Teaching Yoga to beginners as a beginner yoga teacher

So you’ve passed your training, and you get booked to teach your first class. You plan the most wonderful open of calming words to sit alongside Shavasana, you’ve written the most perfect flow of asanas, and to close, some words of wisdom to leave your students with, even after your class has ended. You set your room up perfectly, with your carefully planned playlist ready, and you have props out on each mat. This class is going to be the best class these students have ever had!

What can go wrong? Then …in walks a beginner. 

Say what you do

Teaching beginners is probably one of the hardest things to do as a newly qualified teacher. Even if they know the posture, as in what it looks like, it doesn’t mean they understand the intention. Your job as a teacher, is therefore to teach who you have in front of you, not just the pose. Thats why understanding each pose in terms of teaching points but also, intention, modification and advancement, is so important.

For example teaching Plank - let’s say we’re in a Half Way Lift and we’re asking the student to move back into Plank. For more intermediate and advanced students a simple step back into Plank would suffice, followed by some teaching points. For a beginner, they’re going to need a lot more guidance.

This is where ‘say what you do’ comes in to play, and I don’t mean you have to be on the mat physically doing it, but imagine you are and cue exactly what you do.

Try teaching cue’s 1) and then 2) on yourself to just get in to the posture, imagine you’ve never done Yoga before.

Half Way Lift to Plank

1) Plant the hands on the mat and step back into Plank.

2) Soften the knees, to plant the hands framing the feet, stepping back one foot at a time to the back of the mat, shoulders stacked on top of the wrists, gaze between the hands, one line of energy from the crown of your head to your tailbone.

Plank to Chaturanga 

1) Shift forward, and lower to Chaturanga.

2) Shift forward bringing the shoulders on top of the fingertips, bend the elbows keeping them in towards the side body, and lower in one line of energy to half way, until the shoulders and elbows are in line, hover here for a breath in Chaturanga.


Cobra to Downward Facing Dog
1) Coming back into a Downward Facing Dog

2) Tuck the toes, send the seatbones back to the heels, lift the knees keeping a soft bend, then send the seatbones high, bringing the chest through towards the thighs.

You see, as a beginner it’s the little things that help a huge amount in transitions and postures. They don’t need to know everything they shouldn’t be doing, they don’t need lots of detail, just clear cue’s to move them safely into the posture. Once they’re in the posture that’s when you deliver your teaching points, repeat if required and adjust if necessary. 

Demonstrating
 

When you decide you want to become a Yoga Teacher one of the first things that will stop you, is thinking you're not good enough at Yoga to be a Yoga Teacher.

Your own physical practice has very little relevance to you as a Yoga Teacher. Your job is to cue, guide and support - there is only a small element of demonstration. You want to be constantly moving around and watching your students, helping them verbally or physically to have the right intention for a posture, this kind of teaching for a beginner is vital.

Verbal corrections and physical adjustments can really help a beginner understand where they need to be and what they should be feeling within a posture. You can show them as many times as you want, but that fact is, beginner students very rarely understand their bodies well enough to be able to find the posture just by watching, they need to have really clear cue’s and sometimes physical adjustments, which if you’re on your mat, doing the practice, you just can’t do.

…and remember just because you can’t do a handstand, doesn’t mean you can’t teach it. Likewise, just because someone can do a handstand, doesn’t mean they can teach it - it doesn’t make them a better teacher.

Yoga Props

These are probably some of the most useful tools for your beginners. If used correctly they’re a fantastic way to create space, find length and give support.

Props are sometimes considered almost a negative, like if you can’t do something you need a prop. That’s forgetting however, that the physical aspect to Yoga is a practice, that we grow and develop within, and using a prop is how we create more space, find more length and give ourselves support to practice some postures. There may come a day where you might not need the prop anymore, or it might be something that you start to use in a different way to move into a more advanced version of that posture.

It’s important that beginners understand this, and that if they need a prop they should use it - don’t allow them to let their ego get in the way of getting the most out of a posture.

Pigeon Pose is a perfect example of where students want to bring their chest to the mat so badly, that sometimes they can lean to one side more without even realising and lose the real intention of the posture in doing so. Simply adding a yoga block under the hip will keep the hips square - maintaining the intension for your beginner.

History and Philosophy

You might be a teacher who doesn’t resonate with the history and philosophy sides to Yoga and so it’s not something you want to bring into your classes - remaining authentic is really important in terms of engaging with people.

However if history and philosophy are important, and it’s something you want to have in your classes, it’s important to remember that Yoga as it is now, is not how it once was. The Yoga that is practiced in the western world is an adaptation.

As with many things in life, Yoga in terms of the physical practice has evolved to suit the practitioner. There are also many aspects that have lost their true meaning and just become fashionable through celebrities and influencers.

If you’re going to bring history and philosophy into your classes it’s important to ensure that the information you’re giving is correct and respectful to the practice, the history and the philosophy, but that any information you give is given from a place of education and choice rather than what’s deemed to be right and wrong.

Like we’ve said, evolution is real and although it’s important to understand and respect, it’s also important to realise that new movement doesn’t always mean a lack of understanding, it’s just a different choice and part of Yoga as it is practiced in the western world today. The Yoga community now is a welcoming and an open community to all.

That being said, it’s also really important to remember that for beginners they are more than likely, but not always, at class for the physical aspect, they may not know or be ready to know anything about the history and philosophy behind Yoga. It’s something you can add in slowly to help them understand why the breath is important, why intention is important, and why this physical class that they’re in, is just one small aspect to the 8 limbs of Yoga - Yoga is not just stretching. 

Breath

Which leads me seamlessly on to breath ..anyone would think I’d planned this blog!

Breath work is the backbone to Yoga, and why it’s mentioned in most Yoga classes, whether it be something that’s just touched on at the beginning, or whether your teacher guides every posture with breath - it’s presence is always there.

With beginners it’s good to note why we move on breath, but that it’s not something they need to consider immediately. It’s something you can add in slowly perhaps just at the start or end, but whatever you do, don’t over complicate it, no difficult Pranayamas on day one, just draw attention to it, and explain why - let them have a go, and slowly encourage along the way. Remember we want them to enjoy the class, and most importantly we want them to come back!

Want to know more?

If teaching Yoga is something you’ve been thinking of doing, but have always come across stumbling blocks in terms of time, please have a look over our fully online courses on the courses section of our website, that you can do in your own time, at your own pace over the space of one whole year.

www.yogacourse.com