182: Tailoring A Yoga Practice for Private Lessons UPDATED
There is no cookie-cutter approach to private yoga teaching.
The most effective private teachers learn to listen carefully, think critically, stay curious, and trust their ability to adapt. Private teaching is not about giving someone a customized version of a group class. It's about creating a collaborative practice that responds to who they are, what they need, and where they are right now.
That requires both clarity of intention and flexibility of method.
In today’s episode we are looking back at one of the foundational ideas behind my work as a private yoga teacher: how to create a yoga practice that actually meets the needs of the person in front of you.
We’ll walk through four key principles for tailoring a private yoga session, including building trust, questioning the idea of a well-rounded practice, understanding the intended benefit of a pose, and staying creative and flexible in your teaching.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Why teaching private yoga lessons requires a different skill set than teaching group classes
The difference between a teacher-driven group class and a student-driven private lesson
How to distinguish between what a student wants and what they may actually need
How to maintain the depth and heart of yoga while adapting the way you teach it
Why students who appear “easy” to teach may actually require more creativity and attention
How understanding the intended benefit of a pose can transform individualized teaching
Helping students develop discernment about whether a practice is actually useful to them
Creative alternatives to traditional centering practices at the beginning of a private lesson
This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you’ll get 50% off your first three months or 15% off any annual plan!
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In this episode of The Mentor Sessions, I’m revisiting an idea I first explored many years ago: that teaching yoga asana primarily with words rather than relying on the body to demonstrate every pose is a skill many teachers benefit from working on.