Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher

From Nerves to Confidence: Tackling Imposter Syndrome in Yoga Teaching

• Sage Rountree • Season 1 • Episode 11

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What if your nerves are actually a good thing for your yoga teaching? When you shift your thinking to appreciate how much you care about yoga and your students, nerves can be a secret key to confident yoga teaching!

Let's reframe nerves as an ally, not an obstacle. In this episode, I offer strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome, defining your role as a yoga teacher, and finding confidence in every class you teach. Listen for actionable tips to help you move from self-doubt to self-assurance in the yoga studio!

Chapters:

  1. Welcome (0:00): Why imposter syndrome affects so many yoga teachers
  2. Understanding Imposter Syndrome (2:15): What it is, why it happens, and how it might actually help you grow
  3. Mindset Shifts (6:40): Actionable steps to overcome self-doubt and find your confidence
  4. Practical Tips (11:20): Strategies to teach from authenticity and build trust with your students
  5. Closing Thoughts (16:10): Recap and affirmation to help you grow as a confident yoga teacher

Links:

• Get my greatest-hits lesson plan

• Teaching Yoga to Athletes online course with private podcast

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:


Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Explore my continuing education workshops and 300/500-hour teacher training programs. It's all at sagerountree.com.

Can I tell you something? I still get nervous before every class I teach and I've been teaching yoga for 20 years. So if you are nervous before classes know that you are not alone. I have come to realize that these nerves are actually a good thing. I'm Sage Rountree. And this is Yoga Teacher Confidential in which I share the secrets of becoming a really great yoga teacher. ga teache us us self- study and self- knowledge. Something that I have learned about myself in the last 20 years of teaching yoga is that my nerves manifest in interesting ways. I get cranky before class. I procrastinate my planning. I even run late heading down to the studio. This is all some minor form, I suppose, of self-sabotage. But it all is evidence that I really care about my students. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be nervous. And it took me quite a while to come around to that. At first I thought, oh, I'm struggling because I really don't want to be a yoga teacher or something is out of alignment. Now that couldn't be any further from the truth. I was just feeling cranky, feeling resistant to planning, and running late because I cared so much. How did I come to that realization? Because I know that feeling goes away the very moment the class begins. In fact, it usually goes away the very moment that there are students there for the class. So it's something that happens every time, but that doesn't mean that it is a negative. I get especially nervous when I'm going into a situation where one or more of the variables are unknown. So I'm less nervous at my studio in my regular weekly class. Then I would be, if I were going to work with a new student in a private lesson or go visit a team that I hadn't taught before. Of course this absolutely makes sense. There are more unknowns and therefore more margin of error, more opportunity for mistakes to happen. And more on the line. Of course, I get nervous when I'm working with high profile athletes or other famous people. That's totally normal, of course, but I've come to realize that famous people are just people and they're coming to yoga for the very same reason that quote unquote, every day people are that regular people are. And then when you remember to center your students and view yourself as the guide and not as the hero of the story, somebody's fame or infamy is not so relevant. You're going to teach them in the exact same way. I get nervous when I'm teaching in different formats. Even if it's something that I am well-trained to do, experienced in doing, but just haven't done in awhile. I get a little extra excited going in to teach a class like that. For example, say yoga nidra, which I teach only a few times a year. I think I get most nervous when I am on my way to work with my most favorite population, yoga teachers. When I head down to lead sections of our 200- hour yoga teacher training, or when I am in charge of a weekend in our advanced studies yoga teacher training at my studio, those are the times that I feel the most nervous go figure, because that really is the population that I care about the most, that I seek to serve the best. But I guess that makes sense. If you understand that your nerves are expression of how much you care about your students, doesn't it then track that the students you care about the most are the ones that you get most excited to teach, and that can register as nerves. I have taught in some pretty high profile situations. I taught a class at the Pentagon. I taught on stage at the Wanderlust Festival. They used to do these one day mindful triathlons that had running or walking, yoga and meditation. And I would lead the meditation to thousands of people with a microphone, with big amplifiers, coming on stage right after MC Yogi. That was a pretty high profile situation. Of course I was pretty nervous in those, but I've also been nervous going into teach a little workshop or a little corporate class. Or to serve a new population of students that I haven't seen before. All of this to say nerves are normal. One thing I find especially useful in a high profile situation like that was having my kids around and my husband around, especially my kids, because they needed my care. I used to take them with me when I went away for the weekend to lead the meditation at those Wanderlust Festivals. I have some really sweet memories of being in Miami with my daughter Vivian, of being in Nashville with my daughter Lily. It was really good to have somebody to focus on somebody to guide and to serve. As almost a proxy for the students. I was about to walk onstage and talk to. You can also trust your children and your partner to keep your ego from getting too inflated, to keep you in a good context of what your place is and what your role is. And to help you laugh at any mistakes that you might've made during the delivery of your class. Quick sidebar. If you like hearing me tell stories. If you'd like hearing about some of the weird experiences I've had in my 20- year career and in working with athletes, I am in the process of working on a private podcast, keyed to my signature program, Teaching Yoga to Athletes. It will be part of the sales funnel to go along with my currently existing on- demand free workshop called secrets of teaching yoga to athletes. There's going to be even more secrets in this private podcast. So you can click through to the link in the show notes to get into that sales funnel and get all these extra tidbits. If you're a podcast fan, I think you'll really enjoy the private podcast. Back to the matter at hand. Another term that we like to use when we're thinking about building confidence in the yoga classroom and managing nerves before class is this phrase imposter syndrome. If you listened to episode six of this season with Karen Fabian, you know that Karen talked about imposter syndrome as a concept she hadn't even heard of when she started teaching yoga the year before I started teaching yoga. It is a relatively new concept. Another quick sidebar. Karen was super generous in sharing with me, all of her advice for getting a podcast up and running. And she sent me a link to a video she had given at her podcasting studio, a lecture that she gave to potential podcasters. And she mentioned imposter syndrome as an issue that yoga teachers struggle with. And one of the people in the audience, I don't think you'll be surprised to hear it was a man. Threw up his hand and shouted out, Hey, what's imposter syndrome. It was a concept that was completely foreign to that guy. But for you as a yoga teacher, I presume it isn't. I came into yoga teaching out of academia and that we know imposter syndrome can be really strong for women in academia as well. I'm afraid it's just kind of strong for women in general, or at least more than for men. But let's think a little bit about why imposter syndrome enters into our self perception as yoga teachers and what we can do about it. We become yoga