Previous Episodes of Yoga Hero: Teachers Podcast

Episode 43: Should yoga teachers care about money?

Episode 42: Should yoga teachers demo while teaching?

Episode 41: Should yoga teachers use Sanskrit?

Episode 40: The business of teaching Yoga Nidra

Episode 39: How to develop a consistent Yoga Nidra practice (even with a busy life)

Episode 38: A Yoga Nidra for yoga teachers

Episode 37: Yoga Nidra: The art of sleeping to wake up

Episode 36:: How I Became a Full-Time Yoga Teacher

Episode 35: How to Become a Full-Time Yoga Teacher

Episode 34: Balancing having a job and teaching yoga

Episode 33: Balancing Parenting and Teaching Yoga

Episode 32: How to teach yoga workshops

Episode 31: How much to charge for your yoga classes

Episode 30: How to create your yoga brand

Episode 29: How to layer your asana classes with yoga philosophy

Episode 28: What’s your WHY as a yoga teacher

Episode 27: Setting up your own classes as a yoga teacher

Episode 26: How would you teach yoga if you weren’t afraid?

Episode 25: Do I need a yoga brand?

Episode 24: Tips for new yoga teachers

Episode 23: Define who you are as a yoga teacher

Episode 22: Yoga adjustments: Some important considerations

Episode 21: Tips for teaching yoga beginners

Episode 20: The joys of being a yoga teacher

Episode 19: Overcome imposter syndrome as a yoga teacher

Episode 18: Create your social media calendar

Episode 17: A complete guide to sequencing yoga classes

Episode 16: Do you need to teach a new yoga sequence each week?

Episode 15: Introducing yoga philosophy in to your asana classes

Define who you are as a yoga teacher – Transcript

Have you ever been to a yoga class, and the sequence was so great, so so great, that you left the class thinking, I would love to be known for my sequencing. Then, you listen to a podcast about yoga philosophy, and you think, I should really weave more philosophy in to my classes, that’s definitely where I should be putting my focus. Then you’re chatting to someone, and they tell you how they went to the most amazing yin class, and left feeling like they were walking on air, and you thought, I really want to be the best yin yoga teacher!

Does that sound familiar?! Yeah, us too!

There are so many yoga teachers around these days – and for the record we think that’s a good thing, more yoga teachers is more people to share the joys and benefits of yoga! But it does mean, for want of a better word, that there’s more competition. The best, or maybe, the only way to differentiate yourself from the masses is to be yourself. To know who you are, who you want to teach. To have this defined, so it’s crystal clear to you how you talk about your classes, workshops and courses. Who you aim your offerings at. What trainings you do to deepen you knowledge, and what to leave to one side.

This podcast episode is designed to help you define who you are as a yoga teacher. So grab a pen, or if you’re on the move, grab your free workbook later on from yogahero.co.uk/podcast23 and get ready to define who you are as a yoga teacher. This is a huge, and very very important step in your teaching career, it’s exciting! Those who’ve been part of our Business of Teaching Yoga Course will know that knowing who you are as a yoga teacher underpins pretty much everything we do as yoga teachers!

Let’s focus

Before we do anything at all – let’s focus. Take some deep breaths.

A huge step back

Putting to one side the nitty gritty, day to day of teaching yoga, let’s go back to your why. WHY do you teach yoga? if you have the answer to that straight away, that’s amazing, keep that in mind. If you don’t – ask yoursefl it again ‘why do I teach yoga?’ and believe that the answer will come, in time! When it does, write it somewhere important and keep it in mind as your why – your motivation to do this work.

Who are you, when you’re not teaching yoga?

Now, it’s time to think about the yoga that you are, in the hours and days when you’re not teaching yoga. What did, or do, you do for a living? Who do you spend time with? What do you spend your time doing? What are your interests, hobbies, passions?

Get as much down on paper as you can. Every little thing, it might seems irrelevant or small, but it isn’t – get it down on paper, we’ll be coming back to this later!

Stuck for ideas? Go back through your diary if you keep one. Have a scan through text message conversations with friends when you tell them what you’ve been up to or what you’re looking forward to.

How would you describe yourself?

This might have cropped in the previous think task, but let’s look at it on its own. Here’s some words to get your cogs turning:

Warm

Friendly

Organised

Fun

Chaotic

Focused

Reliable

Shy

etc

How would you describe yourself? You might even want to ask friends and family how they would describe you too – get these words down on paper.

How do you want to make people feel

Ok – now back to teaching yoga! If you could wave a magic wand and make people feel a certain way during and after your classes, what would this be? Again, here’s some suggestions, just to get your cogs turning:

Fulfilled

Empowered

Calm

Energised

Strong

Sleepy

Capable

What do you see yourself teaching in the future?

Defining who you are as a yoga teacher isn’t putting yourself in a restrictive box and hoping for the best; it’s to help you focus. To help you know where to put your precious resources of time, mental bandwidth and energy, to know where to invest in training and where to not worry about – at least for now.

So if you could get your magic wand again and wave it, what would you spend your time teaching in the future? Would it be a particular style of yoga, or with a particular aim, would it be with a particular population…. let your mind wander, daydream about it, then pop your thoughts down on to your workbook.

Take a step back – again

Looking over your notes, is there a theme or a couple of themes that become clear? Let’s say, your hobbies and passions are mainly outdoors, you’d describe yourself as adventurous, and you want to make people feel strong and empowered… this would help you define who you are as a yoga teacher; maybe helping people step out of their comfort zones, taking yoga outside, yoga for hikers and climbers, for example, which is really differentiating yourself from someone who would say they came to yoga to manage stress, they’d now describe themselves as focused and calm and want to make people feel capable and stress-free. These two yoga teachers are unlikely to find themselves ‘competing’ (sorry, there’s that word again) for the same yogis, or wishing that they’d done something else in their yoga career previously.

So now you have plenty of food for thought, take your time with it, it doesn’t need to be done in one go, or even in one day, it might be something that you come back to. This episode is perfectly followed up by episode 14 – write your perfect yoga bio, which is linked to in our show notes.

And as a reminder, our workbook for defining yourself as a yoga teacher is available for you, for free at yogahero.co.uk/podcast23

We’d love to know how you’re finding these episodes, and if they’ve been helpful. Please do let me know by emailing hello@yogahero.co.uk or sending a DM to @yogahero_teachers on instagram.

And, as always, happy teaching.