TEACHING AUTHENTICALLY - 3 MISTAKES TO AVOID & WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
The Yoga Teacher Journey is challenging…so fulfilling and soul filling but oh it can be hard work, taking perseverance and dedication. We are expected to master asana, sequencing, and creating and holding a beautiful space for our students, and the best yoga teachers make their teachings come to life teaching from the heart and a place of authenticity.
One of the most challenging things to start with is finding your authentic voice. What you have to say, what you want to share, who you are as a teacher?. This can be challenging as most of us haven’t done any work around getting to know ourselves in this way yet BUT just as with the yoga practice itself this is an amazing opportunity to develop and get to know another part of ourselves more deeply.
What makes it even better is we are doing this to then be able to serve our students in a really heart felt and authentic way. To help you on this journey I’m going to share with you 3 mistakes that I see yoga teachers make all the time and what you can do instead to develop your voice further….
MISTAKE NUMBER 1. COPYING OTHER TEACHERS
When you are just starting to teach and actually throughout your whole teaching journey it is important to tap into teachers that inspire you for your own development and inspiration. It is so beneficial to find teachers that really inspire us and help us to grow. BUT one thing to avoid doing is copying what our teachers are teaching, verbatim. This can come in the form of copying their sequence, their dharma talk, even their tone of voice and I’ve seen one teacher actually copy their teachers walk and accent. Oh dear…
For your teaching to really come from the heart you need to tap into who you are….BE YOURSELF…because you are unique and amazing and have so much to share. Believe in that!!
There is no growth to be found when you are copying others. This is not to say you cant take inspiration. Copying and being inspired are two different things. To be inspired is to take a flavour of and then wrap it into your own secret sauce.
When designing your own classes, sequences, themes etc, it can be a lot more work, that is true then just copying BUT because it is your own work, it will be easier to remember and deliver a class that you have designed as it has come from your own creativity and inspired thinking. As a bonus also by creating this class you will deepen your knowledge of what you are teaching. Win win right!
WHAT WE CAN DO INSTEAD
BRING YOUR LEARNING AS INSPIRATION
Bring what you’re learning in these classes you love into your teaching as a source of inspiration. You can be inspired by your teachers and bring a flavour of what you like about their class but it should have the foundation of YOU running through it.
You can also think about different themes that inspire you, give yourself a project a week or month to learn something new and then bring this into your classes. It is said that the best way to learn something new is to teach it and that couldn’t be more true.
START FROM WHERE YOU ARE
Share from your own experience in the practice and in your life. All the yogic philosophy and anatomy can be over whelming and you may think that you need to know everything right now to be a good teacher…but just know that firstly this is impossible and that there is a bottomless pit of information out there and it’s important to take one step at a time.
Even though you may not know as much as your teacher that has been teaching for 5 -10 years longer than you (which makes sense) you probably know more than most of your students that you are teaching. Try as much as to share from what you know and what you have experienced yourself. You can aim to draw in the teachings that you want to share into your own practice and life little by little and than you can impart this to your students from a place of experience and heart felt embodiment.
MISTAKE NUMBER 2. YOGA TEACHERS VOICE
Oh the dreaded yoga teacher voice. A lot of the time when we come out of our teacher training we can think we have to sound a certain way. I see this all the time when working with new teachers. The ‘yoga teacher voice’ is a voice that doesn’t really sound like you, it sounds like what you think a yoga teacher should sound like. Or it can be a sort of auto pilot voice that is put on to hide the nerves or the background noise in your head.
When you are instructing your class, you defiantly want to play with your voice in terms of the inflection, tone, volume and projection… but within this you still want to sound like you.
It’s important to connect to our students with our voice so that what we’re saying really lands and for this to happen we need to be fully present and intentional with our voice and words. And when have slipped into the yoga voice a part of us is in a space of distraction and the problem that we can come across is sometimes we don’t even realise we are doing it.
WHAT WE CAN DO INSTEAD
RECORD YOURSELF
Recording yourself and either listening back or even practicing your own class to start to critique and hear yourself from the outside. This is such a great tool for insight and to make changes where necessary. To pick up on the yoga voice but also filler words (such as ‘and then we are going to…’, ‘um’ or ‘good’ – every second word) that can dilute your instruction and what your saying.
TAKE FOCUS OFF YOURSELF AND ONTO YOUR STUDENTS
One of the reasons that we can slip into this yoga teacher voice is that we’re not present. We are so busy in our heads, in the nerves, trying to remember the sequence or what comes next, that we slip into auto pilot with our voice and at the same time we are disconnected from the room and our students.
Teaching yoga can feel like we are multi-tasking to the max and one thing that we can take out of that mix is the focus on ourselves and bring the focus onto what you’re offering your students. Asking the question ‘How can I serve here?’.
When we’re teaching, it is like we are in conversation with our students, connecting, explaining and really being present with them to take them on this journey safely from start to finish.
MISTAKE NUMBER 3. TRYING TO PLEASE EVERYONE
It can be easy to think that we have to serve everyone with our classes and that we have to make everyone happy but the reality is that not everyone is going to like your class and actually that is ok. As you develop your own voice and style, there will be students that don’t resonate with what you are offering but there will also be students that absolutely love what you’re offering and these are the students you want coming to your classes.
The best thing that you can do is be yourself and if you’re constantly trying to please everyone and teaching in a way that you think others want, it can feel inauthentic to both you and your students and energetically this can be very draining and it wont feel good.
WHAT WE CAN DO INSTEAD
FIND YOUR WHY
Finding your why as a teacher is one of the first fundamental things you should work on getting clear with. Ask yourself questions like, What inspires you about the practice? What brought you to the yoga practice? What benefits have you gained from the yoga practice? What do you love about yoga? What characteristics do you do admire in other teachers and are these characteristics that you resonate with and aspire to cultivate with your own teaching?
All of your answers will start to inspire and shape your voice and your teaching. Again this is a process and a journey and I really encourage you to spend the time on this. It will set you up for success.
KEEP EVOLVING
We are always evolving as human beings and your teaching will most likely evolve too. What you are offering when you first start teaching might be totally different to what you offer in 5 years. In turn the students that are attracted to your classes might also change and that is ok. As long as you are teaching from an aligned an authentic place you will draw in those who resonate.
Finding your authentic voice in your teaching is a journey and it takes time. It takes courage to step into a place where you’re bringing your heart and soul into what you are offering and really being seen and being visible to your students. This is a journey of self development that goes on for a life time. Cultivating a deeper relationship with yourself and getting to know yourself on a deeper level.
Believe in yourself and what you have to offer. Believe in your ability. Most importantly have fun with it. It is such a privilege to be able to teach and be in a position to delve deeply into the teachings of yoga and to really embody these teachings to be able to then pass this on to your students.
Find your voice and a whole lot more with me, in our Evolve Together 6 month Mentoring Programme for Yoga Teachers. For more information get in head HERE and get in touch. I would love to hear from you.