On a decade of teaching yoga 🔟
10 intentions heading into the next decade
I’m writing today’s note as I’m recruiting for my next Intentional New Year’s Retreat, December 29 - January 1, 2024! This will be the fourth retreat that Catherine Andrews of
have hosted together, and we are so thrilled for it. We’re gathering in a cozy cabin in western Maryland, where we’ll meditate and practice yoga, eat yummy food, commune with nature, cast a vision for the new year with the help of Tarot and journals, and step into 2024 feeling empowered and renewed. If you are looking to spend new year’s in community with a group of like-hearted women, this one is for you!
Onto today’s essay, which is really a long-winded list.
A little over ten years ago, I took a big, scary step and unrolled my mat to teach my first yoga class (subbing for the amazing Ellie!) and starting a now decade-long yoga teaching experience. This year as I’m celebrating this milestone and the ripple effect of taking
’s “Bold Moves October” Tumblr movement to heart when I first signed up for my teacher training.I thought it would be fun to reflect on some things I’ve learned in 10 years of teaching yoga, along with intentions I’m casting as I head into the next decade. To me, they just feel like life lessons.
Here goes…
There are no perfect answers. — I intend to encourage students to ask more illuminating questions of themselves.
One of the methods I’ve found most useful as an instructor is to position cues as questions throughout practice. So, rather than tell students to widen their stance in mountain pose (a standing shape), I might instead ask, “How could you adjust your footing here to feel more stable?” I also always end my yoga classes these days with journaling. This was not part of any system in my teacher training, but I’ve personally found there’s some serious magic to movement, followed by meditation (often yoga nidra), followed by journaling. Using journaling with guided prompts also gives me the chance to better offer a complete eight-limbed practice.
The yoga teaching journey is not a linear process. — I intend to embrace seasonality.
The last several years have been very different for me as an instructor versus the first seven. I have been teaching primarily online (aside from a few retreats) and able to build my own schedule in a way that allows me to rest and recuperate between cycles/series. I also think this seasonality can extend in other ways, such as building in space to integrate new modalities or influences from teachers or coaches. For instance, I’m starting up at a new strength training facility this week and pretty intrigued to find how those movements and routines will influence how I practice and teach.
I also love that embracing seasonality has meant I can release the pressure valve on myself to turn my yoga teaching career into full-time work. I’m still not there, and I’m learning that doesn’t make me less competent or committed as an instructor.
Feedback is powerful. — I intend to ask for it, but try not to hold on too tightly when I do.
As Catherine and I prepare to hold our next yoga retreat together, I was reading through the incredibly helpful survey feedback from last year to make sure that we incorporate all that we can to refine the experience. This is the kind of feedback I would classify as highly valuable. I think it’s important to contextualize feedback in order to understand how closely to consider it. If a passer-by online critiques a free offering of mine, that’s going to hold much lower weight than a regular student. As an instructor, you cannot become so porous to all feedback that you shape-shift to fit the needs of vastly different clientele/populations. In trying to please everyone, you’ll become a watered down version of yourself. I’m learning to be mindful about who I let in with regard to feedback, and what I take to heart.
By delving deep into one style or method of teaching, I can come to understand a system, then see how to make it my own. — I intend to keep refining my discernment to know what to keep vs. what to shed.
Have you ever heard of the word jootsing? It was coined by Douglas Hofstadter and basically means “jumping out of the system,” where you master a system and understand its rules, then come up with new ways to challenge or subvert the rules to jump out of the system. I opted to focus on Dharma yoga during my training and aligned with mostly Dharma yoga instructors over the past 10 years. However, over time I took what worked for me, like the focus on all eight limbs of yoga, the power of mantras and chanting/singing, the community; and to shed what didn’t, like practicing deep back bends early in a practice or eating a vegan diet. My path has shown me that it’s inappropriate (and possibly harmful) to tell students what to eat or not eat. When it comes to physical practices, I lean into sensation-based cues rather than shape-based instruction. I’d rather a student feel into their practice than look at an IG post to contort themselves into a shape.
As an instructor, I think it’s more important to understand the essence of teachings, rather than rules. Our environment and context is constantly shifting and what’s most important is to develop one’s sense of discernment. I want to create a space where students can learn to trust their own wisdom.
If you’re not sure why you’re providing a particular cue, don’t use it. — I intend to learn more and when necessary, say less.
This one reminds me of that one chapter from Don Miguel Ruiz’ The Four Agreements where he tells us to be impeccable with our word. It’s often challenging to be impeccable with our word, because we are surrounded by misinformation and a lot of pressure to just say something about everything.
