Sage Rountree's Blog

The most awkward yoga class I ever taught wasn’t in front of a packed workshop or during my first week as a new teacher. It was the regular Monday evening class where my husband Wes decided to attend.

He literally raised his hand during class—raised his hand like he was in third grade—and asked me, “Am I doing this right?”

If you’re teaching through the holiday season, you’re almost certainly going to encounter your own version of this. Thanksgiving gatherings and December visits mean that students are bringing their visiting relatives, your own family members might show up to “see what you do,” and the whole thing can feel like teaching with one eye watching your regular students and the other eye on people who know you in an entirely different context.

This is the subject of episode 61 of Yoga Teacher Confidential: Teaching Yoga When Friends and Family Show Up to Class.

In this guide, we’re exploring one of the most complex dynamics in yoga teaching: what happens when your friends and family show up to your class, and what it means when your students bring their loved ones to practice with you.

The Challenge of Dual Relationships in the Yoga Room

Let’s start with what makes teaching friends and family so uniquely difficult. The issue isn’t that they don’t respect you as a teacher. The problem is that they’re used to having your attention in completely different ways.

When Wes came to my class, he wasn’t being difficult or disrespectful. He genuinely wanted to know if he was doing the pose correctly. But the communication patterns between us were established in 1995, and they’re fundamentally different from how I communicate with my students. Those neural pathways are decades deep. When he’s in the room, my attention goes right to him—even in a room full of other students—because that’s how our relationship works in every other context.

When Students Bring Their Loved Ones

Now let’s flip this scenario. What about when your students bring their friends and family to class?

First, recognize what an enormous compliment this is. Think about it: your student likes your class enough that when someone they care about visits town, or when they’re trying to share something meaningful with a family member, your class is what they want to share. That’s significant.

But it also creates challenges. The visiting friend or family member might have completely different experience levels, expectations, or attitudes about yoga. They might be there reluctantly, as a favor. And your regular student? They’re probably anxious, wanting their person to have a good experience.

Why This Matters for Your Teaching

This dynamic matters because it tests your ability to teach to multiple experience levels simultaneously while managing complex social dynamics. And if you can’t handle it well, you risk losing students or creating awkward situations that affect your class community.

When you have friends or family in your class, you’re simultaneously inhabiting two different roles: the personal relationship role and the teacher role. These roles have different scripts, different boundaries, and different expectations.

The tension between these roles is what makes teaching friends and family so exhausting. You’re not just teaching yoga—you’re managing competing relationship dynamics in real time.

Practical Strategies for Teaching Friends, Family, and GuestsTeaching Your Own Friends and Family

Set expectations in advance. If you know your family member is planning to attend your class, have a conversation beforehand. You might say: “I’m so glad you’re coming to class. Just so you know, I won’t be able to give you special attention during the class—I need to teach everyone equally. But I’m happy to answer questions afterward.”

This protects your other students from feeling like you’re playing favorites, and it protects your family member from feeling ignored or treated differently.

Introduce family members to the group. You might say: “I want you all to meet my husband Wes—he’s visiting class today. Wes, you’re in good hands with this group.” This explains any intimacy or familiarity between you, helps your family member feel welcomed by the community, and gives everyone else permission to help your family member feel integrated.

Don’t overcorrect by being colder. I’ve seen teachers become so worried about appearing to favor their spouse or sibling that they barely acknowledge them. That’s awkward for everyone. Treat them like honored guests while maintaining your role as teacher for the full class.

Acknowledge when it’s weird. It’s okay to use humor. When my younger daughter was lying in savasana for the entire class, I said lightly, “My daughter is demonstrating an advanced variation of today’s practice—full class savasana. For the rest of us, let’s start with cat-cow.” Humor diffuses tension and shows your students that you’re human.

When Students Bring Guests

Acknowledge them immediately. Before class starts, go over and say hello. “Hi, I’m Sage. I’m so glad you’re here. Have you practiced this style of yoga before?” Get their name. Make eye contact.

Welcome them verbally during class. “I want to welcome [guest name] who’s visiting us today. This is a wonderful group, and they’ll help you feel at home.” This signals to your regular student that you’ve noticed and valued their bringing someone, helps the guest feel less like an outsider, and invites the rest of the class to be welcoming.

Check in after class. “How was that for you?” you might ask the guest. And to your regular student: “Thanks for bringing [name]. It’s always great to meet people who are important to you.” This acknowledgment matters more than you might think. Your regular student took a risk sharing this part of their life.

Special Considerations for Holiday Classes

During Thanksgiving and December holidays, you’re likely to see more visitors than usual. At the beginning of class, you might say: “I see we have some visiting family members today—welcome! If this is your first time here, know that everything is optional, nothing should hurt, and you can always rest in child’s pose or any other shape if you need a break.”

Consider adjusting your teaching slightly during holiday weeks. This doesn’t mean dumbing down your class, but it might mean offering more variations, explaining a bit more than usual, or focusing on the foundational movements rather than exploring more complex variations. Your regular students will understand—most appreciate having a more accessible class during busy holiday weeks anyway.

The Deeper Lesson: Boundaries Create Freedom

Here’s what I’ve learned after more than two decades of teaching: clear boundaries in these situations don’t limit your relationships—they protect them.

When you set expectations with your family members about how class will work, you’re not being cold. You’re being clear. And that clarity allows you to maintain your teaching role without feeling guilty about “ignoring” your loved ones.

When you warmly welcome a student’s guest while maintaining your consistent teaching approach, you’re honoring both the relationship and the practice.

The common thread here is intentionality. These situations become problematic when we’re reactive—when we’re caught off guard and don’t know what to do, so we either overcorrect or under-respond. But when we think through these scenarios in advance, set clear expectations, and maintain our teaching role while being warmly human, these situations become opportunities rather than problems.

The Gift of Teaching People Who Know You

Teaching people who know you in other contexts can actually make you a better teacher.

When my older daughter Lillian gave me feedback about my filler words and overused phrases, she was doing something my regular students couldn’t do. She had enough familiarity with me to be honest, and enough distance from being my student to tell me hard truths.

When students brought their skeptical family members to class, I got better at making yoga accessible to people who weren’t already sold on it. I learned to explain benefits without proselytizing, to offer modifications without making anyone feel less-than, and to create an environment where skepticism could soften into curiosity.

These skills transfer to every class you teach. The ability to maintain boundaries while staying warm. The capacity to welcome new people into an established community. The practice of treating everyone equally while recognizing individual needs. These are master teacher skills, and you develop them through exactly these kinds of complex situations.

Want more support for your teaching journey? Join The Zone, our free community for yoga teachers where we discuss real-world teaching situations like this.

Ready to build confidence in your sequencing? Check out Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing, my six-month mentorship program.

It’s Sunday night. You know you need to plan your yoga classes for the week. But you’re stuck between two equally exhausting options: spending three to four hours crafting the “perfect” sequence, or showing up Monday morning and completely winging it.

I’ve got good news: there’s a third option. And it takes 15 minutes or less.

The secret? Repeat the same lesson plan you taught last week.

I know what you’re thinking: “But won’t my students get bored?”

Here’s what 23 years of teaching has taught me: your class is never the same twice, even when you repeat the exact sequence. And the teacher who embraces repetition? That’s the teacher who finally has the mental bandwidth to actually see their students and adapt in the moment.

The Real Problem with Constant Novelty

When I got to the end of my 200-hour yoga teacher training 23 years ago, I felt like I had more questions than answers. I knew a lot more about yoga than when I started, but I wasn’t sure I knew that much more about teaching yoga.

So I did what many new yoga teachers do: I tried to prove my worth by being creative. Every single week, I planned brand new sequences. I chased novelty. I scrolled Instagram for inspiration and built classes backward from impressive poses.

And you know what? It was exhausting. Not just for me—for my students too.

Because here’s the truth: your students are not thinking about you as much as you think they are. They’re thinking about which side is left, where their quadriceps are, whether they answered that email, and what’s for dinner later. They’re not mentally cataloging whether you said the same cue last week.

In fact, your students are processing maybe 15 to 20 percent of what you tell them. They need to hear things seven or eight times before they really land.

The Four-Chunk Framework for Efficient Planning

The solution isn’t to wing it or spend hours planning. It’s to think in chunks instead of individual poses.

