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200Hrs Yoga Teacher Training

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Teaching Methodology. The 4 Tools of Teaching

The 4 Tools of Teaching

For any yoga teacher, verbal instruction is the primary and most essential tool for guiding students through a class. However, teaching effectively also draws on three other key tools: demonstration, observation, and adjustments. These four elements work in harmony to support student learning, safety, and embodiment.

1.  Verbal Instructions

Verbal cues are the core method for conveying the structure, intention, and energetic quality of a yoga practice. How you speak can deeply influence how your students experience the class.

General Guidelines for Effective Instruction:

  • Encourage embodied awareness: Invite students to practice with mindfulness, self-compassion, and curiosity. Yoga is ultimately a practice of awareness — of body, breath, thoughts, and emotions — not just physical form.
  • Voice modulation: Use a tone that is clear, calm, and resonant. Adjust your volume based on the space and class size. Soften your voice for calming or introspective moments, and energize it when encouraging strength or focus.
  • Vary intonation: Avoid a monotonous voice. Vary pitch, rhythm, and pacing to sustain student attention and match the energy of the practice.
  • Enunciate clearly and pace slowly enough for students to follow.
  • Maintain visual contact: Don’t become overly absorbed in your own demonstration or practice — your students are your focus.
  • Short, clear phrases: Use simple, direct language. Avoid overloading students with too many cues at once.
  • Teach from intention: Choose a clear focus, such as breath awareness, alignment, energetic quality, or philosophical theme.
  • Include breath cues: Especially in flowing styles like Vinyasa, link movement with breath (e.g., “Inhale, lengthen the spine. Exhale, fold forward.”).
  • Use Sanskrit wisely: Only include pose names in Sanskrit if you’re confident in pronunciation and your students are familiar with them.
  • Allow silence: Do not feel compelled to fill every moment with words. Silence can deepen internal focus and presence.
  • Sequence alignment cues logically: When cueing alignment, work from the ground up — e.g., start with the feet, then move up through the legs, pelvis, spine, arms, and head.
  • Incorporate functional cues: When appropriate, mention benefits or contraindications, but keep it relevant and concise.
  • Be aware of timing: When offering detailed alignment, don’t keep students in the pose longer than is appropriate for their level.

Special Tips for Teaching Beginners:

  • Offer options and variations to accommodate different levels.
  • Stick to foundational postures, adding one or two challenges gradually.
  • Slow the pacing to allow space for understanding and integration.
  • Use humor and warmth: A lighthearted approach can relieve pressure and build rapport. Read the room and use humor appropriately.

💡 Pro Tip: Keep a journal of your most-used cues and inspiring phrases from other teachers to diversify your language and avoid sounding repetitive.

2. Demonstration

Demonstration can support visual learners and clarify complex transitions or alignment principles. However, overuse may reduce your ability to observe and assist students effectively.

Best Practices for Demonstration:

  • Demonstrate selectively, not constantly. Your presence and mobility are more valuable than staying in a pose.
  • Always pair demonstration with instruction, rather than relying on visuals alone.
  • Consider your own body: Warm up before class if you plan to demonstrate. Avoid demonstrating poses that are contraindicated for you (e.g., inversions during menstruation).
  • Use spatial awareness: Demonstrate where all students can see you. You don’t need to stay on your mat — walk around.
  • Mirror the class when necessary (especially in twists), and let students know when you’re doing so to avoid confusion.
  • Choose angles purposefully: Sometimes front, side, or diagonal views are more instructive than a head-on demonstration.
  • Invite students to demonstrate when appropriate. Choose someone confident in the pose and give clear instructions as they model it.
3. Observation

Observation is what transforms a class from generic instruction into a living, responsive experience. It allows you to adapt in real-time and meet your students where they are.

What to Observe:

  • Student engagement: Notice if attention is wandering. Consider introducing a balancing pose or shifting the energy to refocus the group.
  • Breath patterns: Tense or erratic breathing may indicate overexertion or lack of awareness. Gently guide students back to steady, rhythmic breathing.
  • Alignment and integrity: Train your eye to see the body’s structure in space. Look for the line of energy in the pose, rather than idealized shapes.
  • Scan from the ground up: Many misalignments can be corrected by adjusting the base (feet, hands, or foundation).
  • Facial expressions: These often reveal strain, discomfort, or disengagement.
  • The room as a whole: Maintain awareness of the entire group. Avoid focusing only on advanced or struggling students.