This happens in the Western yoga culture as well, where certain cues that seem to have embedded themselves into the vernacular continue to perpetuate for years, causing teachers to repeat them without understanding why. These include popular hits like: “Remove the flesh from your Sitz bones,” before a forward fold (which doesn’t make sense), or “Make your body flat like it’s between two panes of glass” for triangle pose (which is just gross sounding!!). Teachers often cue inappropriately based on physiology and anatomy — like telling students not to engage the hip flexors in boat pose when that’s actually not possible. (On this note, I must give major props to Dr. Ariele Foster who is a must-follow on such topics and has an IG story with tons of misinformation-flags in the yoga world). I want to keep learning and exposing myself to new information and research and to look to trusted experts when I don’t know about a particular area. I also want to be able to forgive myself when I learn more about something I used to teach improperly (it happens), and swiftly correct it.
Music is healing and the playlist does matter. — I intend to keep exploring its power and make sure my classes are, above all, fun.
I have fully embraced that music forms the blueprint for my class offerings. Why? Because it works and people enjoy it! Music makes people feel good. It distorts our perception of time and for thousands of years, music has united us as humans. I spend a lot of time prepping playlists, sequences and timing because for me that experience matters and I want to be present with students while we are together.
In the time ahead, I’d love to find ways to partner with musicians on yoga+live music experience offerings or work with creators on meditation+original compositions for virtual offerings.
Asana was always a foundation for my practice, but over time it took on a different significance. — I intend to teach movement that inspires, energizes and supports the structure of my students’ bodies.
In September 2021, I dislocated my left shoulder from a fall while hiking and while it has for the most part recovered, there remains the ever-present awareness of the injury. While I don’t believe I will ever recover the same range of motion I once had, I also don’t know that I should. I have a memory of one instructor once pointing out my side plank, how I needed to adjust my alignment because I was stacking my shoulder off-kilter from the base of my wrist, a compromised position for my shoulder over time. I did heed the warnings and adjust, but I’m certain that a good portion of the time my form and the repeated movements were doing more harm than good. Ten years later I recognize the responsibility we have as teachers. I was praised for my “gumby” body during my YTT (problematic in itself), and that hyper-mobility left unchecked is now a liability I need to work with more consciously.
Creating, contorting and advancing poses used to be exciting and motivational to me. Now, I use asana purely as an invitation into the body, a way to gather information about energy levels, mobility, emotional state. Heading into the next ten, I want to focus less on posture aesthetic and for my classes to help students to feel strong, supported and energized.
Once you becomes a yoga instructor, you don’t ever quite experience a yoga class the same way again. — I intend to seek out instructors who spark my curiosity and help me forget I’m a teacher.
I can’t recall if anyone ever warned me about this, but becoming a yoga instructor is a great way to make sure you never get to enjoy a yoga class in the same way ever again. For one thing, the inner critic is always chiming in with how I’d do it differently or what I would steal for my own instruction. But the other reason is that process of learning is filtered through a lens of how any lesson can be absorbed, integrated, and imparted on another student. By the time I left D.C. in 2019, most of the classes I would frequent were attended, in large part, by other yoga instructors.
At the same time, I really want to commit to finding and learning from yoga instructors and other coaches (preferably in-person) who can help me up-level in the years ahead. I’m not sure if this involves taking another YTT (to get my YTT-500), but perhaps it will.
I absolutely love leading yoga nidra practices. — I intend to elevate that offering.
Over the last several years, I’ve found myself more and more drawn to yoga nidra instruction (some free offerings here). I’m also so excited for the clinical research that is getting published validating the positive impacts of this practice. As I’ve received more interest and positive feedback on these types of classes from students, I’m hoping to incorporate more regular offerings into my schedules. I may even roll out a subscription of some sort and host live/recorded yoga nidra sessions at a regular cadence depending on interest. I’ll be sharing more and likely soliciting some feedback so if this is something you’d be interested in, please fill that out when I do.
There will be beautiful, transcendent moments. — I intend to savor them.
I once took the VIA Character Strengths survey and learned that my top strength is “Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence.” At the time, this struck me as potentially shallow, but the more I’ve taught yoga the more I’ve come to cherish this appreciation. I’ve been able to witness such profound dedication, focus and perseverance from my students. I have loved watching their evolution and hearing the insights that their practices have uncovered.
Most of the time, I have trouble putting into words that sort of vibration of aliveness that comes after teaching, but once early in my teaching career (when Tumblr was my writing platform) I certainly tried:
This experience is one where I hope to always be learning and growing, whether it is from mentors deeply embedded or in new inspiration, direction or guidance from “outside the system.” It’s pretty awesome to consider that in ten years from now, it could all look completely different yet again.
Oh BMO. I could use a little of that myself.