Every yoga class—whether it’s 45 minutes or 90 minutes—can be broken into four quarters:

Quarter 1: Centering and Warmup (First 15 Minutes)

This includes your welcome, centering, breath awareness, and gentle warmup movements. Maybe some intention setting. This is where you help students transition from their day into their practice.

Quarter 2: Standing Sequence (Active Portion)

If you teach standing poses, this is where they go—along with any balance work and sun salutations, if that’s your thing. If you teach a more floor-based or chair-based class, this is simply the more active portion after your warmup.

Quarter 3: Mat Work (Core and Hip Focus)

By the time you come down to the mat, you’re focusing on core work, hip work, or both. The spine and shoulders come along for the ride. This is the hearty, nourishing part of the practice.

Quarter 4: Finishing (Final Relaxation)

Any finishing poses, final relaxation, meditation, breath work, and closing. This is where you help students integrate everything.

Here’s the game-changer: Once you start seeing your class in these four chunks, you can create a “capsule wardrobe” of sequences—maybe six to ten of each chunk—and mix and match them like getting dressed in the morning.

Why Repetition Is Actually Better Teaching

Think of it like a restaurant menu. You don’t go to your favorite restaurant and expect them to have created an entirely new menu since your last visit. You go because you know what to expect, and that consistency is comforting.

Your students are the same way. When you teach the same lesson plan for an entire month (yes, a whole month), several things happen:

1. Your students actually learn. Repetition is the key to learning. When they see the same sequence week after week, they stop living in their thinking brain and drop into their body. That’s when the real yoga happens.

2. You become a better teacher. When you’re not scrambling to remember what comes next in your brand-new sequence, you have the mental bandwidth to see your students. You notice who needs an adjustment, who’s struggling, who’s ready for more.

3. Variety emerges naturally. Even if you don’t change a single thing in your sequence, the class will be different every time. Where you stand, who’s present, everyone’s energy level, the season—all of this creates natural variety.

You never step in the same river twice. Same with your yoga class.

The Middle Path Between Type A and Type B

If you’re the type of teacher who rigidly plans everything and tries to control every variable, you need to hear this: your students don’t need perfection. They need your presence.

If you’re the type of teacher who wings it every time, you need to hear this: having a reliable structure doesn’t limit your creativity. It creates the container for you to be truly responsive.

The middle path is where the magic happens. That’s where you’re repeating mostly over time with just a little bit of intentional variety.

From Peak Poses to Balanced Movement

Here’s another mindset shift that will save you hours of planning time: let go of peak pose sequencing.

If you go onto Instagram when it’s time to plan your class and see some impressive pose or transition and think, “I’m going to work back from there,” you’re creating unnecessary stress. You’re also sending a message to your students that what matters is building toward some aesthetic accomplishment.

But the goal isn’t to get your foot behind your head. The goal is liberation. Connection. Union.

Instead of building toward a peak pose, offer your students a balanced movement diet. Make sure you’re covering all six moves of the spine (forward, back, side to side, round and round), all four lines of the legs (front, back, inside, outside), and both core modes (stabilization and articulation).

That’s the 6-4-2 framework that underlies all the sequences I share in my book The Art of Yoga Sequencing and in my movement library at The Prep Station.

Your Action Steps

If you want to start planning your classes in 15 minutes or less, here’s what to do:

1. Do a brain dump. Open a fresh document right now and list all the sequences you already know. You’ll be surprised how much is already in your head.

2. Organize them into the four quarters. Which sequences work well as warmups? Which ones are standing sequences? Mat sequences? Finishing sequences?

3. Pick one complete lesson plan and commit to teaching it for at least four weeks in a row. Don’t change anything. Just teach it. Watch what happens.

4. After four weeks, you can either keep going or swap out just one quarter. Change no more than 25 percent at a time.

That’s it. That’s how you plan your class in 15 minutes or less.

Watch the Full Workshop

I recently led a free workshop walking through this entire approach in detail, including live demonstrations of the four-quarter framework and my “Greatest Hits Lesson Plan”—a back-pocket sequence you can teach as-is.

In the workshop, you’ll learn:

Three powerful analogies for thinking about modular sequencing (capsule wardrobe, restaurant menu, and perforated flip books)Why your students actually prefer consistency over noveltyHow to create your own sequence “recipe box”The difference between working toward a peak pose versus offering balanced movementSpecific examples of how to vary a sequence while keeping it fundamentally the sameFree Resource: The Greatest Hits Lesson Plan

Want to try this approach right away? Download my Greatest Hits Lesson Plan—a complete, balanced sequence you can teach this week. It features a side-bending tree pose that appears in different orientations throughout the class (on the back, standing, from hands and knees, and belly down).

It’s the “mom’s spaghetti” meal of yoga classes—you just know all the bases are covered.

Join my newsletter to get the lesson planReady to Build Your Sequence Library?

If you want a complete library of ready-to-teach sequences (140+ and counting), check out The Yoga Class Prep Station. It’s $39 per month and includes:

Follow-along videos for every sequence (so you can practice them in your own body first)A custom GPT assistant trained on my sequencing methodsMonthly Snack + Chat calls where we practice together and connect as teachersA fresh sequence idea every monthTheme seeds and teaching tips3 CEUs per month (36 per year)

It’s like having a teaching sous chef—all the prep work is done so you can focus on connecting with your students.

Join the Prep StationThe Bottom Line

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every week. You need proven frameworks and the permission to repeat.

Stop burning out on class planning. Start teaching with confidence.

Because it shouldn’t take longer to plan your yoga class than to teach it.

Your Students Need Sequences They Can Actually Use

Your students don’t need another fancy flow filled with Instagram-worthy poses. They need sequences they can use in real life—sequences that work when they’re traveling, when they’re tired, when they don’t have much space, or when getting up and down from the floor feels like too much work.

This head-to-knee flow does exactly that. It’s a seated sequence focusing on hips, spine, and shoulders that works on a mat, in bed, or on the floor of a hotel room. Your students can practice it before they even start their day, and you can teach it with confidence knowing it’s accessible for most bodies.

In the video below, I’ll guide you through the full sequence. Try it yourself first—because you need to experience every sequence before you consider teaching it. Then bring it to your students and watch them thank you for giving them something practical they can actually use.

Watch the Full Head-to-Knee Flow SequenceWhat Makes This Sequence WorkAccessible for Real Bodies

This sequence stays entirely seated. There’s no getting up and down from the floor, no weight-bearing on wrists, and no need for fancy props. Students work with head-to-knee pose and its variations—poses most bodies can access with simple modifications.

Your students can choose whether to keep their spine long or allow it to round. They can rest a palm on their leg instead of reaching for their foot. They decide what feels right for their back, their hamstrings, their energy level on any given day.

Hits Multiple Movement Patterns

Even though this is a seated sequence, it covers significant ground. Students move through forward folding, lateral flexion, rotation, and even a side plank variation if they choose to take it. They stretch hips, spine, and the side body. They build strength in their core and shoulders.

This is exactly what exercise physiology tells us bodies need—movement variety, not pose complexity.

Easy to Remember and Teach

The sequence follows a clear structure: four shapes on the right side, then four shapes on the left side. Students move through head-to-knee forward fold, revolved head-to-knee, a pulsing side stretch that can become side plank, and a seated twist.

You can teach this from memory after running through it twice. Your cueing can focus on helping students find their own best expression rather than memorizing complicated choreography.

How to Use This Sequence in Your ClassesAs a Complete Short Practice

This sequence works beautifully as a 10-minute practice on its own. Perfect for online classes, lunch-break sessions, or students who want something they can do before bed.

As Part of a Longer Class

Use this as your mat work section in a 60-minute class. It pairs well with standing poses that warm up the legs and hips, and flows naturally into a finishing sequence.

For Students with Limited Mobility

This sequence offers depth without requiring students to move through multiple positions. It’s ideal for students managing joint pain, balance challenges, or energy limitations.

Try It, Then Teach It

Twenty years of teaching has taught me this: the sequences that look simple often offer the most depth. Your students will remember how you made them feel, not how many fancy poses you packed into class.

This head-to-knee flow gives you a practical, accessible sequence you can teach with confidence. Your students get movement patterns their bodies need without unnecessary complexity.

Try the sequence yourself using the video above. Notice what you feel in your hips, spine, and side body. Pay attention to which variations work best for you. Then bring it to your students and let me know in the comments how it goes.