teachers because we care so very deeply about yoga, because yoga has meant so much to us. It has been transformative for us in our lives. We come into yoga as students, we grow a practice, and then some of us eventually move on to be teachers. And we don't do that because we feel neutral about yoga's benefits. We do it because we feel so very strongly that yoga is a transformative practice that has something to offer to everyone. So if you have this thing that you care about so much, that you are willing to get over yourself to get over your nerves and step into the seat of the teacher. Of course, there's going to be a little bit of friction around that for you. It would be totally normal to feel some imposter syndrome. Let's layer onto this, that yoga has this rich history. Millennia! Yoga is an ancient art, but it also is consistently adapting and evolving. But when we think about teaching yoga, we're probably thinking about teaching a form of yoga that's only been in circulation for a couple dozen years. But we're carrying the weight of this hefty spiritual practice that has mattered to hundreds of thousands, millions of people over time, over 2000 years, plus. That's a lot of weight to carry. Right? And I bet that people who are going in to teach a spinning class, as I used to do are not thinking about the whole history of indoor cycling when they go in to teach their spinning class. I know I didn't. But when you're teaching a modality like yoga, there's a lot of extra pressure that you might be putting on yourself because of the history of this form. One thing that might be useful is to remember that there are people who do not feel imposter syndrome and they're getting up and taking the seat of the teacher. And maybe even taking those jobs that you wish you had serving the students that you are best equipped to serve. So if we let imposter syndrome, if we let nerves keep us from helping our students, then we are really hiding our light under a bushel. We're missing out on the opportunity to be a service and the opportunity to help the students who need us most. When you come back to the central concept of this season, that you are the guide and your students are the heroes, it would be perfectly silly to let your own ego and sense of being less than get in the way of furthering the hero's journey. When we focus on our students, everything else becomes easier in our entire teaching careers. When you have a clear sense of your role as a teacher and a very clear sense of the scope of your practice as a yoga teacher, I think your imposter syndrome will be quelled. And I think your nerves are going to drop down to a really manageable level as well. What do I mean by scope of practice? I mean, what is your job as a yoga teacher? What have you been trained to do as a yoga teacher? What are you there for as a yoga teacher? And most importantly, what are you not there for? As a yoga teacher, you are trained to offer suggestions to your students and then let them make the choices that work best for them. You are not there to solve pathological problems. You are not there to diagnose you are not there to administer physical therapy or occupational therapy. All of those are other trained professions. You're trained as a yoga teacher. You're going to stay in your lane and you're not going to worry about fixing broken people. That is not the job that you signed up for as a yoga teacher. You're there to offer some ideas about ways that your students can fix themselves if they're even broken in the first place. You're there to offer them a sense of connection, a sense of union, a sense of focus, a sense of presence, a sense of relaxation, and a sense of stress reduction, but you aren't there to fix their knee issues. And you're also not there to keep them from hurting themselves. I know that is sad, but that's just the truth. Your students are adults, unless you're teaching kids. Your students are adults who have their own agency and are capable of making their own decisions. And who also are then responsible for abiding by the consequences of those decisions. You're not going to teach a willfully, uh, unsafe class, but you're also not going to get yourself hung up, worried that you might issue some cue that causes a student to hurt themselves. When you do that, you're never going to get out of the cycle of imposter syndrome and nerves before a class. So we recognize we're not there to fix pathology. We're not there to diagnose. We're not there to issue occupational or physical therapy, nor are we there to offer mental therapy, emotional therapy, or even spiritual therapy. If you are trained as a therapist, that's fantastic. The world needs more good therapists who are also yoga teachers, total bonus, but you should be getting paid your office rates for that kind of work. It's not your job as a yoga teacher. Similarly, if you were trained in OT or PT, physio, you shouldn't be giving that kind of advice in the context of a regular yoga class. Maybe you're giving some physical therapy based yoga lessons, private lessons, maybe you're charging a premium for them because you should, because you've invested a lot of time and money into the education that makes you qualified to do that within your scope of practice. When you are teaching a yoga class, we don't need to worry about that. When you're teaching a yoga class, you are the guide offering suggestions for connection, and your students are the ones who get to make their choices and abide by the consequences of those choices. What can your take away be here? Let's change our relationship to nerves. Let's recognize that nerves are actually a really good thing. Nerves mean that we care about our students. The day that you stop feeling nervous before you go in to teach a yoga class is probably the day that you should teach your last class. Because if you're not getting yourself into the head space where you really care, and you're excited about what is about to happen, about what you have to offer, about what you can share about yoga and its benefits, then you're not serving your students to the best of your ability and it's time for you to step aside and let somebody who's willing to get nervous, who's willing to be open about yoga's benefits in a way that gets them so excited that they wind up feeling a little cranky before class. That is the person who should be leading these sweet students. I know from my sports training, that a certain level of what we call arousal is critical for peak performance. If you are feeling bored, if you're yawning, if you're not really showing up because you don't care about the competition you were about to enter, you're never going to perform at your best. Of course, that scale can tip too far in the other direction where your nerves really become a problem. And they hamper you from delivering a good performance. We're looking for that appropriate state of arousal. What, uh, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said is that flow state, that state where we really feel like we are in it, we are channeling the divine, comes when our ability and the challenge at hand are pretty evenly matched and more pretty far out toward the edge of our ability. If you want to get that good feeling as a yoga teacher, like what you're doing really matters, like you're really channeling the divine, you're looking for that state of flow and you need that medium high level of arousal to get there. You need to care. When you accept that nerves are a part of it, they won't hamper you. Your nerves won't drive the bus. You will. Here's some super practical tips for ways that you might try to manage your nerves before class. Number one. This is very obvious, but you want to give yourself plenty of time before class to have your lesson plans set, to arrive and prepare the space and to get yourself centered, maybe with a little yoga practice of your own. Now that might take quite a bit of time. However be careful that you don't give yourself too much time before class to be sitting, getting extra nervous and anxious in an empty studio. You want to have enough time to feel centered, enough time for some cleansing breaths, enough time to prepare the space and welcome your students as a good host, but not so much time that you get really, really antsy. You could probably find some really useful things to do at the studio before your students arrive that will help everybody. Like if you do over budget your time and you arrive too soon, you could refold the blankets.

