Last weekend we supported our 200-hour trainees through their teaching assessments, and as I have noticed every year for the last 18 years, some trainees already teach with real depth, while others are still finding their feet with instructing basic asana. I want to share what I believe makes the difference, and why it matters now more than ever.

Yoga has become big business in East and West alike, with the practice often focusing on postures. Many classes are built entirely around flow, one pose sliding into the next with barely a pause, and many trainings are squeezed into as little as two weeks. When yoga is rushed in this way, the philosophy that sets the tradition apart from a movement practice is so often the first thing to be lost.

Yoga connects us to a timeless, perennial wisdom, to what is unchanging within us, at a time when the world so often feels full of chaos and collapse. That is what makes it so vital now, and so healing for our busy and often stressed minds.

Here are ten things I believe we learn as teachers, through experience, training, our own teachers and our practice. Together they make all the difference between instructing movement and truly teaching yoga.

1. Teach the person, using the asana as the vehicle

Our role goes far beyond getting someone into a shape. Each pose offers an opportunity to develop awareness of breath, sensation, effort and ease, of where the attention wanders and of the choices available in any given moment, and when we teach with that in mind the shape itself becomes a doorway into something much richer.

2. Know the poses well enough to teach beyond them

If yoga is more than the postures, then we need to understand the postures really well. That means knowing several ways into a pose, a range of variations and plenty of ways of making it appropriate for different bodies and different people. The more deeply we understand asana, the less attached we become to the idea that there is one "correct" version, and the more freely we can meet the student in front of us.

3. Layer your teaching

Layer up the movements that make the posture, so that you can see what each person needs, and then layer in the ideas that create the depth. Layering gives you the chance to actually see the person in front of you, noticing where they are struggling, what makes sense to them and what might need adapting.

You can also layer the whole sequence, so that students know where they are and each stage builds on the one before, so that everyone can meet the practice where they are. In this way we keep the depth in the practice, and allow students to move in their own time. 

4. Learn to hold space without trying to fix anyone

Holding space by being really present to your students.  Don't do the practice with them, guide and observe. What do they need? Be aware of whatever arises in the room. This begins with our own practice, because when we have spent time witnessing the breath, the sensations of the body and the restless movements of the mind without rushing to change any of them, we become able to offer that same quality of attention to our students.

We don't need to expect a release, an emotional response or any particular outcome. Just be present.

Holding space also means knowing the limits of our role, and referring on to the right expertise, whether a doctor, physiotherapist or therapist, when someone needs more than a yoga class can offer.Holding space also means knowing your scope, and recognising when something needs referring on to a physiotherapist, therapist or doctor.

5. Weave the philosophy in

Even the simplest movement can become a way of sharing the ideas at the heart of yoga. Prana is a lovely place to start. Often translated as life force or vital energy, prana is most tangibly experienced through the breath, which is a constant exchange between our inner and outer worlds, drawing in the air around us and giving something back with every breath. When students lift and lower their arms, you might invite them to coordinate the movement with the breath, noticing how the two begin to move together and how that can leave them feeling energised, steady and quietly serene. A simple raising of the arms becomes an experience of prana, and the philosophy has been felt in the body before it has ever been explained.

6. Use enquiry cues for present moment awareness

How we cue matters as much as what we cue. Yoga is a tradition of enquiry, some of the most powerful cues we can offer are questions.

Instead of saying in warrior one "bring your hands together overhead," we might ask "which feels right for you today, arms wide or hands together at the heart?"

Through enquiry we land in present moment experience, asking ourselves the simple question of how do I feel, here and now? This brings the yoga to life and brings us t life in each moment. The practice becomes deeply empowering, because each time a student turns towards their own experience in this way, they are learning to become their own teacher.

7. Understand the relationship between breath and the nervous system

Breath is a powerful tool, although it works far less like a magic button than we sometimes imagine. Different breathing practices, rhythms and techniques can have quite different effects, and the same practice may feel calming to one person and unsettling to another. Good teaching means using breath thoughtfully and watching how it lands, instead of automatically prescribing more, deeper or longer breathing.

