5 Key Tips for New Yoga Teachers: Your Path to Success

Yoga is an ancient practice that needs concentration in physical, mental, and spiritual states. Remember when you just completed the yoga course, but you were worried about how to deliver it to your students as a trainer for the first time? It must have been a very difficult and puzzling situation. While this is quite common among new yoga teachers, we are trying our best to make your journey as a yoga teacher a little more comfortable. After all, the lessons must be delivered in a smooth manner to the students to ensure maximum good results. Going through a few reliable tips could make you successful in presenting your yoga art in a studio, gym, or community center. 

Let’s have a look at these helpful tips for new yoga teachers:

1. Be Easy on Yourself

Know that as a yoga teacher, you will learn something new every day. That’s how you will grow in your profession. You do not know everything, and there is no need to know everything. Remaining curious is important. It is one of the most important rules of the teaching profession. Knowledge is wealth, and this world is full of information. You must stay curious to grab all the information out there. The information you learn today will change tomorrow. Follow the rule of learning and unlearning each day very clearly. 

You will always give one of the following three classes:

  • The one you plan to teach
  • The one you teach
  • The one you should have taught

Number three can scare new yoga teachers. You may feel that you missed doing or speaking something. Some yoga teachers will spend the entire ride home second-guessing what they said and did. Learn from each class you teach and move on.

2. Your Fear Can Be Your Friend

The first time you appear as a mentor before your students can be a worrisome situation. Even after years of teaching experience as a yoga guru, people still become nervous. Just excuse yourself from your anxiety and make it your friend. Know that the situation of nervousness can be turned into something good and powerful for your students. Fear also creates an opportunity for a lot of growth. However, if you still feel nervous about teaching as a new yoga teacher, then following advice for new yoga teachers can dissolve some of your worries.

  • Sit down and find the root cause of your anxiety.
  • Write the reason for your fear and change the negative parts of the statements with positive terms. Do add a powerful line at the end that will motivate you to beat your fear.
  • Keep reading what you have written.
  • Tell yourself that you have the power to overcome your fears and change your destiny.
  • Note down the best and the worst that could emerge from your win and failure against your fear.
  • Also, make yourself realize that there is a lot more to gain than to lose. By making a mistake, you can also learn something new.
  • Tell yourself that going on the field and performing your best is more important than your dreamy, perfect win.

3. Don’t Sell Yourself Short

We tend to attract things that are alike. You will most likely have students new to yoga if you are a new yoga teacher. Simply do your best. We have heard amazing stories from brand-new yoga teachers. We know countless stories where students have attended their first class with a brand-new yoga teacher, and that specific class had a profound impact on that new student’s life and hooked them on yoga. The practice is potent.

You can ask people to enjoy freedom, shake their bodies, and clean their minds with a lot of breathing exercises. Your purpose of teaching should be directed towards making students learn something good. Share yourself. Share your love of yoga. Students will learn this, and they will send the same towards you. 

4. Your Experience Is the Best Teacher

When you begin teaching yoga, you feel that you must be teaching everything in the best manner possible. However, it is not necessary. A powerful yoga teacher uses his or her own life experiences and examples to deliver the best knowledge to his or her students. For instance, you can speak to your student about how yoga has changed your life.

You have seen various people in your life gaining new knowledge and means through yoga. Discuss with them some special cases of students you taught who achieved discipline and success in their lives through regular focus and practice of yoga. You must live your lessons. You must teach them from your heart. You must teach for what will last in a student’s mind.

5. Have a Cheat Sheet Nearby

As a new yoga teacher, you already have enough things on your plate, such as memorizing a sequence, finding cues, timing, etc. Take inspiration from your own training and make things easier for yourself. It is best to have a notebook nearby with your sequence, reminders, or whatever you need. Don’t worry if you are stuck somewhere. In the meantime, you can ask your students to practice a yoga style. Take the opportunity to go through your notebook. You are on track now. Speak with confidence to your yoga students. 

Additional Insights to Support Your Yoga Teaching Journey

1. Use One Student in the Room to Teach the Entire Class

For people who are appointed as new yoga teachers, a room filled with students may look overpowering. To stay present and connected, look at one student when you are teaching. Align your thoughts with him or her and speak to “their body.” For example, say you are teaching Warrior 1; you would look at one person’s feet and speak to the foundation of the pose. Not only does that individual person benefit, but the whole room does as well because you are connecting physically and you are present. It lands powerfully for the whole class.

