Rox Does Yoga

Last night N wasn’t feeling well, so she sent out a call for subs for the evening classes. I volunteered to sub for the 6:15 class. This marks the first time that people paid money for yoga taught by me! I was nervous during the afternoon, but when I thought about it, I was less nervous about actually teaching yoga than I was about the logistical things like filling out the paperwork properly and using the credit card machine and the stereo.

I arrived around 6pm and N showed me what to do: how to log the students who come in, where to put the money, how to run credit cards, how to work the stereo, and she helped me pick out music for the class. Six people came to class: one of them also teaches at EEY, a few were more experienced students I knew, and one person was brand-new. It was a smaller class, so I rolled out my mat and taught while doing poses myself, which is what N & J usually do. At my home classes I walk around more and I’m working on making adjustments to people, but last night I just wanted to give them a standard EEY class.

Overall I was pretty happy with the class I taught. Usually at home I teach a one-hour class, but classes at EEY are an hour and fifteen minutes, so I did feel like my timing was a little off: I felt like I moved faster through the standing poses than I should have and ended up with more time at the end than I wanted, so it felt like I was stretching out the seated poses. A couple of extra sun salutations would have helped a lot, I think, but we still did good seated stuff too: camel and bridge and cobbler and forward fold plus some twists. I don’t think I shorted the standing stuff, though: I was definitely sweating a bit by the end of the standing poses and some of the students seemed to be puffing a little too. (I reminded everyone to lengthen and calm the breath while we stood in mountain pose, and I immediately heard breaths calming and lengthening! It really works when you say that!)

One thing I did mess up is that I started the standing poses with the right leg stepped back, and then stepped my left leg back to mirror what the students were doing, only then I forgot I had done that and was verbally cuing the poses on the wrong side (i.e., “lift your left hand” because I was lifting my left hand, when the students were all lifting their right hands). No one seemed to get off track, though. When we started on the other side, I realized what I had done and started cuing poses as front/back instead of left/right to keep myself from getting mixed up again.

I ended class with a guided relaxation that I thought went well. I really worked on slowing it down and waiting a few breaths between lines. The class started a little late because someone needed to pay with a credit card; we ended right on time just after 7:30pm, so I guess I cut it a little short, but by that point everyone had savasanaed and was ready to go.

Since it was my first time really teaching a full class, I couldn’t help thinking, “oh god oh god they hate me”, which I am sure is not true, but it’s impossible not to think it. I had some very experienced people in the class and some who were brand new, and so I taught to the middle as best I could – I worry that the class may have been boring for some people. I hope it wasn’t, but I taught the best class I could teach, and that’s all that’s in my power to do. Teaching yoga isn’t about me: I’m not going to get feedback on my teaching at the studio the way I do from students at my home classes, because that’s not what the purpose is! The students who go to the studio are there for themselves, the same way I am when I attend classes there, and I gave them the best class I could. I know I can do better next time, but I feel good about my teaching last night and satisfied with what I did.