Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher
Yoga Teacher Confidential is your backstage pass to the unspoken truths of being a yoga teacher. Sage Rountree, PhD, E-RYT500, dives into the real challenges and rewards of teaching yoga, offering expert advice and secrets to help you build confidence, connect with your students, and teach with authenticity. Sage draws on her two decades of experience teaching yoga, running a studio, and training teachers to share practical insights you can use right away. You'll also hear advice from her books, including Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, The Art of Yoga Sequencing, and The Professional Yoga Teacher's Handbook. Whether you’re navigating imposter syndrome, mastering classroom presence, or refining your skills to teach specialized niches like athletes, this podcast empowers you to lead your classes with clarity, grace, and ease.
Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher
The Power of Feedback: How to Grow as a Yoga Teacher
Teaching yoga can be isolating, especially when feedback is scarce. But feedback is crucial for growth. In this episode, I explore why feedback is hard to get, how to collect it, and why peer feedback is the most valuable. Plus, I share an invitation to my Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing mentorship, where you’ll receive real, actionable feedback from a supportive community.
Join me and take your teaching to the next level. Learn more at sagerountree.com/mentorship!
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Can I tell you something? Teaching yoga can be lonely. Do you ever feel like you're teaching in a vacuum? You put your heart into your classes, but no one tells you how it landed. It's rare to get feedback as a yoga teacher, but feedback is also the most direct way for you to grow into a really great yoga teacher. Today, let's explore why we don't get much feedback, how to collect meaningful feedback and why feedback from peers is the most valuable you can get. And if you're craving real useful feedback that actually makes you a better teacher, keep listening to the end. I have an invitation for you. I'm Sage Rountree, and this is Yoga Teacher Confidential, Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher. Why don't we get much feedback as teachers? For starters, our students don't always know what to say. They might say, that was great, or I love your class, which is nice to hear, but not actionable. Many students don't have the vocabulary to describe what worked or what didn't. If they're newer to yoga, they may not have had the time and space to process what their tastes are and how your class served their needs. And of course, If you do your job right and teach a balanced class that closes with a final relaxation that lets students really let go, they may be practically nonverbal after class. So no wonder you don't hear much from them beyond thanks. Additionally, yoga culture tends to discourage criticism. Love and light, right? We're conditioned to be grateful and nonjudgmental. And almost no one wants to be that student who gives unsolicited feedback. Your students like you, so even if they don't like something you do in class, they don't want to hurt your feelings. Second, yoga studios don't always have formal feedback systems. Unlike group fitness instructors or school teachers, yoga teachers don't always get performance reviews. Now, your experience may differ. If you get regular class visits and feedback from your management, it's a good thing. That means you're regularly challenged to grow. If you are classified not as an employee, but as an independent contractor, legally, your boss is your client and the independent contractor classification means they cannot tell you exactly how to do your job. Studio owners might track class attendance, but that often doesn't tell the whole story. Sure, sometimes the only sign that a class resonated is that students keep coming back, but the converse isn't true. That doesn't mean that if students don't come back, they didn't like your class. They might have been visiting from out of town or taking a staycation that allowed them to make the time that they couldn't usually have come to class, or have quite literally a million other reasons for not returning. Self assessment is hard. It's also the very fastest way to improve, as we covered in Season 1, Episode 14 of this podcast, but it's hard. And without external feedback, it's tough to know what's working. Let's talk about ways to get more feedback from these sources, your students, your manager, and yourself, and then I'll tell you the very best source of feedback. There are ways to get more insight from your students about what people like and don't like in your class. You've just got to ask specific questions at the right time. Instead of asking for feedback after class, when students are blissed out and hopefully nonverbal, try checking in before class. A simple question when your students arrive, like what keeps you coming back, or saying great to see you back, what do you need for your practice today, can give you valuable insights into what students are connecting with. As a bonus, it also deepens your student's experience because that prompt, simply asking them what they're doing in yoga today, invites them to articulate and describe their relationship with their practice and to set an intention. If you do check in with your students after class, limit it to a quick, casual conversation. Instead of asking, how was class? Try asking something more specific. Like, what was one thing that really worked for you today? Or, was there a moment in class where you felt lost or confused? Or, what