8. Remember that the body is inherently resilient, and choose your language with care

We don't need to teach people that their bodies are fragile, broken or constantly at risk of injury. Phrases such as "your back is vulnerable here" or "don't let your knee go past your toes or you'll damage it" can plant seeds of fear that linger long after the class has ended, and people who are afraid of their bodies tend to brace more, move less and trust themselves less, which rarely helps anyone. Our tissues are living and adaptive, responding to the loads we place on them by becoming stronger and more capable over time. Pain and injury are real and deserve to be taken seriously, yet we can meet them with language that supports curiosity, choice and adaptability, perhaps inviting someone to see how it feels to let the knee travel a little further forward and to ease off if it doesn't feel right today.

A quick movement science guide: The science of an adaptable body

Wolff's law. First described by the German surgeon Julius Wolff in the nineteenth century, this principle observes that bone remodels in response to the loads placed upon it, becoming denser and stronger where it is asked to bear weight and gradually losing density where it is not. It is one of the reasons weight-bearing practice matters so much, particularly through perimenopause and beyond.

Davis's law. The soft tissue equivalent, describing how muscle, fascia and connective tissue adapt and remodel along the lines of stress that we place on them.

Tendons and ligaments respond in a similar way, becoming more robust when they are given gradual, progressive load, which is why thoughtful challenge builds resilience over time.

Pain and protection. Modern pain science understands pain as a protective response from the nervous system, shaped by context, stress, sleep, past experience and fear, and it does not always correspond neatly to the amount of damage in the tissues. Fearful language can amplify that protective response.

Knees over toes. Research on squatting has found that stopping the knees from travelling past the toes simply shifts more load into the hips and lower back, so the old rule offers far less protection than many of us were taught.

 

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9. Give deep rest the same value as effort, and work towards shavasana

In a culture that rewards doing, achieving and pushing, teaching people how to stop may be one of the most valuable things we can offer. Shavasana, corpse pose, is traditionally the pose that the whole practice leads towards, a quiet rehearsal for letting go of everything, including, ultimately, life itself. Yoga philosophy names the fear of death, abhinivesha, as one of the deepest sources of human suffering, and shavasana gives us a gentle and repeated way of practising surrender. That feels especially relevant right now, when so many of us are living with a constant awareness of loss, conflict and destruction in the world, and when learning to soften and let go may be exactly what our nervous systems are asking for.

Settling rarely happens on command, and a body that has rushed in from a busy day, or one that has been worked hard without any winding down, will often struggle to settle at all. So we slow down and we prepare, building our classes with care so that the nervous system can upregulate through movement and effort before being guided gradually back down, and by the time students lie down, stillness feels possible and even welcome. Many people come to yoga to learn how to relax as much as to move better, and giving rest its rightful place in the class honours that.

10. Understand dosage, and never shame someone for where they are

More yoga isn't necessarily better yoga, and part of our job is to consider the dose of movement, breath, meditation, stillness and challenge that is right for the person in front of us. We want practice to help people become more adaptable, without leaving them feeling they have failed because they can't sit still for twenty minutes or take the "perfect" breath.

Yoga reminds us that we are human beings having a human experience, and that nothing about that experience makes us wrong. In yogic philosophy we are already whole, and in that sense inherently perfect, so the work of practice becomes one of meeting how we are experiencing life right now, with all of its trickiness, and finding ways to work with it skilfully and kindly. This is where yoga has so much to offer, because it gives us tools for understanding ourselves in place of yet another set of rules to fail at.

A lifelong practice

Anything that gets people moving, breathing and feeling more at home in their bodies deserves to be celebrated. Yoga, though, is a lifelong practice, and one that feels especially important right now. We may come to it to learn to move well, and over time we discover that we are training ourselves to be yogis, to be strong, powerful and adaptable in body and mind, and to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves and the people around us.

We need good teachers and good trainings to give us the knowledge that supports this, from anatomy and the nervous system to philosophy and the art of sequencing, yet knowledge on its own is never enough, because it is practice that brings it to life.

Time and again I have seen that the teachers who emerge from a 200-hour training and go on to become truly excellent are the ones who practise, and allow the teachings to work on them slowly over the years. Rushing yoga has never worked, because it is a timeless practice that unfolds at its own pace, and those who are willing to give it that time are the ones who go on to teach it with real depth.

With gratitude to my many patient teachers, too many to name them all, including Rudra Dev, Sharath Rangaswamy, Glenn Ceresoli, Anodea Judith, Mukunda Stiles and Thich Nhat Hanh, and to all the trainees I have had the privilege of teaching over the years, from whom I have learnt so, so much.