For Yoga Teachers

42. Should yoga teachers demo while teaching?

• Episode 42

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This episode is exploring the answer, your individual answer, to the question: Should yoga teachers demo while teaching?


We’ll look at some reasons to demo, some reasons not to demo, and a few things to bear in mind overall. 


Demoing, for many yoga teachers, takes a lot of the fear around teaching. Your body does the pose and that facilitates how you find the language to guide your yogis in to the pose. But, cultivating the skill to teach verbally only can be really really useful. 


 Enjoy! 


Highlights: 

  • Why teaching yoga is like using a sat nav
  • The times when demoing is going to really help you (and your yogis)
  • When demoing is NOT useful
  • Two important things to bear in mind when demoing


 Useful resources and links: 


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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to four yoga teachers. This podcast has been designed to help yoga teachers teach with passion, avoid burnout and earn a fair living. This podcast is exploring the answer, your answer to the question, should yoga teachers demo while teaching? 

We'll look at some reasons to demo and some reasons not to demo and a few things to bear in mind overall so that you can decide on your answer to this question. Let's go. 

In my experience, teaching yoga whilst demonstrating the poses comes easiest when learning how to teach yoga. And by that, I mean, being able to stand there and verbally [00:01:00] say the alignment instructions and the transition guidance without moving your body through it, doesn't come naturally to most people. 

I have had a few yoga teacher trainees who have preferred to talk rather than demo, right from the get go. Uh, but it's really rare. Um, I've graduated nearly 200 teachers, and I can only think of two that preferred to talk rather than a demo from day one. So it really is a very small percentage. So with that in mind, we can start to assume that for most people learning to teach yoga without demoing is a skill to be cultivated. Here I give my skill cultivating advice that I always say: remove barriers, make it as easy as possible for yourself. Be kind to yourself and take your time. 

If you decide [00:02:00] to work on teaching verbally without demoing, you really have the rest of your life, or at least the rest of your yoga career to refine this skill. 

Reasons to demo. 

How people learn.

Your yogis will learn in different ways. Some will be able to take the verbal instruction and just do the pose. But some won't, some will need to be able to translate your verbal instructions into a language that their body, their movement understands. I always think here about using a sat nav. If most people could take verbal instruction, alone and go from there, then the satnav wouldn't need a screen. But often we'll hear, like, let's say turn left in 50 feet, but then you need to look the sat nav screen and either read the words or see the diagram [00:03:00] on the map to be able to fully understand and integrate, and then execute this instruction. 

I worked really hard on teaching without demoing in my first year of teaching yoga. 

I have shared before that I was teaching up to 28 classes a week. Which is completely ridiculous. But it would have been impossible if I'd had to demo every pose in every class. 

So for me, in the first instance, it came out of necessity. Interestingly a few months into teaching full time, a lady who was blind came to my classes. So demoing was completely pointless. I was really nervous. I wanted this lady to have the same experience as everyone else in the class. Um, and so it really amplified my ability and my confidence to teach verbally and to not rely on demonstrating. Anyway. 

Enough about me all that to say, I worked [00:04:00] really hard to teach without relying on demoing. I did feel that what I was saying was really clear, but even so sometimes people would look at me quizzically or they would do something else. Or they would look around the room in a panicked kind of way. And I think. Why aren't they listening? It was the sat nav analogy when that clicked that made me realize that they were listening with their ears, but there was then a disconnect between the ears and the brain, and then the brain and the internal instructions for movement. And they needed different information or additional information. So, let me just summarize that first point. Your yogis might need instructions that more than, or that's different to just verbal. 

Solidarity. If you're [00:05:00] teaching like core work. or, are balances or something quite challenging, doing the poses and the sequences with your yogis can really create a sense of solidarity. Rather than everyone sort of busting a gut on their mat while you just like breeze around the room barking out instructions.

To quell your nerves. 

Let's face it; teaching yoga can be nerve wracking. If you're more comfortable demonstrating, there's nothing wrong with leaning on that, to get through a class when you're feeling particularly nervous. Especially if the alternative is being overwhelmed or risking freezing, or making loads of mistakes. Give your yogis, the best class that you possibly can in that moment.

Reasons not to demo.

Make your yogis glad that they came to your class. 

[00:06:00] There's so much high quality on demand yoga around these days. But as in-person yoga teachers, we have a job to do to make the Yogi really glad that they swerved the pub that they got up off the sofa that they left their house to come and roll out a yoga mat in your class.

When you're not demoing you're free to look around the room to observe your yogis and adapt your class accordingly. Are your yogis all getting tired? In which case you could add in some resting poses or slow the pace down a little bit. 