do you hope to see again next week? These three questions point to the feedback format I like when gathering my own teacher training students comments. A rose, a thorn, and a bud. Put another way, there's a keep, what was one thing that really worked for you today? And a drop, was there a moment in class where you felt lost or confused? And an add. What do you hope to see again next week? Next, talk to your manager about ways you can gather feedback within your studio's non solicitation policies, if they have any. They may protect their client data. It may be that your manager is happy to pass along an email survey to your students for you, or is willing to share their contact information for you to write them. Please, please, though, do not add anyone to your email newsletter without their expressed consent. These email surveys could be a three question, keep drop add, or roses thorns bud form that you make in Google Docs and direct students to. Don't overwhelm your students with asking too many questions. Then once you have the data, in conjunction with your manager if you have one, try following the numbers. This can include a look at both quantitative data, like attendance patterns, as well as qualitative data, such as what students request from you or what they don't request from you, what they avoid. How do students respond in class? Are they confused? Are they engaged? Just remember that unless you teach many well attended classes per week, your sample size is going to be too small to garner much information. My husband and our daughter are both biostatisticians, so I feel obligated to point this out. You'll have a small sample size. Now, if the challenges that most of this feedback you get is small, is limited, and it's not statistically significant, what can you do? Get by with a little help from your friends. Peer feedback is the best feedback we can get as yoga teachers. That's because your peers are the ones who are most intimately familiar with teaching techniques and with the right ways to deliver useful feedback. Your peers have the language. They know what makes a cue effective. They understand the nuances of sequencing and class structure. Your students don't have the vocabulary for that. To drop a food analogy on you. If you were a chef, whom would you trust to give you useful feedback? Another chef or a hungry high school lacrosse team? The lacrosse players are just going to eat good and then move on. Other chefs can help suss out what needs more salt, what needs more acid, what needs a different flavor note, or what could use a tweak in your technique. And that's why your peers give you the best feedback. They can see what students can't. They have an ear for your voice modulation and the clarity of your cues. They have a sense for your timing, they have a sense for your presence, they have a sense for your confidence, and they have a sense for your pacing. As such, your peers can identify and help you refine your strengths. Instead of just offering up vague praise, like that was good, they can tell you exactly what's landing well. They can tell you what makes it good and they can help you see your strengths so you can amplify them. In turn, this will build your confidence, which then brings a better energy to the classroom that your students will feel. So where do you find this kind of peer support? Many yoga teachers don't have colleagues observing them regularly. You may not have even thought to ask for it. Or you've been shy about asking someone in your local market to give you feedback. But this is exactly what we do inside my Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership. If you're craving feedback that makes a real difference in your teaching, feedback from teachers who speak your language, MMM is where you'll find it. My colleagues and I invite you to join us for six months of mentorship, sequencing deep dives, and the kind of feedback that makes you a stronger and more confident teacher. You can earn CEUs or even your 300 hour yoga teacher training certificate by going through the program, but those are just nice to have side benefits. The primary benefit of the mentorship is access to a friendly, kind, funny, and supportive community of other yoga teachers who care deeply about becoming great, so they can help their students at the top of their game. You can share your lesson plans, your class recordings and your themes to get useful keep drop ad or roses, thorns, buds feedback from your colleagues. And of course, I'm there to answer all your classroom management, professionalism and career questions. Visit SageRountree. com slash mentorship to learn more. I've dropped the link in the show notes too. Please let me offer you an affirmation that I heard from my student Deb years ago and it really stuck with me. She explained that if someone is under impressed by your services, they just walk away. They're indifferent. People will only tell you how to do better when they are invested in your success. They tell you how to be better because they want you to be better. Thus, remember. No one gives feedback unless they care. No one gives feedback unless they care. I care about you being a great teacher and I'd love to work as one of your peer reviewers in Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing. Remember to visit sagerountree.com/mentorship to hear all about the program. Thanks for being here. The fact that you sought out a podcast on yoga teaching and now that you have followed it all the way through to the end shows you care deeply about helping your students as best you can. Kudos to you, friend. This is Yoga Teacher Confidential and I'm Sage Rountree. See you next time.
