What makes students resolve they need to take class from you again? Is it your 500-hour teaching status? Your angelic aura? Your incredibly nuanced understanding of yoga that’s been honed by a long time of devotion?
Personally, I need a teacher who has a powerful education, an affordable amount of experience, and is humble, relatable, and makes me feel comfortable. As yoga teachers, we’re within the business of facilitating a protected and friendly environment where people can take a break from the intensity of on a regular basis life and interact with a practice that helps them manage being human. One among the first tools that I draw on to assist create this environment is the facility of laughter.
How humor puts students comfortable
Yoga, for some, can seem complicated and intimidating, for others underwhelming and even boring. Humor may be the antidote to every of those scenarios. It makes the complicated conversational, the boring bearable, and the daunting doable.
Humor also helps us explore highly nuanced points of the practice in a lighthearted way, and it may well remind us to be kind and patient with ourselves in the educational process. Laughter is a universal language that everybody can speak. I’m not saying that you may have to make students laugh to be an awesome teacher. But humor is one tool that may show you how to break through the sometimes awkward wall between the teacher and students. (That doesn’t mean everyone has to laugh—in my experience, when a student is latest to a category and a teacher, they’re less inclined to interact along with your humor. After students construct a relationship with you, that may change.)
Dos and don’ts of using humor in yoga class
Once you approach humor in a way that enhances, somewhat than detracts from, the practice of yoga, it may well help facilitate a protected and friendly space for learning. A giggle or a smile could be a powerful gateway for the body to release stress and embrace ease. And isn’t that one in every of the explanations we do yoga in the primary place?
In case you would really like to develop your silly skills and incorporate them into your class, the next advice might steer you in that direction. Here, I’ll share among the ways in which I’ve learned to employ humor in a category setting. You might even find that you simply begin to depend on humor in your whole approaches to yoga, including social media and email promotions, even your response to your teaching paychecks.
Do get comfortable in your ability as a teacher
I actually have found that after I’m feeling the least funny, I’m often also feeling nervous to show. I’ve had to beat the baseline level of discomfort that comes with standing in front of a bunch of individuals and talking—an experience that the majority latest teachers have—before I could even imagine engaging my class through humor.
My ability to make use of laughter as a tool to assist students learn was born from a slow and regular development of confidence in my ability to show yoga. Getting comfortable within the seat of the teacher takes time. The more you practice, the more comfortable and assured you’ll turn into along with your own voice as a teacher. Once you accept the truth that you may have something necessary to show, you teach from a spot of knowing you might be a worthy messenger of the practice. After I began to work through my shame gremlins and “owned my story,” as Brené Brown would say, humor began to flow for me.
Do recycle your personal jokes
You don’t need to provide you with latest jokes every time you teach. In truth, one in every of the simplest ways to be funny while leading a yoga class is to make use of the usual jokes—silly one-liners that aren’t complicated and get to the purpose you’re attempting to teach—over and yet again.
Almost each time I ask students to begin class on their backs, I say, “OK, class, we’re gonna spend the whole class in Savasana today. It’s your lucky day!” You wouldn’t imagine the laughter that ensues. This can be a pretty common yoga joke, but who cares? It’s still funny.
Don’t be afraid to reuse a few of your favorite one-liners. Even one of the best comedians do it.
Do recycle other people’s jokes
In case you end up recycling jokes out of your teachers, you’re not alone. You’re probably already reteaching and imitating other points of their approach, so why not reuse their humor? Originality is an illusion of narcissism. And what’s that saying about imitation being the very best type of flattery?
A few of my students might think that I sound like a less-informed, quirkier version of Jason Crandell, and they’d be right. I attended my first yoga teacher training with Jason Crandell in 2010 and he has mentored me ever since. I actually have witnessed repeatedly how he uses humor and sarcasm in his classes. I actually have seen Jason use an easy joke not only to lighten the mood in an otherwise serious class, but additionally to make a confusing point less daunting. I feel inspired to take an analogous approach in my teaching.
Over time, as you construct a relationship with these hand-me-down jokes, you’ll discover a option to refine them and make them unique to you. I often attribute a joke to Jason’s classic canon of humor when I take advantage of one in my class, but I don’t think that’s all the time vital. You might be allowed to mimic your teachers. To start with, that you must practice being comfortable spitting a joke out, even if you happen to sound like another person. I wouldn’t be the teacher I’m now if, in spite of everything this time, I didn’t ride on the coattails of another person’s good humor. (Thanks, Jason.)
Do be patient with yourself
It takes courage and vulnerability to even try and be funny in front of others. I had a running narrative in my head that told me I wasn’t funny. I used to be nervous and apprehensive that nobody would find me hilarious or that I’d seem like a idiot.
Rest assured that, with time, you’ll either feel secure enough to make use of humor in your teaching otherwise you will arrive at the choice—from a spot of authenticity and never fear—that humor isn’t your thing as a teacher.
Do get creative with imagery
I once attended a Richard Freeman workshop during which he took us into Navasana (Boat Pose) and said, “Imagine you might be holding an enormous pizza in your hands. Now, there is just one issue. You have got no elbows and you actually, actually need to eat this pizza. So… the one thing you possibly can do to take a bite of this delicious pizza, is draw the shoulder blades together in your back.”
