In teaching yoga, vulnerability may be as important as skill
By Teresa Bergen
New yoga teachers often struggle with the persona they project. Aren’t they supposed to be enlightened role models who know everything? Are they explaining too much or not enough? What do their students expect from them, and how can they best serve those students?
WLT talked with a couple of experienced trainers who help new teachers be the best they can be. Beth Shaw is the founder of the internationally successful YogaFit program, which has trained more than 200,000 teachers on six continents. YogaFit specializes in gyms and health clubs and offers training at the 200-, 500- and 1,000-hour levels.
Jay Fields is an Ojai-based teacher and writer. She mentors yoga teachers and business leaders, offers a yoga-based course in finding inner guidance to students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has published two books.
Student-Centered Classes
Teachers must put their students first, says Shaw. “I think they need to leave their egos to the side. They need to not be there to hear themselves speak, but to be there with the true intention to create a positive shift in people.”
Likewise, Fields encourages teachers to take other people’s classes and pay close attention to how they feel as students. “What makes you feel seen?” she asks in her book, Teaching People, Not Poses. And conversely, “What makes you feel like a piece of meat or a robot?”
Mistakes New Teachers Make
When Fields started teaching yoga 15 years ago, she took on the role of what she thought a yoga teacher was supposed to be: an enlightened being who rose above all the messy problems of life. After a while, she realized she was being a one-dimensional phony. So one of her 12 principles is “Be yourself.” She realized that yoga didn’t increase her enlightenment, but instead helped her to unfold her own true path. Learning to be more herself made space for Fields’ students to be more themselves.
New teachers are often wannabe gurus, Shaw says, who want people to worship them. And they’re usually not great communicators. “New teachers make the mistake of speaking too much,” she says. She also thinks they spend too much time demonstrating poses and not enough time walking around the room helping their students.
Consider the Venue
Shaw developed the YogaFit program in 1994 to fill a need she saw in gyms. When she was getting her own certification, she learned a lot about yoga history and philosophy. But that wasn’t necessarily what people at the fitness center wanted. “You have a lot of people who are there purely for the physical benefits,” she says, “who might not want the other aspects of yoga.” So she created a style that cut the Sanskrit and chanting, and focused on strength and flexibility. Instructors who teach in gyms should also expect fewer regular students, and more drop-ins who come and go, she says.
Don’t Try to Please Everyone
It can take a while for new teachers to develop their style, and while they’re still uncertain about who they are as teachers, they’re more likely to constantly try to accommodate everybody’s preferences. Fields remembers feeling desperate to be liked and to make everyone happy during her early teaching. As a result of her energetic plea for help, she constantly got suggestions for improvement. But after a few years she grew comfortable in her leadership position and clearer on who she was as a teacher. The suggestions decreased as her confidence increased. “In my clarity, my students get to feel if what I have to offer resonates or not, and choose accordingly,” she says.
Vulnerability and Connection
Fields’ principle, “Show your vulnerability and your expertise,” makes a huge difference in retaining students, she reports. Most people come to yoga class because they’re trying to work out knots and kinks in the body. But they stay with a teacher when they feel an emotional connection. The right combination of vulnerability and expertise makes students feel cared for and in good hands.
Shaw similarly sees a need for teachers to emotionally connect with their students. “I think they need to bring in their compassion and sensitivity,” she says.
L.A. has many yoga teachers, so if your intention is to have a successful business—and as much as it is a practice, a path or a passion, teaching is indeed a business—it’s clear from these experts that you’ll need to connect with your students and share from your heart.
YogaFit and Beth Shaw, www.yogafit.com/; Jay Fields, graceandgrityoga.com/
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