Teaching beginners
I taught yesterday’s beginner class Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog). I am pictured doing the pose on the beach in Baja, Mexico. Not an easy pose to do in the sand.
Yesterday in yoga teacher training my fellow teacher students and I practiced teaching beginners.
We have all worked with each other and most of us have worked with friends and family.
(Working with each other is great practice. But it is also easier because we are intermediate students and know how the pose is supposed to look, what we are supposed to do and how to modify when necessary.)
But teaching a class of beginner students really gave us the experience and insight to teach a beginner yoga class.
There were 20 of us teachers in training and 11 beginner students.
Each teacher in training taught one pose to the class.
I taught Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog) (pictured above). I had a plan on how to teach the pose and changed how I needed to teach it right before I got up there.
It’s OK to do the pose and teach it to beginners as it is happening. But it’s hard for students to hear you if you are upside down and your head is kinda buried.
So I did my best to teach the pose without actually doing the pose, which is challenging. But I think I did a decent job. There are plenty of things I can work on and improve and that will happen over time as I continue to teach.
It was a great learning experience. My classmates and I appreciated the opportunity.
And I think our beginner students got a decent class out of it.