How to Build Confidence as a Yoga Teacher | Yoga by Biola

Transcript

what's going on fam it's your girl abiala akani here with a new youtube video [Music] welcome fam if you're new here it's a pleasure to have you if you are a yoga practitioner or instructor you're going to find this platform really helpful for yoga education specifically non-performative yoga education to help you grow and evolve as an instructor so make sure to hit that button so that you never miss any of these educational pieces or content if you are a yogi or a newer beginner these practices and videos are going to help you explore and gain autonomy in your yoga practice so make sure you hit that button as well so as you saw from the title this video is going to be actually for yoga instructors or soon to be yoga instructors or folks who are looking to take their ytt and are wanting to build confidence as a yoga instructor i get a lot of questions around this all of the time and i completely completely understand how y'all are feeling in terms of your nerves just eating at you when you're teaching if you're currently a yoga instructor or if you're looking to teach but you're really struggling with confidence and holding that space quick story time before we get into today's video when i first started practicing yoga several years ago i and i don't want i don't want to scare y'all i don't want to scare you but i had severe anxiety for the first two years that i taught like severe so i say all that to say that i do understand and relate to that feeling of not feeling confident and the power of imposter syndrome but that's all good because i have some medicine to help you begin to move out of that take what you feel to be applicable and leave the rest so let's get right into today's video about how to build confidence as a yoga instructor first way to build confidence as a yoga instructor whether that be a new instructor or someone who's looking to get their certification is to commit to your personal practice there's absolutely no way around this this is what i constantly teach within our non-performative yoga teacher training the iacan ytt is that if you want to build confidence as an instructor you have to commit to your personal practice meaning you have to have a daily practice or maybe it's not every single day but you have to have your own personal practice where you're spending time on your mat exploring the postures in your own body there's no way to build confidence if you don't have an experience with the poses themselves there's no magic pill that you can take and there's no way that you can fake that so if you want to build confidence continue to explore your own yoga journey in your own personal practice cultivate that on your mat whether it be at home or finding a home studio where you can continue to grow in your practice and feel what the postures feel like in your body that also goes beyond asana personal practice also includes exploring the philosophy of yoga and beginning to apply that to your life having an active meditation practice having a self-study practice where you're activating these philosophies and embodying them so that you have a platform or a foundation rather in your physical vessel and your emotional body to teach and share these learnings the second way to build confidence as a newer yoga instructor is to practice and learn from other teachers we want to build autonomy in our yoga practice however autonomy does not mean that we seclude ourselves and isolate ourselves where we completely negate the opportunity to be empowered by another instructor or another instructor sequencing or practice style when i first started teaching and still to this day i enmeshed myself in local yoga communities in order to find a vibrational match with certain instructors and to see how they were sequencing notice how they were transitioning to different poses noticing how they were supporting different bodies and or injuries noticing their alignment noticing their knowledge of philosophy and how they were sharing it from their own personal experience i cued in on all of that and i also did one-on-one mentorship with certain instructors actually one of my lead facilitators for the ia kin 200 hour yoga teacher training was my first mentor when i became a yoga instructor and that was invaluable she taught me so much about storytelling and utilizing the power of storytelling of sharing my own experience to influence my yoga practices to influence my theming to influence my my sequencing and to empower my students from a place of knowing that really felt authentic to me i always and highly suggest that you venture out find local yoga communities in studios as well as online communities to really build your practice with and find instructors whose spirit really resonates with yours to continue to learn from and it doesn't only have to be one i would suggest finding multiples of teachers especially when you're starting out to learn from and immerse yourself with and continue to ask questions that's going to really help you to build confidence in your teaching style and kind of find where you fit in the teaching world find where your style fits for you in the teaching world the third way to build confidence as an instructor is to really begin to explore anatomy and kinesthesiology yoga is a philosophy and a science it's also a science of the body you are guiding students through their bodies and you want to be able to understand and share what's happening or taking place in the body noticing how the connective tissues are moving together maybe guiding them on what might be taking place what sensations they might be feeling in their bodies alignment is so key to sequencing from an intuitive place or creating sequences that feel intuitive in a student's body and the more knowledgeable you are of anatomy and kinesthesiology the more intuitive your sequencing is going to feel and the more confident you're going to feel in sequencing and cueing i can't tell you how much this has influenced my practice i also love the study of the body and being able to understand the body as someone who has scoliosis i've really taken the time to explore what my cervical spine my thoracic spine my lumbar spine how it's being affected by my scoliosis how it's affecting my hips or the shortness of one so as or over another you know hip flexors and hip flexion and understanding what's taking place in my body to make sure that when i'm moving through it i can move through it in a way that's safe that continues to protect my body when i'm practicing but the more i'm aware of this the more it helps me to cultivate a safer space for my students when i'm guiding them through their body many times i find that one two inch an hour anatomy module is not enough to really dive deep and begin to understand anatomy and kinesthesiology the way that's going to really impact you as a yoga instructor so after you take that first ytt grab some anatomy and some kinesthesiology books and do your own continued education to continue to learn about what's taking place in the body so you're better