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| What a great forum. I recently found this online and am so excited to have a place to talk about yoga. So, I am a fairly new teaching, I have been teaching for 2 years. The first year I only taught one or two classes a year. In the past year I have been doing it almost full time and have taught about 400-500 classes. So I have taught a lot of classes recently, but am still very new, being at it for only 2 years.
So one of my questions is for any power yoga teachers, or ashtanga or vinyasa teachers. How do you run your beginning classes? I love teaching my intermediate and advanced classes, but I have to admit that I usually dislike teaching my begininng classes. I am not always sure that I am reaching the new students in the way that I want to be. What I have been doing is teaching power yoga, sort of an Ashtanga/Vinyasa mix, influenced a little by Baron baptiste. When I have students who have yoga experience I always feel like I reach them in a great way. Especially if all they have practiced previously is Iyengar or basic Hatha, usually they find the style exciting and interesting. My beginners, I am not so sure with. I usually open with sun salutations, followed by a flow practice. I am never sure if I should slow down even more than I am for them, or if the pace is right. I talk a lot about alignment, but the beginners rarley have perfect alignment. I am bothered by the bad alignement and want to fix it all the time. But I don't want to embarass new students or make them feel uncomfortable or turn them off to yoga. I absolutley always explain alignment thourougly to begininers, but I don't fix every one of them physically in every pose they are off in. I fix alignment to a degree each class, but don't continously fix them every single time they are wrong in a pose. I find that after class 3 or 4 or 5 maybe they are starting to understand the alignment well. What do you think? Do I fix every wrong alignment in the room on every pose, everytime....or do I let it go to a degree while they are new. I guess I am not sure where I should be putting the most attention. My beginning classes are usually pretty large, around 30 students. I feel like if I fix all of their incorrect alignment the class wont even resemble a power yoga class anymore as it will move very slow. Is it okay to let this go? Or....do you even think that students brand new to yoga should be taking a style like power yoga?? |
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| Laura, welcome and what a great post you humble thing you--look at all your experience! To cut to the chase, I think the key to your points was: "But I don't want to embarass new students or make them feel uncomfortable or turn them off to yoga." I've found that that is never the case--beginners WANT your expertise and guidance. I always did starting out--otherwise, I'd think, why pay to have a teacher? Don't want somebody just doing their own practice and expect me to follow along. Similarly, I've found the same with my students, "Show me," "move me," etc. Of course you don't say something like, "Hey idiot, that is the worst down dog I've ever seen!" But I know you know how to address issues. I love beginners! Like seeing their eyes light up and smiles when they accomplish darn near anything. OK, that's my piece lady--looking forward to learning more from you! |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| I love beginners, too. I enjoy that expression on their faces that says "why didn't I know this stuff before?"  I am an Iyengar teacher so we don't do a whole lot of flow, but when I teach newbies sun salutes I teach one pose, practice that, add the next and practice the two together and build it up that way. Or you could make your "flow" come back to tadasana after each side it done. You need to be able to observe folks to see that they arew safe and ready for the next step.
And I'll add my usual question here: what does your mentor/teacher say about this? |
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| rara134 - 2008-02-21 4:08 AM
I feel like if I fix all of their incorrect alignment the class wont even resemble a power yoga class anymore as it will move very slow. Is it okay to let this go? Or....do you even think that students brand new to yoga should be taking a style like power yoga??
Hi Laura,
Welcome to the forum.
My personal opinion is that power Yoga (or vinyasa based styles including Ashtanga) are not ideal for beginners. I think you are correct to focus on alignment first.
Jonathon
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| If I could go back in time, I'd study alignment Iyengar-style indepth first. However, just didn't know better and the flow kept my interest to know more. |
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| as others have mentioned, i also really love teaching beginners. it's more of a challenge at every level, because you really have to think on your feet and come up with adaptations that are specific to each beginner. it's very cool and creative.
but it is difficult, and something that takes time to learn and figure out. after teaching for only two years, you have noticed that you're now ready to make that adjustment--to begin to "really" teach beginners (as i'm sure you've been teaching beginners, but you want to teach them more effectively).
teaching intermediate and advanced students is good for beginner teachers. in fact, i often recommend this to new teachers because theyd ont' have to worry so much about anything--they can observe, learn sequences, and experiment because the students are already aware of their bodies to a certain extent and also familiar with the poses themselves.
when teaching beginners though, they have two learning curves--learning their bodies and learning the postures with correct alignment. As a teacher, you have to learn how to teach them about their bodies (and often come up with several different ways to say the same movement so that different people can 'get' it in their own way), and you have to learn how to break down the postures into palatable "chunks" so that the student can learn them. And then within those two, you have to learn a myriad of modifications for the major types of "problems" that beginners may be bringing into class.
So, you can see that this takes an experienced teacher.
I think the first step in this process, though, is in the simple desire to teach beginners in a safe and effective way. So, that's the biggest part to get, and you've got it!
Now, you have to figure out how to simplify and modify your vinyasa sequence to the beginners that you see most, and from there, learn to teach that sequence and those modifications using a variety of descriptions to encourage students to find those areas.
And ultimately, what makes them feel welcome is that they are confident in your teaching (that you are knowledgable and you share your knowledge confidently) and that you encourage them as they both succeed and fail. It's ok to not get it right the first time, and i often tell my beginners that. You'll be back, and you'll learn it eventually.