Through this silly imagery, Richard conveyed scapular retraction in a way I’ve remembered to at the present time. Similar tactics could make a boring and complex alignment cue clever and clear.
In Tadasana (Mountain Pose), I often say, “to elongate the spine, imagine you might be shooting a laser beam out of the crown of your head.” In Plank, I sometimes say, “Imagine your core is your muscular underwear and corset.” And in Utthita Trikonasana (Prolonged Triangle Pose), I cue students to “tilt your pelvis forward like you may have sassy hips.”
A lot of your go-to cues might even turn into your classic go-to one-liners.
Don’t be afraid to laugh at your teaching mistakes
Have you ever ever forgotten what pose comes next in your overly creative sequence and proceeded to face like a deer within the headlights hoping one in every of your students would blurt out the subsequent pose?
(Oh, that’s just me? OK. Awkward.)
Once you feel confident and secure in yourself, you possibly can turn your gaffes into moments that humanize you. Students are drawn to teachers who’re relatable, and a part of that draw is the standard of being imperfect. Once you embrace your imperfections, you give others permission to do the identical.
Poking fun at yourself also serves the necessary purpose of reminding your class that you simply aren’t a god-like, holier than thou being, but somewhat a guide—not a guru—who’s there to assist them explore their relationship with yoga. That is a vital reminder for everybody. Placing yourself on a pedestal or being seen by students because the only option to practice yoga creates a toxic relationship between you and them, in addition to between them and their practice.
Do tell personal stories…when appropriate
Relatability is a necessary trait in a yoga teacher. People need to see themselves in you.
Consider sharing personal stories of seeming failure in a humorous way, transforming any situations that may need been embarrassing on the time into lessons. In fact, this must be done with a baseline level of respect for yourself. There’s a difference between having the boldness to laugh at your personal mistakes and bashing yourself for the sake of fun. Your willingness and skill to chuckle at your failures without being tripped up by them will make you resilient and robust, and mean you can model that behavior for others. In the long run, it’s your authentic story that makes people relate to you.
Nevertheless, that you must edit and refine your stories. An extended, meandering story about what happened during your day won’t be funny to anyone except you. As a substitute, it’s probably a gratuitous venting session that you simply are dropping in your unsuspecting students. Be certain your humor is in service of your students’ experience and never a way so that you can offload your pent-up stress. (That’s what therapy is for!)
Don’t mumble
It’s natural to get quiet if you end up about to check your comfort zone in any aspect of life. Speaking loudly and clearly is probably the most common lessons that latest teachers need to learn on the whole. But if you happen to timidly mumble something, whether it’s a cue or a joke, people probably won’t find a way to listen to it—and even essentially the most good joke won’t land when that happens.
You don’t must sound like a drill sergeant. Simply speak out of your gut, even whenever you’re emoting a softer or more lighthearted tone. Depend on your personal tone and cadence and commit to what you’re saying with confidence and volume, whether it’s a joke, a quote, or an alignment cue. Besides, any time you voice something with confidence, it’s certain to land higher—even when it isn’t that funny.
Don’t take students’ responses personally
Everyone shows as much as yoga in their very own way. Some days we simply don’t feel like laughing. Sometimes we’re in our feelings and we should be with that. That’s alright. Yoga is physically, mentally, and spiritually difficult. Simply because one in every of your students is frowning whilst you’re making what you think that is a hilarious joke, doesn’t mean you’re not funny. They is perhaps attempting to simply survive.
Do use humor for the collective good
You’ll inevitably encounter humans who may be difficult and, quite frankly, annoying. It will occur many, persistently in your teaching profession. Humor just isn’t the answer. Don’t succumb to the temptation to answer a student’s rude behavior with a snarky or mean-spirited comment.
You possibly can, nevertheless, use humor to state your boundaries at school. You too can turn to humor as a private coping tool for handling all these situations after class, whether you’re sharing what happened with teachers , friends, even on social media, so long as you don’t mention identifying details. Heck, I take advantage of humor on a regular basis to share the common struggles of yoga teachers in my social media posts.
And it should go without saying, but never make a comment that refers to race, sexuality, age, gender, or class. Remember, humor is a tool to make your class feel more engaged.
Do leave enough space for silence
Everyone seems to be having their very own experience in your yoga class. As a teacher, that you must allow ample space for the more serious points of the practice to occur. Your jokes can loosen up individuals, create an environment of togetherness, or bring clarity and ease into an advanced physical, philosophical, or mental aspect of the practice. But be mindful that you simply’re not turning your class into improv night. Let your humor ease the experience for college students, not overwhelm it.
Silence is a necessary tool in your teaching arsenal. Silence and humor are two different, complementary ingredients in a yoga class. Intentionally creating space for silence could make your silly moments more memorable, and judicious amounts of silliness could make the intense moments less daunting.
About our contributor
Jack Workman teaches alignment-based vinyasa yoga and uses a lighthearted playfulness to speak yoga’s most vital teachings in an approachable way. He’s a full- time yoga teacher in San Francisco.