prepared as to how to guide someone through their own body the fourth way to build confidence as a yoga instructor is to get comfortable going off script when you're first starting out as a teacher and you know we have our all of our sequences written down we have everything scribbled out and we're trying to memorize it and we're so focused on memorizing that sequence and getting it right that when someone comes in who has a different body or different abilities or is in a different age bracket and that all levels model will not fit we aren't confident in teaching that class because we're like oh i don't know if this person's going to be able to do what i'm teaching and so in order to hold safer space and to be more confident you got to get comfortable going off script i know it can be challenging because you're so new and you're so dependent on that cruise that sequence you need it you need to like go just as you've memorized it but you got to get comfortable just going off script and making adaptable variations and adjustments to support your students it's not about the sequence it's about supporting your students and if their bodies call for it for a different sequence than what's on the paper or the practice that you did the night before you gotta begin to kind of flow with that and not be so rigid the more comfortable you get with going off strip the safer space you will hold and the more quickly you will be able to support students of different bodies and that's going to help you build confidence as an instructor because your students are going to really be able to appreciate that extra knowledge that you have over someone else so take your time getting comfortable going off script when your situations change a bit the fifth way to develop confidence as a teacher is to get comfortable with the awkward silence when you're teaching the knowledge that you're sharing is from a place of knowing however you don't need to keep sharing that over and over and over again making the practice so much about you allow yourself to have those comfortable silences where the yoga is living and breathing in the student's body on its own it's okay if things are silent it's okay if there are long pauses of silence that is like music sometimes it's just nice to let the breath be the music in the space you'll find that your students are actually quite appreciative of that of not feeling so rushed by your energy to feel the room with words and it'll also help settle your nervous system so you can just relax and kind of watch your body watch your students bodies and provide guidance and possibly adjustment cues to better support them because you can really look in and see them and focus in on what their bodies are doing so don't be so nervous about not talking you don't have to talk and fill every single space with words let the silence have its place the sixth way to begin to build confidence as an instructor is to begin to release narratives of imposter syndrome and unworthiness which is a big one if you are a black yoga instructor or a yoga instructor of color like myself we already have a lot of narratives around internalized racism and internalized oppression that have compounded a large amount of unworthiness on us especially as black women so we have to move through all of that crap and crud already in addition to moving through the unworthiness of being an instructor a black instructor in a white space in the unworthiness of of being able to perform at the level of our white counterparts and then imposter syndrome i myself understand the weight of that i completely understand the heaviness of it and i'm still always working my way through and processing through that as well but we got to be able to start to cultivate new narratives so that our subconscious is not dropping down to these old ones but rather rising up to the actions that we truly want to embody in which our actions of worthiness actions of feeling like we belong in a space so start to notice when those narratives are coming up and utilize the yogic philosophy utilize the tools of yoga to begin to get to the root of these old unworthiness scripts and narratives and use the practice and the philosophy of yoga to begin to undo them and find new beliefs to in place instead the seventh tip to building confidence as an instructor is to focus on calming and settling your nervous system before you teach every single time you teach meaning don't be rushing to class to class like when i used to do this i would come in to teach new as a new teacher like my anxiety was she was going my anxiety was up and i was really nervous already i didn't have time to settle i was already in a fight or flight response my sympathetic nervous system was activated don't do that y'all learn from me give yourself time before every class you teach to settle your nervous system that could look like taking five to ten minutes in your car before you head in to check folks in or to teach just to do a little bit of meditation to notice what narratives what scripts are playing in your mind so you can start to check those and begin to undo them don't spend all of that time trying to memorize your sequence but rather use that time to settle your nervous system and come to a place where you can feel just a little bit more settled in your body just not so fight or flight where your parasympathetic nervous system is activated so you can you know slow down your speech take moment take a moment to find ease in your body take a moment to scan and be with the room as opposed to trying to rush through the the class and the practice so each time you teach whether this be virtual or whether this be in person take a little time to settle your nervous system before you teach until you start to build confidence every time you teach and there's less and less anxiety that's going to really really help you i hope this video was helpful for you all and that these tips resonated with you if you have additional tips or there was one or two that really stuck out to you go ahead and put them in the comments below and if you know of other yoga instructors who this video is going to benefit y'all continue to share them i plan to do a lot more content around educating yoga instructors on how to continue to evolve and hold non-performative space as non-performative yoga teachers and keep the practice inclusive lastly i do have a 200 hour yoga teacher training that is the ia kin 200 hour yoga teacher training it is female led black women owned by me and it is the first non-performative yoga teacher training of its kind and we are accepting applications for our winter 2022 cohort starting on march for fourth fourth so if you are interested in becoming a yoga teacher definitely head to the link in my bio to learn a little bit more about us vet us check us out make sure this feels in alignment for you and if you want to hit that apply button and you know send an application i look forward to receiving it as well i'll see you all real soon with a new video continue to be well and don't forget to follow your girl on the gram at yoga by viala bye y'all you