Get More Sequences Like This

If you want ongoing support with fresh, practical sequences you can use immediately, check out The Yoga Class Prep Station. Every month you get new follow-along videos, lesson plans, and teaching resources designed for real students in real classes.

Join the Prep Station for only $39

You can also sign up for my newsletter to get the full lesson plan for this sequence plus more teaching resources delivered to your inbox.

Planning your yoga class shouldn’t take longer than actually teaching. Let me help you plan confident, creative classes without the overwhelm.

I’ve been creating yoga video content since the DVD era. And in those 20+ years, I’ve made just about every mistake you can make when it comes to teaching yoga on camera.

I’ve lost the rights to my own work because I couldn’t find a contract. I’ve stressed myself out trying to serve two audiences at once—the camera and the paying students in the room. I’ve invested in equipment before I knew what I actually needed. And yes, I’ve had to pull a Taylor Swift and re-record my own sequences because I couldn’t get my original videos back.

But I’ve also built something that works: a library of 140+ videos in my Yoga Class Prep Station that serve my students, support my courses, and generate income while I focus on other parts of my business.

If you’re thinking about creating yoga video content—whether it’s a single workshop, livestream classes, or a full membership library—this post will save you years of trial and error.

The Journey: From DVDs to Online Libraries

My first yoga video was a DVD called The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga. The format was heavily influenced by Shiva Rea’s brilliant matrix menu system in her DVDs, where you could choose different segments and play them in any order. That completely shaped how I think about yoga sequencing in chunks.

Here’s what I did wisely from the very beginning: I recorded the live action with no sound. We had an assistant off-screen calling out poses, and I laid the voice over later. This is something I still recommend—don’t try to get the video and audio perfect at the same time. Record your movement first, then add your voice later. It takes so much pressure off.

A few years later, a local company asked me to help launch their online yoga channel. They’d provide equipment, and I’d provide videos each month. For a long while, it worked beautifully. But here’s where things got complicated.

The “Two Masters” Problem

I was recording my live classes at the studio—at least once a week, sometimes more. We’d list “camera” on the schedule so students knew what they were signing up for.

But I felt like I was serving two masters. I had the camera to think about—framing, angles, clear demonstration—and I also had paying students in the room who deserved my full attention. It was incredibly stressful.

I was always way happier when I staged recordings specifically for the camera, with no live students present. Then I could just focus on creating good video content without worrying that I was short-changing the people in the room.

Some teachers can handle recording live classes well. I couldn’t. And that’s okay. If you’re considering video, be honest with yourself about whether you can serve both audiences. If not, stage your recordings separately—with models, or by yourself demonstrating.

The Livestream Experiment (And Why I Stopped)

The company wanted to try livestreaming, which meant even more things could go wrong. We needed internet bandwidth, bright lights that killed the relaxed yoga vibe, and dealt with audio interference.

The upside? Those videos were pushed to my Facebook business page and are still available in my Yoga Class Prep Station. But the process? Incredibly stressful. I did it for maybe nine months, then I was done.

The Pandemic Decision

When COVID hit in 2020, I was one of the few yoga studio owners who did not want to pivot online.

I already had a library of recorded classes. I had online courses for teachers. I knew the stress of video production and didn’t want to introduce that into the teacher-student relationship during an already stressful time.

At the time, my studio operated on class passes, not memberships. When the pandemic hit, we just paused everyone’s pack and waited for the world to reopen. Which it did, slowly. We taped off nine spaces for social distancing and taught in masks.

For many students, that weekly yoga class was the only time they spent around other people during those early pandemic months. That was meaningful in a way that Zoom classes couldn’t replicate for our community.

The Contract Nightmare (And What I’ll Never Do Again)

Sometime after the pandemic, the company changed hands. It got bought by a new corporation. And I couldn’t find my original contract. Neither could they.

I was pretty sure that contract gave me the rights to get my videos back. But without the paperwork, I had no proof. My videos were essentially held hostage.

If you know anything about the music industry, you know this story. Taylor Swift had to re-record all her albums as “Taylor’s version” because she didn’t own the master recordings. I did the same thing—I re-recorded my best sequences completely on my own.

This is the thing I will never do again: give away all the rights to my videos to another entity. And I will absolutely, definitely never lose copies of a contract again.

How to Get Started Without Making My Mistakes

Despite all these challenges, I’m so glad I stuck with video. Right now, I have over 140 videos that work for me while I sleep, reaching students I’d never meet in person.

Here’s how I’d recommend you start:

Start with a workshop, not a class library. Don’t try to build 100 videos on day one. Create one workshop that solves one specific problem for one specific person. Instead of “Gentle Yoga,” create “Yoga for ADHD Focus” or “Yoga After Spring Gardening.” The more specific, the better for search optimization.

Keep your tech costs low at first. You can get started with a smartphone, a basic tripod, good natural lighting, and a quiet space. Don’t invest in fancy equipment until you’re making money from videos and know what you actually need.

Understand your platform options. For live classes, use Zoom with scheduling tools like Acuity. For structured courses, look at Teachable, Kajabi, or Thinkific. For video libraries, check out Vimeo, Uscreen, or Marvelous (formerly Namastream). I use Vimeo to host files and embed them in Circle, my membership platform.

Protect your rights from day one. If you partner with any platform or company, read the contract. Keep a copy. Understand what rights you’re giving away and keeping. Can you get your videos back? Can you sell them elsewhere? What happens if the company gets acquired?

Focus on serving one person at a time. Get clear on who you’re serving and what problem you’re solving for them. Make the video about that. Everything else is just logistics.

The Bottom Line

Teaching yoga on video can be one of the most powerful ways to scale your teaching, reach more students, and create sustainable income streams. But it’s not without challenges.

I made mistakes. I gave away rights I shouldn’t have. I stressed myself out trying to do too much at once. I invested in equipment before I knew what I needed.

But I also created something that works for me now—a library that serves my students, supports my courses, and generates income while I focus on other parts of my business.

If you’re ready to get started, my advice is this: start small and specific. Create one workshop that solves one problem for one type of person. Keep your tech simple at first. Protect your rights. And remember that the students watching your videos are the heroes of their own yoga journey—you’re just there to guide them.

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Listen to the full episode (E60) of Yoga Teacher Confidential where I share even more details about platforms, equipment, and the lessons I learned the hard way: sagerountree.com/podcast

I’ve spent thousands of hours watching myself teach yoga.

I edit my own podcast—this very one you might be listening to right now. I edit my YouTube videos. I record and edit all my course lectures. I’ve read every single one of my own audiobooks and even edited one of them, sitting in a recording and editing booth for hours making tiny adjustments to pacing, tone, and emphasis.

My movement library has over 140 videos and counting.

By now, I’ve logged hundreds—maybe thousands—of hours reviewing my own teaching.

And here’s what I know: most yoga teachers avoid this practice like the plague.

The very thought of watching or listening to themselves teach makes them want to crawl under their mat and hide. I get it. I really do. That first viewing is rough. You will cringe. You will think, “Do I really sound like that? Do I really look like that?”

But here’s the thing: self-assessment is the single most effective—and completely free—tool you have for evolving as a teacher.

Listen to Yoga Teacher Confidential, E59Why Self-Assessment Is Module One in My Mentorship

In my Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing mentorship program (we call it MMM for short), I work with yoga teachers over six months to develop all five competencies of my S.E.R.V.E. Method.

And you know what the very first module in MMM is? Self-assessment.

Not sequencing theory. Not cueing techniques. Not theming your classes—though we do get to that.

The first step is self-assessment.

Because here’s what I’ve learned in over 20 years of teaching yoga and training yoga teachers: you can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you can’t see yourself clearly—if you can’t identify what’s working well and what needs refinement—you’re going to stay stuck.

What you’ll learn in that first module will be worth the price of your entire investment in the program. That’s why it’s Module One. Not Module Six. Not a bonus at the end. It’s where we start, because everything else builds on this foundation of being able to see yourself clearly.

The Problem with Teaching in Real Time

When you’re teaching, you’re in the flow of it. You’re reading the room. You’re making micro-adjustments. You’re focused on your students’ needs and experiences.

All of that is exactly as it should be—your students are the heroes of their yoga experience, and you’re there as their guide.

But here’s what inevitably happens to us as yoga teachers: we develop blind spots.

