I started teaching yoga this past summer for the first time and it has already proven to be rewarding. If you remember some of my posts from last spring, I completed my yoga teacher training from Devanadi and was excited to start my teaching journey.
Since then, I have taught drop in classes outside at my local community center and I volunteered to teach people going through cancer treatments at a facility by our local hospital. Yoga teaching has proven to give me everything I thought it would and so much more, including some surprises and a downfall I didn’t think of.
Let’s start with the positives
Being able to share yoga with my community has been so rewarding. I have had students say that the class was “just what they needed” and another student said the class literally took away the pain in her neck. Seeing my students feel challenged during class, have fun and relax is just what I wanted to get out of my yoga teaching.
This was even more visible when teaching students going through cancer treatments. They were so grateful for the class and to have the opportunity to move and breathe in a safe space. I was so happy to be able to give them that ability to reduce stress through movement, breath and meditation.
Things that haven’t been ideal in my yoga teaching
One side effect of teaching is that my own yoga practice has declined. Don’t get me wrong, I’m practicing yoga even more now but it is to prep for my classes, not for my own well-being. I haven’t been to my usual yoga studio now for two months, which I haven’t done since before I was pregnant with my 5 year old, and I can feel it! My patience is lower in my day to day life and stress has seemed to be higher than normal. I also don’t feel as strong and just don’t feel as “complete.” The hope is that my practice will start to come back more and more as I continue to teach. The more I teach, the more comfortable I will get, so I won’t have to spend as much time prepping.
There were also a few surprises I had during my teaching…
Teaching outside always creates the chance that weather will become an issue and this of course happened to me. When teaching my largest class I had (of four people!), it started to thunder and then proceeded to rain on us. Since slip and slide yoga isn’t smart for liability reasons (although it does sound fun), we took our class inside. Well, there was another class in the building so my class just sat and chatted for about 10 minutes before we could finish our flow. Mind you this was not the ideal situation but thankfully my students were very reasonable humans and didn’t blame me for mother nature.
Another surprise was how open my yoga students were to trying new things. This was especially the case with the class I taught to people going through cancer treatments. Even though they were fighting an aggressive, horrible disease, they were still looking for ways to build strength and mindfulness. I was even asked if I could give a list of poses to “work on” so they would be better next time.
Overall, I am loving teaching and am excited to continue on!
I hope to continue to build my voice and my overall style as a teacher. The beauty with the classes I am teaching right now is that there aren’t any rules. This allows me to be flexible with what I teach giving me the freedom to try new things to develop my teaching voice.
This fall, I am teaching a 6 week session class at a local community center. I will also continue to teach at the facility for cancer patients about once a month as a volunteer. I just need to find a balance between teaching and keeping up my own practice.
