Teaching People Not Poses: 12 Principles for Teaching Yoga with Integrity

In yoga teacher training you are taught how to teach the yoga poses but not necessarily much about the art of teaching. Or perhaps I should say the heart of teaching–how to show up as a human being with all of your gifts, passions, fears and insecurities and teach the best class you can.Whether a total newbie to teaching or a seasoned veteran, the 12 Principles for Teaching People, Not Poses are pillars to support you in being a truly remarkable yoga teacher. 1. Be yourself. 2. Practice. 3. Show your vulnerability and your expertise. 4. Teach from your own experience. 5. If you don’t know, say you don’t know. 6. Stay in your body. 7. Don’t take it all so seriously. 8. Remember that your students are people. 9. Learn anatomy. 10. Plan enough so that you can be spontaneous. 11. Remember who and what supports you. 12. Don’t try to please everyone.With a chapter dedicated to each principle, stories from Jay's fourteen years of experience as a yoga teacher, teaching tips and questions for you to reflect upon about your own experience as a teacher, this book helps you to find the truth of your own teaching.In turn, you become the most confident, real and inspiring yoga teacher you can be.

Jay Fields, M.A. RYT believes in the power of yoga to help people to connect to their humanity as well as to their divinity. Having taugh yoga since 1998 and having earned a master's degree in Integral Transformative Education, she doesn't just teach poses, she teaches the whole person. Jay teaches classes and leads workshops for teachers and students nationally and internationally, and mentors other yoga teachers in how to be more human when they teach. For more information on Jay's teaching and writing, please visit www.graceandgrityoga.com.