Teaching People, Not Poses

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I started off with Vinyasa yoga, then got hooked with hot yoga. Then when I found my practice started to a plateau that’s when I met my teacher, who taught alignment-based yoga.

That was a major shift in my own practice, and it also transitioned me from a student to a teacher.

As I reflect more on my change as a yoga student and a teacher, I think most people change. Rarely do we see people practice one style of yoga.

As we practice longer, our preference may change; our lifestyle changes, our body changes, and hence our yoga practice also change.

And change is not just referring to the style of yoga, but the value that we experience in our practice (and teaching) also changes.

When I first teach yoga, because of my own transformation from learning alignment, that was the core of my teachings. Geeking out on the muscles and bones, the physical structure of poses, the “right” alignment, the “how-tos”.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still heavy on teaching techniques but I have bigger goals behind these physical goals.

My No. 1 rule is simple – 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝘀.

🤜 Instead of telling you what to do, I want to encourage students to cultivate self enquiry in their practice and learn what works for them. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲.

🤜 Instead of teaching how to go to the deepest backbend, I am more interested in sharing with you to practice backbends safely and skilfully.

🤜 Instead of teaching how to perform a perfect headstand in a straight line, I am more interested in helping you to feel the stability and grounding of long inversions.

🤜 Instead of building physical strength in arm balances, I am more interested in helping students understand that these are hard poses and to learn to build inner strength to do hard things and not give up.

My goal goes beyond teaching poses or teaching a “feel good” class. I am here to build a supportive and nurturing environment for us to study and learn together so that we can build a skillful and sustainable practice for life.

I have a lot of exciting news in 2022, and I look forward to sharing more with you as things unfold.