2. Don’t Overpractice; Just Deliver

Teaching is an absorbing process. As a yoga teacher, you will do a lot of mental planning to deliver the best yoga lectures to your students. “Oh! I will explain the pranayama in this way so that my students learn it well.” “I will invite a student with me to do a demo of the surya namaskar; this will make the entire class more attentive.” With a lot going on in your mind, you must realize that overthinking about teaching in a certain way will make you lose your own joy of teaching.

You will lose your presence in the class. It is vital that you allot a specific time for your lesson planning and practice and be confident of what you know. When in class, just be present there. Act and not think! When in class, take time to share your own learning with the students. It sounds inspirational and not authoritative. While doing this, slow down a bit. You and your students can both find time to reflect on your own thoughts and experiences. You can save your energy. Sharing of wisdom should be your priority. 

Also Read – Are You Thinking About Becoming a Yoga Teacher in India?

3. Teach Your Students to Be Their Own Teachers

As a good yoga teacher, it is important that you advise your students to be their own teachers. You must teach them to have confidence in their own beliefs. This will prevent them from causing harm to their own feelings. Through self-guidance they can explore better practices to assist themselves and establish balance in their lives. Group learning is a wonderful way to share common energy, but that should not lessen your own knowledge, energy, belief, and practice.

 4. Meditation Can Relax You Completely

Meditation is a wholesome experience. It can do wonders for you. It is good if you consider the advice for new yoga teachers and, in your free time, practice the Neelakantha meditation pose. It will relieve you beyond imagination. Sit and do it for 20 minutes every day. This meditation pose will tremendously increase your energy as a yoga teacher and a human being. You will feel love, compassion, strength, and humility in your words and actions. Start doing it by yourself today. As a beginner, you can sit in meditation for 10 minutes each day and increase the amount of time with peace and practice.

5. You Will Not Be Every Student’s Favorite

A class has different kinds of personalities. Each student in the class will have his or her opinion about you and your teaching. This should not bother you. As a first-time yoga trainer, you might try to read and teach everything from the notebook you have prepared, but that is not the most fulfilling way to become a yoga teacher. Being you is most important to being successful as a yoga teacher. It is best to be as you are. Teach from your heart, and you will see that your students will admire you. Never try to please your students. 

Also Read – The Exciting Career of a New Yoga Teacher: Opportunities, Path, and Tips

6. Share Respectable Boundaries

As a yoga teacher, you will have to face all sorts of questions. You might answer some questions, and some you might not. People may hold all kinds of expectations of you. They may ask for free classes or classes on holidays. They may pay you less for your teaching or put you in places where you don’t feel like teaching. As per the tips for new yoga teachers, learn to say no. Don’t be a people pleaser. Being a yoga teacher does not mean that you will have to listen and accept everything. Keep your heart open toward people, but maintain firm boundaries.

Use your intuition to judge things and people around you, and do what you feel is right. You should develop wisdom that helps you differentiate. Clarity is important in vision, thoughts, and actions. Saying a clear no can push you towards the right thing in life. Take time to think before you agree to do something. It is generally tougher to say no once yes has been said. So, better take your good time to think carefully about what you want to do. This will also give you the most appropriate decision, which will be good for everyone. 

7. Keep it Simple

Use the KISS method, which means “Keep it Simple for Students.” As a new yoga teacher, you will most likely attract students who are new to yoga as well. You do not need to wow them, knock their socks off, or hit a home run. Often, yoga teachers feel that they should burden their students with heavy creative ideas, phrases, and exercises. The hope is that it may impress them or that it is needed for students to have a powerful yoga experience.

But for students, less is more. People have enough on their plates to be bogged down and confused with complex instructions and poses, different languages, overuse of yoga jargon, etc. Just showing up for students is an incredible accomplishment. They are already learning something new by just being in class.

Also Read – Why Yoga Teacher Training in Rishikesh Is the Greatest Option in India

Conclusion

Over the years, Rishikul Yogshala Rishikesh has been placed among the top yoga schools of India. We specialize in 200 hour YTTC in Rishikesh, offering authentic teachings rooted in traditional yogic wisdom. We constantly place a priority on holding small, comfortable class sizes so that we can provide each student with individualized attention. Our yoga school is well known for its top-notch faculty, extensive facilities, and kind and encouraging classroom environment. With Yoga Alliance registration, we are the best yoga school in Rishikesh.

Rishikul Yogshala

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