Right now, I am deep in preparation for a weekend of teaching in Ontario. My co-host Jeff Carreira and I are leading a day long Urban retreat the weekend of May 9 followed by a workshop especially for yoga teachers called Cultivating Magic In Your Yoga Classes. The seed for this weekend was planted in conversation I had with Jeff a few years back when he told me something that set my teaching on fire in a brand new way. Today I will share with you that one thing to make your classes more magical for you and your students, starting today.
The Background: Jeff had just finished leading a day-long seminar for a group of people interested in spiritual pursuit. The group contained beginner mediators as well as people who had been steeped in spiritual life for twenty years. This disparity of experience didn't stop the group from dropping almost immediately into a palpable depth and unification. By the end of the day, every single person reported having a breakthrough.
It seemed like a special superpower that Jeff had: to take a room full of people with different experiences and backgrounds and bring them together for the purpose of inspiring transformation that would inform each individual's life afterwards.
As a yoga teacher, you may have been afforded similar praise from your own students. They may feel a special something your class gives them that they don't find elsewhere. Or maybe you are unsure of yourself, wondering if you have that kind of magic a great teacher seems to possess.
Personally, I was interested to know whether someone can learn how to consciously create powerful and transformative classes, or is it a gift that a only a select few people have?
This was my question for Jeff years ago. At the time, I was mentoring a number of brand new teachers. While the majority had solid teaching skills, their classes felt dry and inconsistent. The instructions were safe and clear, but the teachers themselves either didn't hold my attention (i.e. they seemed disconnected couldn't direct the energy of the room) or they performed their way through the class (i.e. they put on a fake yoga voice and became a caricature themselves).
Having gone through my own early years of teaching without a mentor, part of me wondered if the new teachers would drop the less helpful habits as they got more experience.
I asked Jeff his thoughts on the matter.
He told me that the way he helps people experience something powerful begins with caring actively and deeply about them.
It is simple and makes a great deal of sense doesn't it? If you as a yoga teacher sit at the front of the room with your eyes closed and recognize that you want every single person to have an experience that helps to make their day better you are going to teach from an entirely different part of yourself than if you are just counting down the minutes until class is over.
You can't fake this.
You have to decide to care.
You must understand that while you can't control the experience anyone has in your class, you can want the very best for the people in front of you.
When you want the best for another person, you show up and bring your A game.
You teach like their life depended on it.
You care fiercely and it gets you out of your own way.
Begin with truely caring. Intend to teach the best class you have inside of you every single time.
Thoughts? Questions? Insights? Share in the comments below.