Let me tell you:

as a studio owner, I would love you especially much for taking a task like that. So little organizational tasks are serving the same role as bringing your kids along when you're about to go up on stage and deliver a meditation to thousands of people. It gives you something to be focused on so that your nerves don't get the better of you. Finally, don't forget the benefits of your own practice. If there's time and space at the studio, when you get there, you could unroll your mat and do your own self practice before you start to prepare the space for your students. Just be careful not to be like the mummy wrapped up in a blanket in Shavasana on the teaching podium, when your students are actually arriving, that's a callback to one of the previous episodes where I'm talking about the reasons that I have walked out of class before. Here's an affirmation for you. I recognize my nerves mean I care. I recognize my nerves mean I care. I hope this is useful to you. I hope that this mindset shift changes your relationship to your nerves. When you start to embrace your nerves, when you start to recognize your true role as a yoga teacher, and you start to appreciate that you care so much about your students you want to do a good job, then you are well on the way to becoming a truly great yoga teacher. I'm Sage Rountree. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential. If you want a back- pocket lesson plan so that you don't have to be thinking about one more thing when you go to plan your class and you're feeling nervous, click through the link in the show notes, come to my website, and sign up to receive my greatest hits lesson plan. Knowing exactly what you're going to do is a way of reducing the amount of variables that may be increasing your anxiety before class. I hope you find that lesson plan super helpful, and I will see you in the next episode.

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