These blind spots aren’t just about verbal tics or whether you said “um” too many times. They’re deeper than that. They’re about patterns in how you show up, patterns you can’t see when you’re in the midst of teaching because you’re too close to it.

Maybe you consistently underestimate how long students need in a pose because you’re ready to move on. Maybe you unconsciously favor one side of the room with your attention. Maybe your voice quality changes dramatically between the active portion of class and savasana, but you have no awareness of it.

These patterns shape your students’ entire experience of your class. And the only way to make them visible is to step outside yourself and watch.

Video gives you objectivity. It lets you compare what you felt happened with what actually happened. And that gap between feeling and reality? That’s where your most valuable insights live.

The Multi-Pass Review System

The multiple viewing passes I recommend aren’t just about managing your emotional reaction—though that’s part of it. They’re actually a structured system for different types of observation.

Pass 1: Emotional Purge

Watch just the first 5–10 minutes of your recording. Let yourself react naturally. Cringe all you want. Write down whatever you’re feeling—the good, the bad, the uncomfortable. Get it out of your system.

This isn’t wasted time. This is you building tolerance for seeing yourself. And that tolerance is necessary before you can move into constructive observation.

Pass 2: Strengths Inventory (Full Recording)

Now watch the full recording with one specific question: What am I already doing well?

This is where you create what I call in The Professional Yoga Teacher’s Handbook your “Strengths Inventory.” You’re literally making a list:

Moments when you really connected with a studentCues that landed beautifullyTransitions that felt smoothYour genuine care coming through in your voiceYour body language radiating warmth and welcomeTimes when you made a skillful adjustment in the moment

Write these down. Be specific. Don’t just say “good connection”—write “made eye contact with the student in the back corner when I cued child’s pose and saw her relax into it.”

Why does this matter? Because when you’re working on areas for improvement in your next pass, you need to know what to preserve. You need to protect your strengths while you’re developing new skills.

Pass 3: Targeted Observation (Area of Focus)

This is where your pre-recording intention comes in. Watch the recording again, but this time with your laser focus on the one or two specific things you wanted to observe.

If you’re tracking filler words, you might literally tally them. If you’re watching for pacing, you might use a timer and note how long you hold each side. If you’re observing positioning and movement through the room, you might map your path on paper.

Take detailed notes. Be as specific as possible. “I said ‘and then’ 23 times in the featured poses section” is more useful than “I use too many filler words.”

Pass 4: Student Experience (Optional)

If you have students visible in your recording—and they’ve given permission for this—watch the recording one more time with your attention on them, not on yourself.

How are they responding to your cues? Where do they look confused? Where do they light up? When do they seem to disconnect?

This gives you invaluable information about how your teaching is actually landing, rather than how you think it’s landing.

The Keep/Drop/Add Framework

After you’ve done your multi-pass review, it’s time to close the loop by connecting observation to action.

In MMM, we use a specific framework adapted from the classic “Roses, Thorns, and Buds” reflection model:

Keep (Roses): Based on your strengths inventory, what do you want to actively preserve and continue doing? Write it down specifically.

Drop (Thorns): Based on your targeted observation, what do you want to eliminate or refine? Be specific about the behavior and your strategy for changing it.

Add (Buds): What new elements do you want to experiment with in your next class? These might be alternatives to things you’re dropping, or they might be completely new directions for growth.

Then—and this is the crucial step most teachers skip—schedule your next recording session. Put it on your calendar right now. Three months out at maximum, one month out if you’re serious about rapid development.

Advanced Techniques for Deeper Insight

Once you’ve done this process a few times and you’re comfortable with the basics, you can add these more advanced techniques:

Embodied Review

A few days or weeks after you make the recording—enough time that the class isn’t fresh in your mind—roll out your mat, press play, and actually practice along with the recording as if you were a student.

Don’t think about what you were trying to teach or why you made certain choices. Just follow the cues and feel the experience in your body.

This will reveal things you’d never notice just by watching:

Cues that made perfect sense in your head but are actually confusing in practiceTiming that feels rushed or dragging from the student sideMoments where you needed to give more information or lessTransitions that feel awkward in your body even though they looked fine on videoLinguistic Analysis

When you transcribe even five or ten minutes of your teaching—either manually or using a tool like Descript or Otter.ai—you see patterns in your language that you’d never hear just by listening.

You’ll see how often you start sentences with the same phrase. You’ll see your filler words jump off the page. You’ll see where you contradict yourself or where your instructions could be tighter.

One technique I love: after you have your transcript, run it through a word cloud generator. The visual representation of your most-used words is incredibly revealing.

Teaching Identity Articulation

Take some time to articulate what kind of teacher you want to be. Not in vague terms—”I want to be a good teacher”—but with specific characteristics.

Start by identifying teachers you admire. For each one, think or write about:

The tone they use with students in and out of classTheir body language and physical presenceHow they interact with studentsWhat makes their teaching feel authentic to who they are

Then write your own teaching identity statement. Describe the kind of teacher you want to be in concrete, observable terms.

Now here’s the powerful part: compare your identity statement to what you see in your video. Where’s the alignment? Where’s the gap?

That gap isn’t a source of shame—it’s a roadmap for your development.

This Is How You Evolve Your Voice

Self-assessment through video recording isn’t a one-time exercise you do to check a box. It’s not something you do once, decide it’s painful, and never do again.

It’s a practice. A discipline. A commitment to ongoing evolution as a teacher.

When you approach self-assessment with intention, with structure, with specific lenses for observation, it stops being just a painful exercise in facing your flaws. It becomes a tool for conscious evolution.

That’s what the second E in the S.E.R.V.E. Method is all about: Evolving Your Voice.

Not overnight transformation. Not perfection. But steady, consistent evolution toward becoming a clearer, more skillful, more authentically yourself teacher for your students.

This evolution never stops. I’ve been teaching for over two decades, and I still record myself regularly. I still find things to refine. I still discover new layers of my teaching that could be clearer, more effective, more supportive of my students’ experiences.

That’s not a failing on my part. That’s the nature of being a dedicated teacher. Growth is a lifelong practice.

Ready to Commit to Your Evolution?

When we work together in Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing, this entire self-assessment framework is where we start—because you can’t build sophisticated sequencing skills, you can’t develop confident cueing, you can’t learn to vary with intention until you can see yourself clearly enough to know what’s actually happening when you teach versus what you think is happening.

In MMM, I’ll review your video and mirror back what I see, and you can share your video in our community space and request feedback using the Keep/Drop/Add framework. The other teachers—the other chefs in our kitchen—will give you compassionate, constructive insights.

Learn more about the six-month mentorship

Or join The Zone, my free community for yoga teachers, where you’ll get monthly live calls and lesson plan templates.

Your students are counting on you to show up as the best teacher you can be. And you can’t become that teacher without seeing yourself clearly first.

I spent the first few years of my teaching career doing it wrong.

Not wrong in a dramatic way. My students weren’t getting injured. They kept coming back. But I was burning myself out planning elaborate new sequences for every single class, convinced that’s what made me a good teacher.

Turns out, I was making it harder for my students to actually experience yoga.

Recently, I sat down with Adrianne Jerrett of the All Mats Taken podcast to talk about pedagogy, sequencing frameworks, and the art of actually teaching—not just performing at the front of the room. We covered everything from exercise physiology to the power of clear language to why that miserable-looking student might be having the most profound experience in class.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts

Here’s what we explored.

The Academic Trap: When Teaching Yoga Like College Backfires

Before I became a yoga teacher full-time, I was teaching college composition courses. I had a PhD in English literature. I knew how to design syllabuses, deliver lectures, and evaluate learning.

And I tried to wedge all of that into my yoga classes.

In an academic setting, you lay out clear objectives. You vary the material every week across a 16-week semester. You assess whether students achieved mastery. There’s a destination. There’s grading. There’s evaluation.

But yoga doesn’t work that way.

Your students aren’t there to master material or achieve an outcome. They’re there to have an experience. And when I finally realized that teaching yoga required a completely different paradigm, everything changed.

The shift: I stopped planning like a college professor and started teaching like a guide creating space for embodied learning.

The Case for Repetition: Why the Same Sequence Works Better

Here’s the thing most yoga teachers get wrong: we think students want novelty.

We think we need to deliver fresh, exciting sequences every single class or they’ll get bored. But that’s us projecting our teacher ego onto our students. We’re the only ones who have been in every class we’ve ever taught. We’re the only ones who have heard everything we’ve ever said.

