How Much to Challenge a Student and Recognizing Different Personalities in Class

As yoga teachers, we often have a preferred way of teaching and practicing asana that we become perhaps attached to it. However, we should also consider the fact that not all of our preferences will work with all of our students all the time. We have to recognize that different students often will have different preferences. Noticing these differences would hugely help us to teach more effectively and efficiently to each of our students.

A question that we as yoga teachers and practitioners should be asking more often is “How much do we need to challenge a yoga student?” In this episode, I’m going to answer this question and we’ll also look at a few different types of student personalities that walk into yoga classes and what kinds of practices appeal to them.

I hope you find this episode full of helpful insights to bring to your classes!

Episode Highlights:

• Recognize that different students will have different preferences
• Recognize that one student can have varying preferences each day
• The different personalities of yoga students
• Noticing patterns helps better sequencing
• Consider the student’s background such as age, gender, etc.
• How much do you actually challenge a student?
  • Find your baseline
  • Start to build a class plan on the baseline
  • Have a working knowledge of props
  • Recognize the “level” of the student
• Some example scenarios
• A good measure to understand how much to push a student

Resources and Links Mentioned:

• 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training 2023
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• Subscribe to Aham Yoga on YouTube
• Let’s Talk Yoga Podcast on YouTube
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