The secret sauce of a good yoga teacher
After teaching full-time for some time, I wondered: Am I just leading people through poses, or am I actually teaching yoga? Other questions piled up too: Do I have to teach with music to make the class attractive? Does yoga even need to be “attractive”? Am I teaching well, really?
When I worked in consulting, I had frameworks I could rely on and defined success through measurable outcomes. I could track progress and check the box. Without really knowing it, I wanted the same certainty here. But teaching yoga doesn't work that way.
Rahel Zuber (2024)
The high-performer reflex dies hard.
Back when I started teaching yoga full-time, my acute herniated disc flared. And the pressure I put on myself too. Trust me, being in constant physical pain made me do and think things I never thought I would:
I just started my teaching path, yet am I behind already?
Am I missing something?
Is this herniated disc a sign that I am no ready?
I was comparing my start to others’ middle journeys. I was seeing other yoga teachers leading classes smoothly, building their niche and wondered: is there a secret sauce to being a good and successful yoga teacher? For someone used to believing whatever I set my mind to do, my body would follow, that herniated disc felt like failure at the most unfortunate time.
I remember half sitting, half laying on the couch, spreadsheets open (yes, spreadsheets), mapping out social media content, sequencing variations. I see it now, that I wasn’t fully trusting. I was clinging to false senses of control. I thought that planning and optimizing every little detail would somehow support presence. Compensate for the lack of trust I had in my own journey.
Spoiler alert… it didn’t. The irony? The very act of trying to manufacture presence blocked it. Eventually, when the body stops and your Excel run out of columns, something else has to take over.