Your students aren’t bored by repetition. They’re soothed by it.

When you teach the same base sequence—the same template with minor variations—for weeks or even a month at a time, something beautiful happens. Your students move to the next pose before you even cue it. They get out of their heads and into their bodies. They stop thinking “what comes next?” and start feeling “how does this land in me today?”

That’s when the real yoga happens.

Think of it like this: If you go to a restaurant and love your meal, you want that dish to be on the menu when you come back. You didn’t go there for surprise experimental cuisine. You went there because you know what to expect, and that expectation being met is satisfying.

Your yoga class works the same way.

The 6-4-2 Framework: A Checklist for Balanced Sequencing

One of the frameworks I teach is the 6-4-2 method. It’s a simple checklist based on exercise physiology (not yoga tradition) that ensures your classes are balanced and satisfying.

Six movements of the spine:

Flexion and extension (forward and back, like cat-cow)Lateral flexion (side to side, like side bends)Rotation (round and round, like twists)

Most vinyasa classes overemphasize forward folding—which many of us already do all day when we’re sitting. The 6 movements remind you to move your students in all three planes of motion, not just sagittal (forward-back).

Four lines of the legs:

Front line and back line (facing the short edge of your mat in poses like warrior or chair)Inner line and outer line (facing the long edge of your mat, working adductors and abductors)

Two core modes:

Articulation (the ripply cat-cow movement through the spine)Stabilization (holding the spine-pelvis relationship steady while moving limbs)

When a yoga class hits all these elements, it feels complete. It’s balanced. It doesn’t perpetuate the same patterns students are stuck in all day.

This framework gives you a structure to build on—like a capsule wardrobe where you have your base pieces (jeans, white shirt, little black dress) and you accessorize differently each time. Same base. Fresh variations.

Exercise Physiology Over Anatomy Memorization

Many 200-hour yoga teacher trainings focus too much on anatomy memorization and pathology (what goes wrong). Teachers come out terrified of injuring students, drowning in contraindication lists, trying to know every modification for every condition.

But here’s what matters more: exercise physiology—how bodies adapt to stress.

The principles are simple:

Intensity, frequency, duration: These are the variables you can adjust. In a yoga class, you mostly control frequency (how many times we do a pose) and duration (how long we hold it). Your students control intensity (how deep they go).Principle of diminishing returns: Doing more isn’t always better. Bodies need rest to adapt.Principle of specificity: To get better at something, practice that thing. To get better at cueing, practice cueing the same sequence multiple times.

When you understand that intensity is the only variable your students really control, you realize your job is to give them options and empower them to find the right level—not to fix every variable and force everyone into the same shape.

Clear Cueing: Say Less, Mean More

One of the best things you can do as a teacher: record yourself and listen back (or get it transcribed).

You’ll immediately hear all the filler words. All the “and now from here we’re going to.” All the overexplaining.

Your students don’t need all that. They need:

Two or three cues on the first sideOne or two cues on the second sideSilence to drop into the experience

Remember: Teaching yoga is not delivering a speech. It’s not running a podcast. There’s no such thing as dead air. Your students came for the quiet.

Before you open your mouth, ask yourself: “Wait, why am I talking?” And once you start: “Waste, why am I still talking?”

Fewer words. More space. Better experience.

The S.E.R.V.E. Method: Your Teaching Practice Over Time

I developed the S.E.R.V.E. method as a framework for sustainable, confident teaching:

S – Structure your class based on sound physiology and kinesiology (like the 6-4-2 framework)

E – Experience it as a student yourself. Practice your sequence before you teach it. Taste the food before you send it out of your kitchen.

R – Repeat it over time. Master your cues. Let your students benefit from the repetition. This is where confidence builds.

V – Vary with intention. Yes, change things up—but thoughtfully, not randomly. Offer two or three variations in class if students need them.

E – Evolve your voice over time. Give yourself permission to grow, change your style, and let go of what no longer works for you as a teacher.

What Your Students Actually Need From You

After 20 years of teaching, here’s what I know:

Your students don’t care about your certifications. They don’t need you to deliver a brand new sequence every class. They don’t need you to be the most flexible or the most advanced.

They need you to be dependable.

They need to feel safe in your class. They need to know you see them as individuals. They need to leave feeling better than when they arrived.

Your credentials got you in the room. Your presence, care, and ability to hold space—built through repetition and confidence—are what keep them coming back.

And that confidence doesn’t come from more trainings or more planning. It comes from teaching the same great sequence over and over until your cues are clear, your timing is smooth, and your students can finally drop out of their heads and into their bodies.

Watch the Full Conversation

Adrianne and I went deep into all of these topics and more in our conversation on the All Mats Taken podcast. We talked about:

Why that miserable-looking student might be working harder than anyone elseHow to get real feedback (not just polite “that was great”)The difference between teaching spinning, college courses, and yogaWhy “let go of what no longer serves you” gets on my nervesUsing metaphor and $20 words strategically

If you want to hear the full discussion, including stories from my early teaching days and practical tips you can use in your next class, watch the complete video.

Want More Support With Your Teaching?

If these frameworks resonate with you and you want to dive deeper, I’d love to support you:

Join The Zone (free community): Monthly live calls, lesson plan templates, and a supportive space for yoga teachers at every level.

Join the Zone

Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing (6-month mentorship): This is where we go deep into the 6-4-2 framework, the S.E.R.V.E. method, and building the confidence that makes students keep coming back. I give you the recipes, we practice together, and we workshop how to adapt everything for your unique students.

Join MMM

Teaching yoga shouldn’t take longer than actually teaching it. Let’s change that together.

The Real Secret to Fresh Classes: Repetition with Subtle Variation

Most yoga teachers think the hack to keeping class fresh is coming up with something new every week. Sunday night rolls around and you’re scrolling Instagram for inspiration, second-guessing your sequences, arriving to class feeling frazzled.

But after 20+ years of teaching and training over 1,000 yoga teachers, I’ve learned something that completely changed how I approach sequencing: The real hack is repetition with subtle variation—not total reinvention class to class.

Your students don’t need you to be constantly creative. They need consistency with small, intentional variations.

In this post (and the video below), I’m sharing the exact approach I teach in Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing for keeping the same lesson plan for a month while making subtle shifts that create depth—not boredom.

Watch the full video:

What Most Yoga Teachers Get Wrong about Repetition

Here’s the fear: if you teach the same lesson plan for weeks in a row, your students will get bored.

But repetition doesn’t mean identical. It means keeping the same container—the same poses in the same four quarters of class (warmup, standing, mat, finishing)—and making small shifts in how you present them.

Example: My Greatest Hits Lesson Plan

I have a back-pocket sequence I’ve taught hundreds of times—I call it my Greatest Hits Lesson Plan. Students of every age love it. And I teach it differently every single time.

The warmup is a sequence I call “Six Moves of the Spine, Supine, One Leg.” Same poses every time. But:

Week one: I guide students through slowly with lots of descriptionWeek two: I say less and encourage them to move at their own paceWeek three: I have them pulse into the twist, then hold longerWeek four: I speed up the rhythm and make it more flowing

Same poses. Different presentation.

In the standing quarter, there’s a tree pose with a side bend:

Week one: Just the basic shapeWeek two: Stand on blocks or a blanket for extra challengeWeek three: Layer in a backbend before the side bendWeek four: Reverse the order—side bend first, then backbend

Same pose. Different emphasis.

Why Repetition With Variation Actually Works

This is the “R” in my S.E.R.V.E. Method—Repeat your sequence over time. And it’s the principle that creates the biggest mindset shift for teachers.

For Your Students

Repetition is how learning happens. Think about your favorite restaurant. You don’t go there because they completely change the menu every week. You go because they do certain dishes really well, consistently.

Your teaching is the same. When you repeat a base lesson plan:

Students stop spending mental energy trying to remember what comes nextThey can drop deeper and refine their alignmentThey feel the difference between week one and week four

By week three or four, your students start moving ahead of your cueing. They know what’s coming. They’re anticipating the next shape. They’re choosing their own variations before you even offer them.

That’s not boredom. That’s mastery.

When your students know the sequence, they’re not performing for you. They’re practicing for themselves. They’re going internal instead of looking around the room.