So, i think you definitely have what it takes, it just takes figuring out these aspects to make it really sing! |
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| ZB echoed my TT lead, Charles McInerney. It's unfortunate that new teachers are often the ones teaching beginners. At the time I didn't see why that would be but certainly understand it now. |
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| I just went from teaching all-levels vinyasa at a yoga studio to teaching all-levels (read: beginner) power yoga at a gym. You have a little more teaching experience than I have, however, here are my humble observations and if nothing else, I can commiserate with you.  I've noticed the same thing you have, and here is what I've heard from senior teachers on the matter and how I incorporate it.
Beginners need to feel like they've had some success in a class, so it's important not to overcorrect them. Correct things that will lead to injury, but my teacher has told me to leave it at that, and to praise them as much as possible for good form and for modifying a posture. The way I handle the adjustment thing that seems to work is to adjust one student physically while telling the others what I'm doing, i.e., how to adjust themselves. For example, I'm helping a student with downward dog and saying, "Make sure your index fingers are pointed forward and your fingers spread. Relax your neck and shoulders, and pull your navel to your spine." Next time, pick a different student. I'm sure you're already doing this. Since some of them are better with verbal and visual cues anyway, this seems to work for correcting problems without interrupting the flow of the class.
I also use simple anatomical terms and avoid talking about the psoas and sacrum a lot of the time, since it's amazing how little anatomy the average person actually knows. I also enjoy teaching level 2/3 students more for this reason -- a little body awareness beforehand makes teaching so much easier, and I think as yogis, sometimes we take it for granted that people have this because it's so second-nature to us.
I also think beginners would do much better if they take some alignment-based classes first, however... I don't know what kind of position you're in for telling students if they should or shouldn't be in your class, but I know that where I teach, the policy is that all members are welcome in a class. This is difficult for power yoga! I just tell them beforehand that if they're new, they can expect X and Y, and that if they remember nothing else I say, to remember that modifying and resting are always options -- in fact, I expect it. I also like to remind people that anything they can do perfectly the first time is probably not worth doing. I think encouragement that wherever they are is perfect is the key, at least in my experience.
I do notice that beginners don't like to modify, though... they want to do the full pose. So I generally model the modification first and notice if anybody needs to go deeper.
I am also interested in hearing from more senior teachers on this. The difficulty that I'm having is determining when students aren't enjoying themselves. I know I can only remind them so much, though, and that the ultimate experience is up to them. But often I think they're miserable and after class they say how great the class was. Most of the challenge for me is feeling confident in what I'm doing and letting go of the need to have everybody love the class and want to come back. |
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| Sara wrote: The difficulty that I'm having is determining when students aren't enjoying themselves. I know I can only remind them so much, though, and that the ultimate experience is up to them. But often I think they're miserable and after class they say how great the class was. Most of the challenge for me is feeling confident in what I'm doing and letting go of the need to have everybody love the class and want to come back." I know what you mean. I spend a lot of time soliciting feedback is different ways--verbal before or after class, written though comment cards, emails etc. It often does contradict what I think I perceive from body language and statements. Seriously, I've found email to be the best vehicle for honest feedback. Like here, the anonimity, the ability to reply thoughtfully at a time of one's choosing facilitates some objective opinions. Possibly you could create a yahoo-like free email to distribute to folks. There's no pressure that way. |
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| As a student of yoga taking many classes over the years and as a student-teacher working with beginners, I think this is an area that teachers and students alike need to balance. Some studios and gyms offer an Intro to Yoga (or Power Yoga or Flow Yoga) class. This can be a requirement before joining the ongoing class. The beauty of this system is that you can break down each pose systematically with a small group of newbies without trying to keep the regular pace of class. What is the public description of your class? My humble opinion is that Power and Vinyasa styles are for folks who already have familiarity with yoga. Even knowing the proper alignment, and having done yoga for at least 18 years, I find it very easy to get 'sloppy' in a fast moving flow. In my own student teaching the class is simply "hatha yoga". As we have been trained, I have a theme or goal each class and then try to include prep poses, focus poses and a balance of types of asana. My first goal is to build confidence, then adding in new poses, then focusing in a more detailed way on alignment and then introducing mini-vinyasas and then sun salutations. One technique I favor is taking a moment each class to revisit one familiar pose and demonstrate and talk about and 'play with' the purpose of the pose and the common issues with alignment and modifications. As a YTT student, I am learning as I go too and focusing first on my own fundamentals (as a teacher). I agree that Intermediates are much easier for a beginning teacher because you can just say "Chair" or "Utkatasasna" and everyone just goes there. That leaves the teacher open to cue for more finely tuned adjustments (the fun stuff IMHO!). Like the others who have commented here, my Teacher has us get the group in to the modified posture first and then we bring those who are ready/willing/able to go further into the fuller expression of the pose. Would you have time to do that in a Power class, though? |
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| First, I think your questions are very sincere and thoughful as a teacher.
This is my take on this:
If the class is called beginners, it is your job so show them how to do a proper sun salute or triangle, and it is your job to show them how to modify. Yes, the pace is slow. But what you can do to balance things is use plank or dolphin or bakasana to keep things hot.
If the class is called power yoga it is not your job to show them, it is your job to encourage them, support them, adjust them, instruct them etc. But not go back to basics on everything. That is not fun for advanced students.
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teaching power yoga- Beginners
