Maybe you will be surprised that becoming a yoga teacher is not so difficult, but the problem is coming! Are teachers with teacher qualification certificates really competent teachers? The answer is no!
Every year, there are tens of millions of teachers who get yoga certificates in a training class, but the yoga teachers who can really take the podium to take the class are really making waves, and the teachers who can really bring great courses are rare! Many yoga teachers find it difficult to start the first step. For example, they are poor in words when they begin to speak, and forget to say the guiding language when doing action demonstrations. It is as if the students have done something wrong ... and so on, which makes it difficult for Xiaobai yoga teachers to walk onto the platform!
I started to practice yoga in 2008. I have studied traditional hatha, mobile yoga, Iyengar, aerial yoga, maternal yoga, children's yoga and other schools. At the same time, I studied Ayurveda and Huangdi Neijing, enriching my theoretical knowledge. After becoming a yoga teacher, I have been teaching for more than 500 hours every year.
I remember the first time I set foot in a yoga class, I was very nervous, but I remember that my class was very successful and smooth. On the one hand, I am a normal graduate and have a teacher's family, which makes me feel like a teacher since I was a child, so my starting point is a little better, but it is precisely because I know the efforts behind a traditional teacher that I understand a qualified teacher.
Many practitioners will refer to yoga teachers as "coaches". I prefer that we should be "teachers", because we are not only teaching movements, yoga is a "philosophical system", and we only teach ideas and philosophy in the form of asana, ignoring the meaning behind disintegration, so if you really learn thoroughly, you should be a "teacher"!
When you define yourself as a "teacher", then the way to go to the platform as a teacher has rules to follow.
It is certain that you have a solid basic skill. An excellent yoga teacher can achieve the standard by himself. This is the first step, so it is very important to have a mechanism for continuous self-practice.
In addition, when practicing yourself, record your feelings and think about your instructions while practicing. You have to see if the leading words are accurate. For example, when you talk about the main point of "sitting up straight", you want students to sit up straight as much as possible. You can just say "sit up straight", students can understand, but soon you will be poor as a teacher, so you need more physical details and specific vocabulary accumulation. For example, you can say, "Try to make your lower back exert force, feel the abdominal extension, stretch, feel the lateral waist extension, spine extension, etc." You can accumulate more similar languages, so that you can have a vocabulary and make full use of it.
Of course, teachers should write lesson plans. Many yoga teachers don't write lesson plans. Mature yoga teachers will probably figure out what exercises to do today, so that they can teach immediately. But as a new yoga teacher, my advice is that you must write lesson plans from the beginning. What are the main points of your course theme, course objectives, style and style, what are the difficulties, and how to deal with situations that students may not be able to do? If time is tight, which styles can be removed. When you think these parts clearly, I think your course will be smooth sailing.
Besides, talk about my way of preparing lessons. When I first became a yoga teacher, I not only wrote lesson plans and ideas with a pen, but also wrote them word by word, that is, I wrote down everything the whole class had to say, with a class of 10 thousand words. Maybe you think it's necessary? To tell the truth, some students with good language skills can speak well without writing, but personally, I think that the practice of "verbatim draft" is actually a stupid but effective way to quickly accumulate vocabulary and improve expression. It is very useful for teachers who are nervous and afraid to go on stage. Writing, reading, reciting, recording and listening are smooth as soon as you get on stage.
It is easy to understand that it is live presentation, that is, performing on the stage! If your lesson plan is well prepared, I think there must be no problem! If you're really nervous, that's okay. You can go off the stage and communicate with members more, help them and ask how they feel, so you won't be so nervous!
This is very important. Make a summary after class, make an evaluation of your class from the aspects of goal achievement, content presentation, expression status, time control, etc., make a second interview, and record the good places and areas that need improvement! It must be helpful to you!
The same content has to be repeated many times, and the constant iteration will become more and more skilled. I believe that deliberate practice will bring you a qualitative leap, especially every time you summarize and recover. I believe it will get better and better!
Through such steps, I hope Mr. Xiaobai will not be afraid. Constant practice will definitely get better and better.