For You as the Teacher

Repeating a lesson plan means:

You stop spending Sunday nights scrolling Instagram for inspirationYou stop second-guessing yourselfYou stop arriving to class frazzled

Instead, you show up present. You notice your students. You refine your language. You become a better teacher because you’re not performing a brand-new sequence—you’re guiding students through a practice they’re learning to own.

The teachers with the most loyal students aren’t the ones teaching the flashiest sequences. They’re the ones creating a container their students can trust.

The 5 Levers to Keep Your Lesson Plan Fresh

So how do you keep a lesson plan fresh for yourself and your students without changing the poses? Here are the five levers you can pull:

Lever 1: Pacing

Week one, teach it slow and steady. Week four, speed it up and make it more flowing. Or do the opposite—start energetic and finish mellow.

Lever 2: Order

If you have a sequence of poses, try reversing the order. Or pair them differently—instead of taking each pose on one side then the other, group them so you do two poses on the right, then two on the left.

Lever 3: Emphasis

Hold one pose longer. Add an extra breath in a different shape than you did last week. Layer in one additional element—like adding a backbend before a side bend, or a twist after a forward fold.

Lever 4: Options

Week one, teach the base version plain. Week two, offer props for support. Week three, add a spicier variation for students who want more challenge. Week four, give all three options at once and let students choose.

Lever 5: Rhythm

Change how you cue it. Week one, give lots of description and guidance. Week two, link breath to movement. Week three, cue minimally and let students move at their own pace. Week four, offer silence.

What You’re NOT Doing

Notice what you’re NOT doing: you’re not swapping out movement categories. You’re not teaching backbends one week and twists the next. You’re not reinventing the wheel.

You’re keeping the same balanced, complete container—warmup, standing, mat, finishing, with all six moves of the spine, all four leg lines, both core actions (my 6-4-2 framework)—and you’re seasoning it differently.

This is cooking, not just following a recipe. You’ve learned the techniques. Now you’re improvising with confidence because you understand the fundamentals.

Download My Greatest Hits Lesson Plan

Want to see this approach in action? I’m giving away my Greatest Hits Lesson Plan—the exact sequence I reference in this post and video—so you can try teaching the same lesson plan with subtle variations.

Get the free Greatest Hits Lesson PlanReady to Master This Approach?

This repetition-with-variation approach is exactly what I teach in Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing—my six-month mentorship where we go deep into:

How to build balanced lesson plans using the 6-4-2 frameworkHow to repeat and vary them using the S.E.R.V.E. MethodLive mentorship calls with personalized feedback on your sequencesA whole library of lesson plans you can use and adaptLearn more about Mastering the Art of Yoga SequencingWant Ready-Made Sequences Instead?

If you just want the ready-made dishes without the culinary school, The Prep Station gives you a Movement Library with over 140 sequences built on this exact approach. You can grab one, teach it for a month with small variations, and focus on showing up for your students instead of planning from scratch.

It’s $39 a month and designed to be your teaching sous chef—getting the prep work done for you so you can lend your creative magic to your lesson plans using a solid recipe.

Join the Prep Station

Although I have two gorgeous, brilliant adult daughters, I am not a grandmother proper (yet!). But I have metaphorical grandchildren all around the world: they are the students of my students, both those who’ve done teacher training with me and those who’ve read my books and found something of use to share with their own students.

This realization hit me most profoundly when I visited the teacher trainees of my close collaborator, Alexandra DeSiato. Alexandra has cowritten several books with me and is now the lead teacher in the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Carrboro Yoga, the studio I own in North Carolina. She’s a graduate of that very program, which I directed and where I was the lead teacher for over a decade before handing the baton to her.

When I presented to her trainees on sequencing and business, I truly understood what Phase 5 of the Yoga Teacher Success Timeline is about. It’s not just about teaching—it’s about teaching the teachers who will teach the teachers.

Understanding Phase 5: The Mastery and Legacy Zone

Phase 5 is not about age or years of experience. I’ve met teachers in their thirties who embody this phase and teachers in their sixties who haven’t arrived there yet. It’s about the depth of your impact and your readiness to share what you’ve learned with the next generation of teachers.

The signs that you’re entering Phase 5 are distinct. You have significant recognition in your specialty—people know your name in yoga circles. You might be invited to teach at conferences, featured in publications, or sought out by other teachers for mentorship. Teaching feels effortless and joyful. You’re no longer working to teach; you’re simply sharing from the overflow of your knowledge and experience. Classes feel like conversations with old friends.

You’re able to nurture other teachers’ growth naturally. You can see what they need and provide it without making them feel inadequate. You have financial sustainability from varied income streams—classes, workshops, trainings, maybe books or online courses. You’re not dependent on any single revenue stream.

Most importantly, you have deep wisdom from years of observation and adaptation. You’ve seen thousands of students, taught through countless situations, and developed intuitive wisdom about human nature and the teaching process. You have a clear understanding of your unique contribution to yoga. You know what you bring to the field that no one else can bring, and you’re comfortable with your particular gifts and perspective.

The Shift in Focus

The hallmark of Phase 5 is that your focus shifts from your own development to the development of others. Not because you’ve stopped learning—master teachers never stop learning—but because you’ve reached a place where sharing knowledge has become as important as acquiring it.

This phase is also characterized by a deep sense of responsibility. You recognize that the knowledge and wisdom you’ve accumulated doesn’t belong to you alone. It belongs to the community. You become a steward of the tradition, responsible for passing it on with integrity.

Here’s something crucial about Phase 5: you don’t have to be the most famous teacher or have the biggest following to be here. Some of the most masterful teachers I know work quietly in their local communities, deeply influencing the teachers and students around them without any fanfare. Phase 5 is about impact, not celebrity.

Navigating Ego in the Mastery Phase

The transition into Phase 5 can be tricky because it’s easy for ego to creep in. When people start looking to you as an expert, when your opinion carries weight, when younger teachers hang on your every word—that can be intoxicating.

But true mastery is about transcending ego, not feeding it.

I learned this lesson when I was invited to teach at a prestigious yoga conference. It was easy to get caught up in the excitement of being there and to feel like I needed to jockey for position at the presenters’ cocktail party. I spent a few minutes there before escaping to go eat pizza with my best friend from college.

Reflecting on why I had such an aversion to that party, I think it felt like performing expertise, when what I was at the conference for was sharing wisdom with students, not peacocking for other teachers. That experience taught me the difference between being known and being useful. Being known feels good to the ego, but being useful feels good to the soul.

The best Phase 5 teachers I know are the ones who have learned to hold their expertise lightly. They know a lot, but they don’t need you to know that they know a lot. They’re more interested in what you need to learn than in what they can teach.

Maintaining Beginner’s Mind with Master’s Knowledge

One of the responsibilities of Phase 5 is maintaining beginner’s mind while holding master’s knowledge. You need to remember what it felt like to be confused, overwhelmed, or uncertain, so you can meet newer teachers where they are.

I see some experienced teachers who have lost touch with the struggle of learning. They’ve forgotten what it’s like to not know something, and so they can’t effectively teach beginners or support newer teachers. The key is staying curious. Continuing to ask questions. Continuing to approach familiar concepts with fresh eyes. This is how you avoid becoming stagnant or arrogant.

Another crucial aspect of Phase 5 is understanding the cycles of learning. You’ve been through all the phases yourself, so you can recognize where other teachers are in their journey and provide exactly what they need at that moment.

When I work with newer teachers now, I’m not trying to turn them into mini-versions of me. I’m trying to help them become the best version of themselves. That requires seeing their unique gifts and challenges, not just projecting my own experience onto them.

The Concept of Lineage

This is also where the concept of lineage becomes important. You’re not just teaching yoga poses or even teaching teaching—you’re participating in an ancient tradition of knowledge transmission. That’s a sacred responsibility.

But lineage doesn’t mean rigid tradition. It means understanding the essence of what you’ve received and finding authentic ways to pass it forward in a language and format that serves the current generation.

I think about this a lot in my own work. The yoga I teach and the way I train teachers has been influenced by dozens of teachers and thousands of students. I’m a link in a chain that stretches back generations and will continue forward long after I’m gone. That perspective is both humbling and inspiring. It reminds me that this work is bigger than my individual career or reputation.

