The Business Of Yoga: Teaching Skills – What Students Want To Hear

Every now and then I send out survey emails to our dedicated yoga students, asking them about their class experiences in a effort to try to understand why some classes at my Center in La Mesa, California are consistently full, while others are not.

Of course there are many reasons, which I will discuss throughout this blog series, The Business of Yoga. Here is one important reason you may not have considered. It was a response from a long-time, experienced student at A Gentle Way:

The words teachers use are very important. They need to flow and not bring us back into the brain mind. For instance, when a teacher says things like:

“Now I want you to’, or, ‘now let’s’…It takes me out of the full body experience and back into the brain. That is not what I am here for.”

This may sound nit-picky to you, but the words we use make a huge impact when we guide our students into the practice of pratyahara during class. Filler words take one out of the full yoga experience and are not needed to guide students from pose to pose, they are actually quite distracting. (We discuss and practice this concept much in more more detail in our MIMSY Meditation in Movement Style Yoga® training workshops.)

As you teach, listen for any filler words that you use, words that are just not necessary.

Even better, record yourself teaching a class and count how many filler words you regularly use. Then practice letting of of those unnecessary words.

These little tweaks can make a big difference in your students’ experience.