…which have nothing to do with advancing your own practice or taking another training.

I’ve been teaching for over two years now which is a long time, and also not so long a time. With so many yoga teacher trainings on offer, both in-person, and online, I’m often asked questions by yoga teachers in training and newly graduated teachers on what they can do to improve their yoga classes and their teaching.

I also still attend a lot of classes myself, and while I try to fully enjoy them as a student, it’s sometimes hard to not feel like the classes I attend are part of my learning, or to grade classes on what I think is good/less good (which of course is highly subjective).

Here are five ways to easily make your class a better experience for you and your students:

1 – Introduce yourself 

Even if your name is on the timetable, start your class by introducing yourself! Even if someone has come to your class a handful of times, they may not remember your name and it helps to break the ice – I often teach a mix of old and new faces so I always start by telling the students my name, how long I’ve been teaching yoga, and my history with the studio. I’m always surprised by how many teachers don’t introduce themselves?

2 – Finish on time

I’m a Virgo and someone who plans my life to the hour (a hangover of years of time recording when I was a corporate lawyer maybe) and it really annoys me when classes overrun by even ten minutes. Students have busy lives and by extending a class by 10-15 minutes, you may not be doing them a favour.

If the studio doesn’t have a class right after yours, you can say “we are now at the 55 minute mark, if you need to leave on the hour then please leave the studio quietly when you feel ready, if you are able to stay then you are welcome to stay for meditation/breath work etc.”. Make it the students’ choice, not yours if the class is to overrun.

I always keep a small clock with me when I teach to make sure I finish on time as it can be hard – sometimes i like to give students more time to play and explore, and sometimes a sequence takes longer then anticipated which brings us on to the next point..

3 – Plan your sequence but teach to the students in front of you

A lot of teacher trainings are focused on planning a sequence but the reality is that you don’t know who will walk into your class on any given day. Your skill as a yoga teacher isn’t to memorise a sequence but to know which poses and sequence components work well together, and know how you can advance and regress these poses.

Sometimes I have an entire room of students who have never done a single yoga class before, other times it’s a mix and sometimes it’s all experienced students. Energy levels also vary day to day so I love to ask my students how they are feeling and whether they want something more energetic or more grounding. 

4 – Include play!

I always add some playful moments to class, whether it’s simply rocking up and down on the mat or rocking up to standing or playtime within a pose. 

You can also break out of your sequence to workshop a pose. If it’s a beginners’ class then we may breakdown knees/chest/chin which is actually quite a challenging pose and practice it a few times. If it’s a more experienced group of yogis we may break down wheel, headstand or an arm balance and then have a few minutes to play and experiment, to ask questions and to be assisted. 

5- Turn off the lights in savasana!

So important but again, so often neglected! I like to turn off the lights once we move onto the lying down poses or will do it as students come in to savasana. It helps to change the mood in the room, makes students feel less self conscious (for non-yogis, lying on your bank in a room full of strangers is a little odd) and is much more relaxing!

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If you’re a teacher, do you already do these things? If you’re a student, do you have any yoga class bug-bears? 

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