Multiplying Your Impact

Phase 5 is where you start to see the true impact of your work multiplied. It’s not just about the students you teach directly—it’s about the teachers you mentor who go on to teach thousands of their own students. It’s about the ripple effects that extend far beyond what you can see.

This multiplication of impact is incredibly fulfilling, but it also requires letting go of control. Once you teach someone something, it belongs to them. They’ll adapt it, change it, maybe improve it. That’s exactly what should happen.

Practical Steps for Phase 5 Teachers

If you’re in Phase 5, or moving toward it, here’s what I recommend:

Create systems to share your knowledge with newer teachers. This might be formal mentorship programs, teacher training contributions, or even just being intentionally available to support the teachers in your community.

Build community around your teaching philosophy. Gather like-minded teachers who share your values and approach. Create spaces for ongoing learning and mutual support.

Balance innovation with honoring traditions. You have enough experience to innovate responsibly—to add new elements to the tradition while respecting its essence.

Develop advanced content for experienced practitioners. Your students have grown too. Create offerings that challenge and inspire people who’ve been practicing for years. Remember, advanced doesn’t have to mean complex. The longer you’ve been practicing, the more subtlety there is in simplicity.

Maintain professional boundaries while expanding reach. As your influence grows, you’ll need even clearer boundaries about what you will and won’t do, what you can and can’t provide.

Focus on legacy and how your teaching impacts generations. Think beyond your immediate students to the long-term impact of your work. What do you want to be remembered for?

Continue your own studentship and growth. Master teachers are eternal students. Stay curious, keep learning, and remain humble about how much you don’t know.

The Deepest Satisfaction

The most important thing about Phase 5 is remembering that mastery is not a destination—it’s a way of being. You don’t arrive at mastery and then stop growing. You arrive at a place where your growth serves not just yourself, but everyone around you.

This is where the deepest satisfaction in teaching comes from. It’s not about your classes being perfect or your students loving you—it’s about knowing that you’re part of something much larger than yourself. You’re participating in the ancient art of knowledge transmission. You’re helping to ensure that the gifts of yoga continue to be available to future generations. You’re contributing to a tradition that has changed millions of lives.

That’s not a small thing. That’s legacy.

True mastery is not about what you know—it’s about how you share what you know in service of others.

Want to explore this concept more deeply? Listen to the full episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential: Phase 5—Mastery and Legacy:

Listen to the Podcast

I was about three years into my personal yoga practice when my teacher asked me to demonstrate a pose for the class. Afterwards, she pulled me aside and said, “You have a gift for this. Have you ever thought about teaching?”

My immediate response was, “Oh no, I could never do that. I’m not that kind of teacher—I’m an English teacher! I’m not spiritual enough. I don’t know enough.”

But that seed was planted. And for months, every time I was in class, I found myself mentally teaching along—thinking about how I would cue that pose, or wondering why the teacher chose that particular sequence.

I now call this Phase Zero of the Yoga Teacher Success Timeline: the pre-teaching awakening. If you’ve been secretly wondering whether you could teach yoga, or if you find yourself naturally helping other students, or if people keep telling you that you should be a teacher, this is for you.

Watch on YouTubeWhat Is Phase Zero?

Phase Zero is that liminal space where you’re no longer just a student, but you’re not yet ready to call yourself a teacher. You might not even consciously know you want to teach, but something is stirring.

The Eight Signs of Phase Zero

You find yourself naturally helping other students. Maybe you’re the person who shows new students where the props are, or you share what worked for you to find comfort in downward-facing dog or lift into your first crow pose.

You’re mentally teaching along during class. You catch yourself thinking, “I would have cued that differently,” or “I wonder why they chose to do arm balances after backbends.”

People keep telling you that you should be a teacher. Friends, fellow students, even teachers themselves suggest that you have “teacher energy” or a natural gift for explaining things.

You’re insatiably curious about the “why” behind yoga. You’re not just doing the poses anymore—you want to understand the anatomy, the philosophy, the sequencing principles.

You feel called to share yoga with specific populations. Maybe you think about how yoga could help your stressed-out coworkers, your athletic friends, or your aging parents.

You have moments of clarity during practice that feel teachable. You experience something profound in a pose or meditation, and your first thought is “other people need to know about this.”

You’re spending increasing amounts of time and money on yoga. You’re taking multiple classes per week, attending workshops, maybe even going to retreats. Yoga is becoming less of a hobby and more of a passion.

You feel frustrated by classes that don’t serve you or other students well. You start to notice when teachers are unprepared, when sequences don’t make sense, or when the energy in the room feels off.

The underlying theme of Phase Zero is this growing sense that yoga has given you something valuable, and you feel called to pass it on. But you’re also wrestling with doubt, fear, and questions about whether you’re “qualified” to teach.

Why Phase Zero Exists (and Why It’s Necessary)

The call to teach yoga is unlike the call to most other professions. It’s not just about learning a skill set or pursuing a career—it’s about stepping into a role that involves other people’s physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth.

That’s why it feels so scary. And it should feel a little scary. If it doesn’t, that might be a red flag.

Phase Zero Is a Testing Period

The universe, or your intuition, or whatever you want to call it, is checking to see if this calling is real or just a passing interest. Teaching yoga requires dedication, ongoing education, and genuine care for others. Phase Zero weeds out people who aren’t really committed.

I see people who decide to do yoga teacher training on a whim—maybe they want to deepen their practice, or they think it would be fun, or they’re looking for a career change. There’s nothing wrong with any of those motivations, but they’re different from feeling called to teach.

The people in Phase Zero are the ones who can’t stop thinking about teaching. They’re the ones who wake up with sequence ideas in their heads, or who feel genuinely excited about the possibility of holding space for other people’s practice.

Phase Zero Builds Your Foundation

This phase gives you time to become a really solid student before you become a teacher. I’m a firm believer that you can’t teach what you don’t embody. You need to have your own relationship with the practice before you can guide others into theirs.

I had been practicing for several years before I did my teacher training, and I’m grateful for that foundation. I had experienced yoga’s benefits in my own body and life. I had worked through my own resistance, my own ego, my own physical limitations. That gave me empathy and authenticity when I started teaching.

If you’re in Phase Zero, don’t rush it. Use this time to deepen your practice, to study with different teachers, to explore different styles. The more diverse your foundation, the more you’ll have to offer your future students.

Phase Zero Develops Your Unique Perspective

This is where you start to develop your unique perspective on yoga. You begin to notice what aspects of the practice resonate most with you. Maybe it’s the physical challenge, or the meditative aspects, or the community building, or the philosophical teachings.

This emerging perspective will eventually become your teaching niche. I was drawn to the ways yoga could complement athletic training. That early interest eventually became my specialty in teaching yoga to athletes.

Working Through the Fears

The fears that come up in Phase Zero are actually wisdom in disguise.

When you think “I’m not qualified,” what you’re really recognizing is that teaching is a serious responsibility that requires preparation. That’s true. The solution isn’t to give up on the idea—it’s to get the training you need.

When you think “I’m not spiritual enough,” what you might be recognizing is that yoga is more than just physical exercise. That’s also true. But spirituality isn’t about being ethereal or perfect—it’s about being authentic and committed to growth.

When you think “I don’t know enough,” you’re acknowledging that there’s always more to learn. That’s the mark of a good teacher—recognizing the vastness of what you don’t know and maintaining humility about it.

The teachers I worry about are the ones who think they know everything after their first training. The best teachers are the ones who remain curious and continue learning throughout their entire careers.

Phase Zero is also where you might encounter resistance from people around you. Family members who think yoga is “just stretching” and can’t understand why you’d want to make it a career. Friends who worry you’re getting too “woo-woo.” Partners who are concerned about the financial viability of teaching yoga.

This resistance can be discouraging, but it can also help you clarify your motivation. Are you called to teach because you genuinely want to serve others, or are you trying to prove something to yourself or others?

The people who make it through Phase Zero and into successful teaching careers are usually the ones who can articulate why they feel called to teach, despite the obstacles and uncertainties.

What to Do If You’re in Phase Zero

Trust the calling but don’t rush the process. If you feel drawn to teaching, that’s worth paying attention to. But use this phase to prepare thoroughly rather than jumping into training immediately.

Deepen your personal practice. Take classes with different teachers. Explore different styles. Attend workshops and retreats. Build a strong foundation of personal experience before you start thinking about teaching others.

