One of the coolest things about becoming an actual, real yoga instructor is finding my teaching style. It’s been a few months since I stepped into this new role, and so far, I love it!
I’ve been experimenting with different styles when it comes to the various elements of teaching: Sequences, assists, vocal tones, cue wording, music selection — there’s honestly so much that goes in to teaching a yoga class that I never even noticed until I started doing it myself!
One of the biggest small things (if that makes sense) that we learned in yoga teacher training is the importance of cultivating a class atmosphere that conveys what you want it to convey. There’s so much that goes into this! Everything from an instructor’s vocal tone to the studio’s lighting and music selection/volume — it all plays a role in creating a very specific atmosphere for your class. As the teacher, you have to do what you can do in order to craft and control that atmosphere. For contract teachers (like me!) sometimes, that’s a tall order. You’re often given what your studio has to work with, and depending on the type of environment you want to offer your students, that may not be enough. As a Type A control freak (I know, ironic), sometimes, that’s a little too unstable for my liking.
Enter: My yoga teacher “go bag!”
Shortly after I started teaching, I put together a small bag (it’s quite literally an old Lululemon shopping bag) filled with little things I can use to enhance my classes and upgrade the experience for my students. Some of these things also make my teaching experience better! It’s easy enough to keep all these things in one place, so I can just grab my bag and head out the door when I’m scheduled to teach.
If you’re a yoga teacher without a “go bag” of some sort, I would definitely recommend putting one together!
(Pst! Affiliate links!)
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My iPhone. I know: Cellphones are the worst. They’re annoying and distracting and frustrating. But as a contracted yoga teacher, mine is kinda necessary. I rely on two apps during class: MINDBODY’s Business and Spotify. MINDBODY is the yoga class scheduling app that most yoga studios use to check students in and out of class/ process payments, and Spotify is, of course, what I use to play music in class. (A quick note: I always, always put my phone in airplane mode before I teach. I am paranoid about it going off and disrupting the music while I teach!)
A Bluetooth speaker. My primary yoga studio has one available that we all use for teaching, but sometimes it isn’t charged, or it just won’t connect to my iPhone. I usually carry a spare to and from class, just in case!
Hand sanitizer. As a yoga teacher, I touch my students quite a bit throughout class to correct alignment and refine postures. I always apply hand sanitizer between students.
Essential oils. My primary studio has an oil diffuser and humidifier that I’ll sometimes load up before night classes, just to set the mood and relax my students. I’ll also sometimes rub a bit of oil on my wrists before giving students assists during some of the restorative postures at the end of class. My studio has oils available, but I have a few of my own in my bag as well. (Note: I never apply oil directly to my students. Just to my wrists!)
A small Turkish towel. If I’m teaching a particularly challenging vinyasa class that causes my students to get particularly sweaty, I’ll fan them off with a towel during savasana. (This is somewhere else I’ll often use essential oils: On the towel before I wave it around during savasana.) I love Turkish Towels because they’re lightweight, dry quickly and pack down small.
Flameless battery-powered candles. My primary studio has a drawer full of these that I’ll sometimes break out during night classes — especially if I’m teaching a yin class! — but I have a few at home as well, just in case I end up teaching a special class somewhere that they aren’t available.
An external battery for my phone. Because I absolutely rely on my phone for both music and business using MINDBODY during every class, it’s crucial that it’s juiced up. I sometimes teach night classes, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll be anywhere near an outlet in the few hours before class. I always carry an external battery just in case I need to extend my phone’s battery life to last throughout class.
A watch. Because I started primarily as a vinyasa-style teacher, I never needed to keep track of time during class since my sequences were timed out to last an entire hour. However, once I started teaching restorative, I realized I had no way of keeping track of time during class. I kept checking my phone for the time, and realized that probably looked TERRIBLE to my students (I swear! It’s in airplane mode!), so I quickly bought a watch to time restorative postures. Bonus: This one doubles as a fitness tracker!
A notebook of written sequences. Some instructors are capable of making up sequences on the fly, as they go through class. I am not one of those instructors (yet?). I have to craft my sequences out ahead of time and practice them in my own body several times before I feel confident teaching them. And, even then, I still will write them down because it takes a lot before I’m able to memorize a sequence. I’ll often carry a few pre-crafted sequences in my go bag, just in case.
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So, there you go! That’s a little look at what I keep in my “yoga teacher go bag” that aids and assists me when I’m teaching a class. It’s really important to me that my students feel totally comfortable, relaxed and — most importantly — safe in my class, and these things help me achieve that!
Namaste!
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