First Yoga Class I Ever Taught

August 20, 2011 10:17 am Published by Laura Avery

First 20 Minute class plan!

Mindbodygreen website recently did an article asking all-star yogis to recollect their first time yoga teaching experiences, so I thought wow i’m currently on my 79th class taught (cant believe it!!) so had a look back in my teaching notebook, that I still use to scribble down new flows and poses I want to remember to try in my classes, the teaching plans don’t look anything like they did at the beginning, I seem to rely on my creativity so much more now and have really started to find my flow AND IT FEELS WONDERFUL!! (which I cant believe, it felt like it would never happen at the beginning!!)

The picture above is of my class notes for my first ever 20 minute section of class taught at the Byron Yoga Centre in my teacher Training, taught with 4 other teacher trainees, each having a section of the 4-part structure to a yoga class, warm-up, middle 1, middle 2 and cool-down!! I just remember not breathing or feeling like I was even in the same room as my students. I had a strange part of the class, as it was the wall supported asana’s that I had to teach, which really changed the dynamic of the class and flow and was very much verbal instruction. The class size was big, even for a 6am morning class and getting 12 people up against a wall in Adho Mukha Vrksasana (upside down tree, supported by the wall!!) was no mean task! Apparently the word I used the most in my instruction, was ‘taking care’, which cant be a bad thing. It all passed in a blur and took a few more for that feeling to pass. Breathing I have found to be the key, I still sometimes lose my breath, particularly teaching Vinyasa flow and being a complete ‘chatterbox’, I know I offer to many words to my students. The most important lesson I learnt back in that class was, ‘self belief’, I got through it and as soon as I finished knew that I was on to something incredible and just had to hope that my passion shone through!