Start paying attention to what aspects of yoga excite you most. Are you drawn to the physical challenges? The philosophical teachings? The community aspect? The therapeutic applications? This will help you identify your future teaching niche.

Begin developing your voice and perspective. Start journaling about your yoga experiences. Notice what insights arise during practice. Pay attention to what you would want to share with others. Join The Zone for my free mini-course on finding your voice as a yoga teacher.

Research teacher training programs thoroughly. Not all trainings are created equal. Look for programs that align with your interests and learning style, led by teachers you respect and want to learn from.

Start building relationships in the yoga community. Attend workshops, volunteer at events, get to know teachers and studio owners. This network will be invaluable when you’re ready to start teaching.

Address the practical concerns. Think honestly about the financial and lifestyle implications of pursuing teaching. Having a realistic plan will help you commit fully when you’re ready.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

If you’re feeling ready to move from Phase Zero into formal training, I want to tell you about my 200-hour Hybrid Online + Destination Yoga Teacher Training. This unique format includes a 50-hour self-paced curriculum with me online at Comfort Zone Yoga, followed by two weeks on the beautiful Caribbean island of Dominica with Amy Boerner.

What I love about this program is that it combines the flexibility of online learning with the transformative experience of immersive training in a stunning natural setting. You’ll build a solid foundation of knowledge through the online portion, then deepen that learning through hands-on practice and community building in Dominica.

This training is designed for people who are serious about teaching but want a more intimate, personalized experience than large group trainings often provide. It’s perfect for Phase Zero students who are ready to commit but want to do so thoughtfully and thoroughly.

But whether you train with me or someone else, the most important thing is that you choose a program that feels aligned with your values and your vision for teaching.

You’re Exactly Where You Need to Be

Feeling called to teach yoga is a gift. It means you’ve experienced something valuable through the practice, and you feel moved to share that with others. That’s not a small thing—that’s a sacred calling.

But callings require preparation. They require dedication. They require stepping into your own growth and development as both a practitioner and a human being.

If you’re in Phase Zero, know that you’re in good company. Almost every yoga teacher I know went through this phase of wondering, questioning, and gradually stepping into their calling.

Trust the calling. Prepare with wisdom. You’re exactly where you need to be.

Ready to explore your calling to teach? Join 1,200+ yoga teachers in The Zone—our free community where you’ll get monthly live calls, lesson plan templates, and support for every phase of your teaching journey.

I used to think that teaching yin yoga and restorative yoga were specialty skills—nice to have if you wanted to teach those specific classes, but not essential to your development as a yoga teacher. After more than 20 years of teaching and training teachers, I’ve discovered I was completely wrong. Learning to teach yin and restorative might be the most transformative thing you can do for your teaching—no matter what style you teach. In this post, I’m breaking down eight invisible skills you develop from yin and restorative training that will transform how you teach every class format, from vinyasa to hatha to power yoga and beyond.

Understanding Bodies at the Tissue Level

Most 200-hour yoga teacher trainings don’t spend much time on how to recognize what is changeable in a body and what isn’t, and how to discern between compression at the skeletal level and tension at the myofascial level.

When you learn to teach yin yoga, you learn about tension and compression. You learn why holding a pose for thirty seconds creates a totally different effect than holding it for three minutes. You learn about tensile loading and plastic deformation and why the hip anatomy that works for one student creates completely different sensations for another student in the same pose.

Once you understand this—once you really get how the deeper layers of the body work—you start teaching all your classes differently. You stop assuming that if a student can’t do a pose the way you’re demonstrating it, they’re just tight or need to try harder. You start seeing skeletal variation. You understand why some students will never be able to sit cross-legged comfortably or squat with heels on the ground, no matter how much they practice, and it has nothing to do with effort or dedication. It’s about their bones.

When you learn to teach yin, you become a teacher who works with bodies as they actually are, not bodies as you think they should be. This perspective shift transforms how you approach modifications, variations, and individual differences in every class you teach.

The Power of Comfortable Silence

In a vinyasa class, there’s always something to cue. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, fold. The pacing keeps you—and your students—moving. But in yin or restorative, you might set someone up in a pose and then that’s it. They’re there. They don’t need you to talk them through every breath.

This is where newer teachers panic. They feel like they have to fill the space. So they over-cue, philosophize, tell stories that don’t land, or fiddle with the music. Anything to avoid the quiet.

But when you train specifically in yin and restorative, you learn that silence isn’t empty—it’s full. It’s the container your students need to actually feel what’s happening in their bodies. It’s where the practice happens. In our culture, we’re deeply uncomfortable with silence. We fill every gap with sound—podcasts, music, conversation, notifications. We’ve been conditioned to believe that silence means something’s wrong.

In yin and restorative training, you learn that silence is generous. It’s a gift. It’s you trusting that your students don’t need you to narrate their experience for them. Once you get comfortable with silence in a yin class, you bring that comfort with you everywhere. You stop over-cueing in vinyasa. You let your students breathe without narrating every inhale. You learn the difference between helpful instruction and nervous chatter. You learn to speak when speaking serves your students, and to stay quiet when quiet serves them better.

Mastering the Deluxe Savasana

Students remember how you made them feel far more than they remember what poses you taught. And a beautifully held savasana—one where someone feels completely supported, completely safe, completely able to let go—is what they remember. It’s the number-one tool for increasing your class retention.

When you train in restorative yoga, you learn that the setup is the practice. You learn about bolster placement and blanket layering and eye pillow weight and room temperature and lighting and sound. You learn that the difference between a good savasana and a transcendent one is in the details.

You learn which props to use when and where. You learn that a bolster under the knees changes the entire experience of savasana for someone with low back sensitivity. You learn that the weight of the eye pillow matters—too light and it just sits there, too heavy and it’s oppressive. You learn how to fold a blanket so it supports the natural curve of the neck rather than fighting against it.

When you bring restorative skills to your vinyasa class, suddenly your savasanas aren’t just “lie down and relax.” They’re experiences. You know how to set people up so their low backs feel supported. You know whether to cue knees bent or legs long based on what you’ve been teaching. You know how to transition people into stillness instead of just dropping them there. Your students notice, and they keep coming back.

Developing Precision in Language and Reading the Room

Because poses in yin and restorative are held for so long, every word you say lands with more weight. You can’t hide sloppy cueing behind the momentum of a flow. If you tell someone to “relax their shoulders” and that instruction doesn’t actually help them relax their shoulders, they have four more minutes to lie there wondering what you meant.

So you learn to be precise. You learn the difference between “soften your belly” and “let your belly release toward the floor” and “allow your breath to create shape change in your low belly.” You learn that words create experience, and that vague words create vague experiences. This precision makes you better at teaching everything. Your warrior II cues get clearer. Your transitions get smoother. You stop using ten words when three will do.

In yin and restorative, you also learn to read subtler signs in your students. Is someone’s breath deepening or staying shallow? Are their shoulders creeping toward their ears? Is there tension in their jaw even though their body looks relaxed? You learn to see the nervous system, not just the skeletal system. You learn to recognize when someone’s in their zone of tolerance—that sweet spot where they’re experiencing sensation but not overwhelm—and when someone’s ventured outside that zone.

Practical Application: Getting Started

If you’re thinking “This sounds great, but I don’t teach yin or restorative—how do I actually learn this?” here’s the good news: you don’t have to completely overhaul your teaching schedule. You don’t have to become a yin and restorative specialist. You just need fundamental training that gives you the skills.

The Fundamentals of Teaching Yin Yoga and Fundamentals of Teaching Restorative Yoga courses are designed for teachers who want to either start teaching these styles or deepen the skills that make them better at teaching anything. Both courses are structured so you can consume the content however works best for you—video, audio, or reading. You get complete pose libraries with detailed variations, done-for-you lesson plans you can teach right away, shared lesson plan libraries from other teachers, and 20 Continuing Education Units that count toward your 300-hour training.

These courses teach you the technical skills—how to cue poses, when to use props, how to time a class—but they also teach you the invisible skills. How to hold space. How to be comfortable with silence. How to trust your students’ process. How to read fascia and skeletal variation. How to understand what you’re targeting and why. Whether you’re teaching slow classes or fast ones, whether you’re working with beginners or advanced students, whether you’re in a studio or teaching online, these skills will transform your teaching.

Want to dive deeper into all these skills you develop from yin and restorative training? Listen to the full episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential!

Listen here!