How to Teach a Yoga Class With a Theme
Teaching a yoga class with a theme is what separates you from other yoga teachers. Once you have been teaching yoga for awhile and feel comfortable taking your teaching to the next level, using a central theme will provide you with a new challenge and your students with a key focus.
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Instructions
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Find a Theme
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A theme can be as simple as "being gentle with your body" or working on backbends and picking a key pose, such as wheel (a deep backbend), and then building your class up to that deep pose. If you choose to have "gentle" as your theme, start by sharing a reading about being kind to your body or honoring your practice, and keep bringing that point across as you teach your class.
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Another way to do backbends as your theme and then create not only a physical theme, but also a spiritual one is to tie in backbending with the part of the body that opens when you backbend: the heart center. So, feel free to talk about not only physically opening up the chest and back, but finding freedom and unlocking the heart center, which opens you up to love more.
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If you feel comfortable, you can ask students what they would like to work on. This can be difficult, because you must feel comfortable creating a theme on the "fly." If you decide this is what you want to do, on the way over to your class, mentally prepare for it ahead of time. If students want to work on shoulders, think about what poses you can use as the key. If they would like to work on hip openers, be ready with poses such as pigeon or lizard.
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Tips & Warnings
Jot your ideas down in a journal and bring it to class to refer to. Always feel free to share a special poem or passage. Ask students after the class for feedback; adjust to their needs if necessary.
Be mindful to keep coming back to your theme. Mentioning your theme once at the start of class, and then never again isn't the best way to teach with a theme. Use your theme at the start, the middle and the end. Students will leave your class with a good feeling about what was worked on.
