FINDING a great yoga or pilates teacher
Let’s start off with the shocker news first of all – did you know there is absolutely nothing here in the UK to prevent anyone from teaching Yoga or Pilates whether they have had any formal training or not?
There is no regulation of the market WHATSOEVER. I’m actually still in shock from learning this when I attended my first Yoga Teacher Training in Summer 2018!
People can get seriously injured if they are 1) practicing something that is not right for their body, or 2) practicing something that is right for their body but they are practicing the movement incorrectly.
In my humble opinion teaching without a formal qualification is a grossly irresponsible thing to do, but unfortunately there are people out there doing it. That’s not to say everyone who has not got a formal qualification is irresponsible – there are some great teachers out there with 40+ years of experience who spent years being mentored by other experienced teachers before they started teaching. I’m talking about the people who just read a book or watched some YouTube videos and decided they could do that! It is irresponsible in 2 ways – 1) the students will have made an assumption that the teacher is qualified, and therefore it feels like the equivalent of them being scammed, and 2) you can only obtain insurance with evidence of completion of a certified qualification, so therefore the unqualified teacher will also be uninsured so will be uncovered if anything does go wrong.
When you are looking for a Yoga or Pilates teacher, don’t be afraid to ask them what their qualifications are – a good teacher will not be insulted, they will be proud of their qualifications (particularly the Pilates ones as the exams are hard!). Talking about training…
Not all teacher trainings are equal
Now this part is a bit of a controversial thing to say, but I’m going to say it anyway! Particularly in the Yoga world, I think there is more differentiation within say a 200hr teacher training on what is actually taught.
I know of some courses, where they basically practice hours and hours of Yoga a day, staying in one of the traditional Yoga shala’s. They may have learnt a lot about the history and philosophy of Yoga, but there was very little training on anatomy or on the skills required to teach people. Sometimes they have never actually taught a class but came away with a certification. Some of those people never have the confidence to teach, or they go on to teach but aren’t great TEACHERS – they may have a very advanced Yoga practice themselves, but being able to do something well yourself, doesn’t make you great at teaching someone else to do the same thing.
In contrast, on my training, we were teaching each other from Day 1 of the training, and being given feedback (good and bad!) which was extremely hard, but I am very grateful for this as it was short term pain for long term gain - and has definitely made me a better teacher.
The other related topic to this is online teacher trainings. Whilst obviously, I’m not saying you can never be a good teacher if all of your training is online, there is a huge element of experience missing in an online training. Whoever is conducting the training cannot see the teacher trainee properly on a screen to correct their form in postures – so if you can’t feel something properly in your own body how are you supposed to describe this to someone else? Also learning how to assess, adjust or assist someone physically in my opinion can only be done in person. Looking at your fellow teacher trainees and physically assessing their bodies – looking for challenges that will affect their practice such as posture, hypermobility etc cannot be done on screen – you need to be able to walk around them, looking from different angles. Again, I know people who have completed online training who have never gone on to teach as they don’t have the confidence. I also know others who have the confidence but don’t have the ability to adapt – they teach a room of students as though they are teaching on screen – they aren’t reading the room and adapting their teaching accordingly and this is noticeable in the experience as one of their students.
So what makes a great Yoga/ Pilates teacher?
I think there are a few categories that we can put our requirements into for the ingredients that make a great teacher –
Technical/ Skills
Technical knowledge – knowledge of Yoga/ Pilates, Anatomy & Physiology, the ability to assess someone’s body and posture, injuries and how to adapt the exercises to accommodate them
Teaching skills and communication - clear instructions that are easy to understand, good demonstrations and analogies to help people to feel things for themselves, the ability to mirror people so that it’s easier for people to follow your movements etc
Personality
This one really comes down to how someone makes you feel – safe, seen and understood. Someone who is welcoming, encouraging and makes things a little fun – taking safety seriously, but not taking themselves too seriously. You should come away from each interaction with them feeling a little better about yourself.
There will be some people you really click with and others that you don’t. That’s ok – not everyone is for everyone else, and the world would be boring if we were all the same. So I encourage you to try out different classes until you find someone you click with.
Integrity and client care
A good Yoga or Pilates teacher will always have your best interests at heart, and will do anything they can to help you with your wellness goals.
This includes pointing you in the direction of another teacher if they feel that person can better meet your needs. For example, Pregnancy/ Baby Yoga/ Pilates are not my thing. Even though technically I am qualified to teach pregnant people, I personally believe you need to have felt something in your own body to be able to teach other people. So rather than just say yes to get the business, I would say to someone enquiring about this, that isn’t my area of specialism and point them towards a studio I know locally who does offer this, and that I would love to welcome them to a session at some point post-pregnancy.
So how do I find a great teacher?
The answer to this is – it’s not easy!
The majority of good Yoga or Pilates teachers will be working for themselves as the shockingly low rates of pay for teaching in gyms or Yoga/ Pilates studios means that it is more or less impossible to make a living like that. Teachers working in gyms and studios are usually having to teach a lot of classes a week (18-20+). Ideally a teacher shouldn’t be teaching any more than 10 classes a week as once you get above this amount, the quality of the classes starts to deteriorate. I am speaking from my own experience of when I ran a Yoga studio (from personally teaching too many classes myself), and also observing the other teachers who were teaching for me. You get tired, start to lose focus, forget what you are saying, forget to do a posture on both sides, and just generally haven’t got the attention to detail and enthusiasm that you have when you aren’t so tired. You can tell when a teacher is tired as at the end of the class as they won’t encourage questions or offer to help with anything anyone is struggling with as all they’ll be thinking about is needing to get the hell out of there and get home and get to bed!
Word of Mouth
The best way to find a great Yoga or Pilates teacher is to ask everyone you know! You can also ask for recommendations on local Facebook Pages and other local sites such as NextDoor. Particularly with Pilates Teachers, they may not have a website as they may never have needed one. As there are a lot less Pilates teachers than Yoga teachers, they may never have needed to do much advertising and may have gained enough clients through word of mouth and putting up posters locally.
So - if you know a great Yoga or Pilates teacher, be sure to spread the word about them so that other clients can find them too!
Google Search
You will be able to find Yoga and Pilates classes listed on Google, however unless a self-employed teacher is a bit more tech savvy and have their own website the search results are more likely to be bigger Yoga or Pilates studios, and in my humble opinion the majority of the best teachers won’t be working for a studio or gym. The exception to this is teachers who have a full-time career and teach part time at a studio as they don’t want the hassle of the admin and marketing that come with running your own classes - they can just turn up and teach the class and then go home. There are some great teachers in this category who are truly passionate about Yoga/ Pilates and they are happy to teach in a studio as they don’t need to earn much from this as they already have a main income.
Professional bodies
There are a number of professional bodies that teachers can choose to be a part of – for example Yoga Alliance https://yogaalliance.org/ and British Wheel of Yoga https://www.bwy.org.uk/. Both of these organisations have a register where you can search for Yoga teachers that are registered with them. The challenge with this, is that even though my Yoga Training is accredited by Yoga Alliance, I like many other Yoga Teachers have chosen not to be a Yoga Alliance Member. The reason for this is that it’s expensive with very little benefit.
Local Advertising
Check out notice boards in your local area. We often walk straight past notice boards in our local Post Office, Newsagent or Convenience store, but there can be some really interesting things being advertised – check it out!
Good luck with finding a great Pilates or Yoga teacher near you.
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