🧠 Tip for New Teachers: Your observation skills improve with time and exposure. Be patient with yourself and take every class as an opportunity to train your teacher’s eye.

4. Adjustments

Manual adjustments can be powerful learning tools, especially for kinesthetic learners. However, they require sensitivity, consent, and a clear purpose.

Guidelines for Safe and Respectful Adjustments:

  • Always ask for consent: Verbally or through consent cards, ensure students are comfortable being touched.
  • Communicate clearly: Let students know what you’re adjusting and why.
  • Start with a stable base: Adjust from the ground up. Misalignment often stems from the base.
  • Avoid pressure on joints or the spine: Never press directly on knees, elbows, neck, or vertebrae.
  • Use directional guidance: Apply subtle pressure in a clear direction rather than pushing or forcing.
  • Coordinate with breath: For deepening a stretch, guide the student to inhale, then assist gently on the exhale.
  • Respect boundaries: Never push a student beyond their safe range. Listen to verbal and non-verbal cues.
  • Focus on safety first: Correcting misalignments that could lead to injury is more important than “perfect” form.
  • Know your anatomy: Understand the difference between muscular tension (changeable) and skeletal compression (not changeable with adjustment).
  • Use verbal and visual cues first, saving touch for when absolutely necessary.

Remember: Hands-on adjustments are a complement, not a requirement, of good teaching.


Responses

  1. @Peewee
    1. Is it important too to ask whether anyone is new to yoga and if so, friendly ask them to move to the front side so we can observe them more?
    2. how to treat students (in professional ways) if they give a heads up that they have serious issues in their body parts and how can we communicate nicely although we have no clue at all for their issues? (you know some students might expect more from a yoga teacher to “heal” their physical problems and being a beginner yoga teacher might be challenging to handle this kind of circumstance)

    Please advise. Thank you so much..

  2. Instead of pressing down on anything, apply pressure in a specific direction that is appropriate for the necessary result – May I have some examples of this point please?

    Thanks a bunch! ^^

  3. Hey Valentina!
    When the restriction is tension:
    This means that over time, when we stretch lovingly, allowing the body to release tension and open more and more, the body will become more flexible.
    When the restriction is compression:
    This means that you have hit a boundary that won’t and cannot change over time. This is the skeletal structure of your body reaching its limit: bone hits bone.

  4. From my own practice I think tension can be release when we become aware of it and trough exhalation but with compression is not the same, your body will let you know when you are reaching the limit between effort and pain that can lead to injury.

  5. Hi! In the video it is being said that “you need to show the pose”, but in the text it says it is better to not demonstrate too much, so that the teacher is able to observe and help the students better. Can you please clarify that a little? Thank you! 🙂

  6. And about inversions during periods…
    There is no effect of inversions on periods or flow.. you can do it but it is recommended to not do heavy practice but gentle practice for first 3 to 5 days to not loose so much energy

    I hope this all helps you 🙂

  7. Hi Paula,

    I am sorry for confusion.
    But you need to demonstrate all practices when you send a video homework.
    The more we see the more we can guide you in a better way!

  8. Hello, can you please explain this: instead of pressinh down on anything, apply pressure in a specific direction that is appropriate for the necessary resul

  9. Hi Ghida,
    difference between tension and compression is:-

    if you are doing a forward bend the stretch you feel in muscles behind your legs is tension, tension is if you stretch an elastic band from both sides and stretch it. Compression is created if you squeeze something e.g when you show someone your bicep muscle you compress it and also one more example squeezing a lemon or squeezing a soft ball is compression.

  10. Hi Ghida,
    Well instead of pressing down. this means that rather than forcing while bending forward or backwards you can teach your students about the direction they have to move and also touch them in specific point and tell them here you need to feel stretch and also tell them where they shouldn’t feel the stretch or compression in a particular practice.

    i hope you are satisfied with the awnsers 

    have a great weekend

  11. So well explained, thanks a lot for that! I really appreciate that you are teaching us this so early in our way to become teacher. so we realize in our own asana practice that we can apply whenever we want to practice some teaching instructions.

  12. Hi! Can you please advice how much should we demonstrate if the teaching is on line? Also would be helpful to introduce in the manual spcific info for on line teaching: eye contact, modifications especially if it is a group class, techincal things, etc. Thank you!

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