| As I was preparing to teach a workshop on refining your online teaching skills, I was thinking a lot about what I’d learned from almost a decade of teaching yoga students without ever setting foot in their studio. Many fellow teachers have told me that they have a hard time teaching online because they rely on the energy of being present in the same physical space as their students. Most of us learned to teach based on the visual feedback of watching yoga students respond to cues and seeing where they’re struggling and what’s resonating. But is that reliance on an in-person experience just about a positive, shared experience, or does it become an emotional crutch? |
| There’s no denying the boost that can come from teaching in person if it’s one of those classes where everything seems to click, the students are engaged, and you feel respected and useful. But it’s worth pausing and examining the undercurrents of those feelings and asking ourselves if they should raise any concerns. For one, if we ask ourselves honestly, how does the way we teach change based on how the people in our class react to us? Asana classes aren’t a philosophy seminar where student participation makes or breaks the outcome—if your students aren’t incredibly expressive, or if they’re listening to their bodies and not pushing hard into the poses you’re showing, do you find that your energy level goes down? Does your engagement with the class change? After having many conversations with teachers over the years about their struggles with teaching online, I started noticing these patterns right away and realized that there is potentially too much dependence on the yoga students feeding the teacher’s self-worth. When students are highly engaged with classes, energy levels rise and the connection gets stronger. When that kind of spark is absent, teachers seem to internalize that and feel inadequate and unengaged. This kind of reliance on students’ energy, however, can border on an unhealthy pattern—and arguably at the root of some of the bigger problems within the yoga industry. Teaching yoga is not about feeding our own egos. It’s not about impressing our students, or making them think anything about us, really. This line isn’t unique to yoga—it pops up in every situation that involves uneven power dynamics. But in yoga, teachers are given an extra layer of trust because of the seeking, spiritual nature of the practice, and that exacerbates the danger the teacher’s ego will take center stage. Whether we realize it or not, almost all yoga teachers out there have likely participated in similar power and energy dynamics. When we shift onto Zoom, and suddenly lack that kind of physical feedback, it can be a bit of a shocking awakening. But I think it’s an important one for us as teachers. In the virtual context, it’s a lot harder for teachers to take from students. But in this context, we can give to students. And isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing anyway? I’m not suggesting we all start treating our Zoom classes as a captive audience for our thoughts and feelings—far from it. What we can give to students is the kind of quality, descriptive instruction that helps them find their own way through a pose or sequence, without having to rely on adjustments or visual feedback nearly as much. Most importantly, we can give them the space to explore within a clearly-articulated context so that they can find their own path. We can amplify their personal agency, which has a wonderful carryover effect into their day to day lives! When we let go of the need to motivate ourselves with our student’s energy, we make space to share our inspiration and understanding with them while honoring their experiences. We also advance in our practice. Successfully teaching in this way requires us to take our self worth to the next level, and to believe that we have something worthwhile to say and teach, even if we don’t feel like it. We owe it to our students to build self-knowledge and internal reserves to guide our teaching. Once we’ve made that mindset shift, we can build concrete teaching skills to carry us through the pandemic and back into the studios. So perhaps it’s worth us all pondering how do we ensure we’re giving energy and setting good boundaries, not taking it? If you want to learn more about how to teach online effectively join the workshop next weekend, I’d love to share what I’ve learned with you. |
