Teaching Yoga Is a Conversation: How to Truly Connect with Your Students

Your yoga class isn’t a monologue—it’s a conversation. While you only get to hear your side of it, your students hear both. Becoming a great yoga teacher means giving them the time and space to contribute their side of the conversation, even if it’s silent.

In this episode, I explain how teaching yoga is about fostering connection—even when you can’t hear the other side of the dialogue.

Chapters:

1.[00:00:00] Teaching Yoga Is a Conversation

I share why your yoga class is more than just you giving cues—it’s about fostering a two-way connection.

2.[00:01:26] Hearing Only One Side

Here’s how to understand and embrace the one-sided nature of teaching yoga.

3.[00:04:36] How to Be a Good Conversationalist

Practical ways to make your teaching feel more connected, even when students don’t speak aloud.

4.[00:06:45] Listening Before and After Class

Your students’ voices matter! I explain why listening to them outside of class is just as important as giving cues during it.

5.[00:07:33] Affirmation: I Am in a Healthy Relationship with My Students

Use this affirmation to remind yourself to prioritize connection and care in your teaching.

Resources Mentioned:

•Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, Volume 2 (coming March 2025—preorder now!)

•The Art of Yoga Sequencing

•Free Email Course on Workshops

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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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Teaching Yoga Is a Conversation
• 1:26 You Hear Only One Side of the Conversation
• 4:36 How to Be a Good Conversation Partner
• 6:45 Talk During Class, Listen Before and After
• 7:33 Affirmation: I Am in a Healthy Relationship with My Students

Transcript

0:00

Can I tell you something, your yoga class is not a monologue, even though it might feel like it from your end. Instead your yoga class is a conversation. And when you follow the rules of being a good conversationalist, you are well on your way to becoming almost everyone's favorite yoga teacher. I'm Sage Rountree. And this is yoga teacher confidential. We've been investigating mindset and confidence this season. To recap. In episode one, I talked about seeing your role as a yoga teacher, clearly, knowing that you are not the hero, your students are the heroes and you are simply the guide. You're not the star of the show. You're simply the stage manager and your students are the stars. In episode six, we spoke with Karen Fabian who had a wonderful affirmation for us. When I teach what I know my confidence grows. In episode nine, I asked you, please, don't get too hung up on student expressions. Recognize that a blank expression is often the sign of deep connection of an internal experience that isn't reflected in the face. And the last episode, episode 11, I reminded you that nerves are not just normal, nerves are a good sign nerves mean that you care about what you're doing, sharing yoga and its benefits with your students. Here's one more piece of the puzzle. Teaching yoga is a conversation. It is not a monologue. The trick is that unless you're in a private lesson with a really chatty private student or your class is super duper conversational, you're only hearing one side of the dialogue. The thing is your students get to hear both sides. They hear your clear cues, they hear your open-ended inquiry questions, and they respond to these clear cues and inquiry questions with their own thought process, with their own response—but you don't get to hear it. Only the students get to hear it. This is a very strange and somewhat unnatural form of conversation. If you're used to talking to people who talk back to you, if you used to texting to people who text back to you, Uh, suddenly feeling like you were speaking to an unengaged conversation partner. I can feel really destabilizing. But remember they aren't unengaged. They're just not saying what they have to say out loud. Instead. They're saying it internally. And maybe you can start to read their bodies. Not put too much on their expressions, but start to read their bodies and get a sense of the vibe in the room of the rasa of the energy in the room to pick up on some of the conversational cues that happen to be non-verbal these nonverbal responses that your students are giving you, come in response to your own verbal cues. Because this conversation appears to you to be one sided, it can create a whole host of problems. The first and the biggest is that it can make you talk way too much. Because you wonder why people are not engaging with you. It's just like a natural, almost gut reaction to want to fill time with the sound of your voice. If your conversation partner doesn't seem to be doing their part. It can also make you issue directions instead of asking open-ended questions, because at least then you are making simple declarations, right? You're not asking a question and nobody is responding to you. However, I suggest that questions are one of the best things that you can do to be a good conversationalist, right? If you're having a conversation on a first date or with a friend, you don't want to talk only about yourself. You want to ask questions and. Then listen carefully for the answers. Again, you're not going to hear these answers from your students' voices. You're going to pick up on it. With, uh, the nonverbal cues with the sense of the mood in the room. And you're not going to get too hung up on what those answers might be either. Instead, you're going to leave time and space for your students to process. However, they want the questions that you're asking them. This one-sided conversation can also make you move way too fast in the classroom. Because you're not giving time to listen to your correspondence answers. Those are the problems of the one-sided nature of this conversation during class. Now what could the solutions be? Well, it is to follow the rules of being a good conversation partner. One definition of yoga is relationship. We take two things that appear to be separate and we yoke them together. Then these two things are in a relationship. The two things could be Stirah and sukha. The two things could be a young energy and a yin energy, the Pingala energy and the EDA energy. When we connect these two things, then they are in a relationship with each other in a relationship. It's also a conversation between these two things. How will you be a good conversation partner with your students? It's simple. You follow the rules of being a good conversation partner with anybody. Number one, you don't just talk about yourself. You share enough that there is some openness and some vulnerability, some room for connection, and then you listen for the answers. You ask questions and you pay close attention to the answers. Better yet, you remember the answers to the questions that you asked in previous conversations and you follow up with them. You make eye contact with your correspondent, you make eye contact with your students. People come to yoga class to be seen if they didn't want to be seen, they could be following along with a YouTube video. They come to class to be seen whether or not they feel like talking, they come for that sense of connection. Be sure you give it to them. This might require some practice on your part. You may need to give yourself the challenge of making eye contact with each of your students during class. Better yet. When you make that eye contact, you give a little smile. I don't expect a smile back from your students in return, because you know, now that their facial expressions are not an indication of whether they are enjoying your class. But you share the eye contact, the connection, and the smile regardless. In the second volume of Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, which will be out in March of 2025, my writing partner Alexandra added a really nice section saying that during class is the teacher's chance to talk and before and after class or the teacher's chance to listen. Listen to your students. That's the time that you can actually get responses from them when they arrive. Hi, how was your day?

When they're leaving: 7:11

will I see you next week? How did that feel for you? Is there something you would like me to incorporate as I'm planning next week's lesson? All of these are an opportunity for you to get that feedback that you might've grown pretty hungry for over the course of the class, where you were the one doing the talking. And they were the ones who could hear their answers, but you couldn't. Here's an affirmation to help you remember to be a good conversational partner. I am in a healthy relationship with my students. I am in a healthy relationship with my students. Check the link in the show notes to sign up for my free five lesson email course on how to create a workshop, because workshops are an opportunity to have more of an actual conversation with your students. In the regular class there probably won't be that level of verbal back and forth that you could invite in a workshop. So if you've been hungry to hear from your students, how your cues are landing, how they're experiencing the practice that you offer, a workshop is a great, great next step for you. Come on through to the link in the show notes, and I will get you signed up for those five email lessons. I sure hope this was helpful. I hope this lands well with you. I'd love to hear what you think you can reach me at Sage Rountree or at my website, sagerountree.com. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you next time.