Are all your yogis clearly familiar with most of the poses that you're teaching? Okay. So rather than explaining the pose, you could refine your instruction a little bit breathe in to here, feel this area engage, feel this area relax. Are all of your yogis taking every challenging option that you give? Okay. Now you can throw in more challenging options, [00:07:00] or invite them to look inwards a little bit, invite them to work on their breath a little bit deeper. 

Make your yogis glad that they came to your class, make eye contact with them. Smile. Offer adjustments if you have consent, and if this is something that you like to do, And teach them; those people that are in front of you. Watch how they move. Tailor your class and your sequence -maybe this might come slowly, this might be something for a few years time- as you go through the class to give your yogis what they really need. If you get everyone into the first downward dog and there's clearly some very, very tight hamstrings or very, very tight back lines, in your class, you may even be in a position to put down your original class plan and teach something that will loosen off the back line. 

Like I say, This might be something that comes with [00:08:00] time, something that you find yourself doing in a few years. This is not something to put extra pressure on yourself about.

Uniqueness of bodies.

One of the things that comes up really often is how much yoga teachers forget what it was like to be a beginner Yogi. Even if you have tension in your body. Even if you don't consider yourself to be particularly fit or particularly flexible, you still have the language of yoga in your body, and often things like downward dog, lunges, warrior two, plank. Have all become easier for you. So when you can do a, let's say lunge, whilst talking with your arms up in the air; that lunge might look a lot different to those who were in your class. 

If they were to replicate the positioning of your [00:09:00] feet, the shape of your spine, that might not be right for their body. Whereas, if you can use skilled verbal instruction. Step back this much, get solid through the feet, find strength here. Now raise the arms carefully. Pay attention to how it feels. This might be more safe and beneficial for the Yogi.



You can teach who's in front of you.

We've briefly talked about this already. But just to work on this a little bit more. 

When you are doing downward facing dog, you are looking at your feet. You're not looking at the yogis that have come to your class. So you might be banging out; "spread the way evenly through all of your fingers, bend your knees. If you need to" actually, don't get me started on that phrase. But your yogis might already have the weight distributed evenly through their hands. They might already have their legs bent perfectly for them. So [00:10:00] you're wasting your breath and you're wasting their time. They don't need those instructions, but they might need something else, which you've missed because you're not looking at them. 

Increased risk of injury. When you're demoing and teaching, you are by definition, less mindful of your own body and your own alignment. Which really can lead to injury and it does. Demonstrating more also leads to feeling more tired when the body gets tired it defaults to the path of least resistance. 

So slumping through your bones rather than using muscles to engage and to protect. All of this increases the chances of getting injured while demoing. 

There's a couple of things to bear in mind overall, let's have a look at those. 

When demoing be mindful of when people can see you.

For example, if you've got your yogis laid [00:11:00] down on their backs, ready for ready for bridge pose. And then you demo bridge pose. They're going to be straining their necks to try and see you at the front of the class. Another really common example is downward dog. Again, when people are doing downward dog, they're looking, you know, in the vague direction of their feet, which is like the back of the room, but you're at the front of the room. 

So again, they're going to be straining their necks to try and see you. If you're not demoing these poses, you're implying that there's nothing to see in which case they can look in the correct area and protect their neck.

When demoing be mindful of always demoing on one side, this is really common that yoga teachers demo the sequence, let's say on the right side. And then on the left side, they have a walk around the room and a look what everyone's doing. So just try and change up which [00:12:00] side do you demo on and which side you walk around the room on?

If you've cultivated the skill of teaching verbally only, you can employ this as and when you want and need to. You might demo more at the beginning of a class and less towards the end or vice versa. You might demo a lot in one particular class that you teach and much less in other classes. However, without cultivating the skill, you're always going to be relying on demoing.

Also if you're a full time yoga teacher you might have to teach at times when you're very, very tired or when you're injured. Or both. Obviously, this is less than ideal. I'd really recommend taking steps to avoid this worst case scenario. But that said, if you have the ability to teach without demoing, then you will be able [00:13:00] to lead your class if you're very tired or if you're injured. 

In short, there is no one right way of teaching. People will tell you, you should do this. You definitely shouldn't do that. But they don't know you as well as you do. And they certainly don't know your yogis. If you keep learning, teach with authenticity, teach with passion. Your yogis will find you or you'll find them.

My advice would be to cultivate the skill of teaching verbally only so that you can use it when you judge it to be right. You can watch your yogis move. You can learn from their bodies and their movement patterns and respond to them accordingly, and you can use it when you don't have the energy or the ability to move.

But how you teach is completely personal to you. Watch out for clues that people need more or less guidance. [00:14:00] Trust your gut. Be kind to yourself. Build the skill of teaching verbally slowly and over time. And keep good feedback that you receive. You've got this. 

Yoga teacher, I hope that's helped provide some insight to help you answer the question: should yoga teachers demo? If you be so kind to share this episode with a fellow yoga teacher, we would be so grateful, and as always happy teaching.