaching beginners in a way that is positive and nurturing and compassionate.

Be Compassionate

Remember what it was like when you were a beginner. After years of practice it’s easy to forget how difficult yoga is. For beginners trying to work out what goes where and which way they are stretching and remember to breathe and and and… it can be pretty overwhelming. If you can get your beginners making roughly the right shape and at the same time remembering to breathe, then that’s a fantastic start – anything else is a bonus. Remember, it definitely doesn’t have to be perfect straight away and if you give too many corrections they may leave the class thinking they got everything wrong.

As a teacher it’s a great idea to go to a dance class or martial arts class, and be that beginner! Remind yourself what it feels like and how hard it is – but also how rewarding it is to get something right

How to survive a Yoga Teacher Training Course

An excerpt from an Elephant Journal article on Yoga Teaching Training survival techniques. Read the full article here.

I have been teaching on intensive teacher training courses in India for around 8 years.

Each year it strikes me that some of us jump right in with a huge smile on our face and love the whole experience. Others seem to spend far too much time crying in the toilets. Why the difference?

Here is some advice from me (plus a wealth of quotes from other yoga teachers) on how survive and thrive during yoga teacher training.

Decide which course is best for you.

The first decision you have to make is what kind of course will work best.

For some, family, work or financial commitments will affect the decision, but others will have to decide whether to do an intensive vs. longer duration course. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

A longer course would probably work best for those who prefer to learn slowly and like to have time to process new information. But for people already teaching with a pretty good grounding in a yoga practice, then jumping in to an intensive program might work best.