Just as we are always looking for new ways to explore the multifaceted experience of yoga on our mats, it’s important for yoga teachers to consistently look for new and interesting tips to teach impactful private yoga sessions.
Yoga Teachers: Feeling Stagnant In Your Teaching? Use These 6 Tips to Spice Up Your Classes
Whether you’re offering private yoga sessions virtually, with a studio, or in your client’s home, the one-on-one experience is completely different than teaching in a studio group setting.
It can be intimidating to begin to teach privately. But feeling like a beginner is one of the many gifts of yoga – there’s always more to discover.
From Hatha Yoga for beginners to advanced Vinyasa, from online private yoga sessions to an in-home one-on-one, the needs of your classes may vary.
There are countless suggestions online about how to charge your students for class, how to sequence a private class, what adjustments are best, and more.
Additionally, we all have our own quirks, biases, and preferences when it comes to teaching – from what kind of music we play to whether or not we teach inversions. But it’s important that we all try our best to serve our student’s safety.
Teachers, Use These 7 Tips to Give the Best Private Yoga Sessions Possible:
Check out these seven tips for private yoga sessions that can help you teach better, every class.
1. Take Time for Yourself Before Your Private
If you take nothing else from this article: give yourself a few minutes before your private yoga session begins to ground and center yourself.
Your energy affects the experience of your student. Plus, it’s hard to teach a kick-butt private if your focus is not in the room.
It doesn’t take much – a few deep breaths and perhaps repeating a mantra – but this habit makes all the difference in your yoga classes.
10 Habits All Great Yoga Teachers Share
2. Plan for Modifications and Variations
One of the most difficult things to provide in a new private yoga session is accessibility, and yet, it’s one of the most important things we can offer as yoga teachers.
When you meet a client for the first time, ask them questions or have them fill out a health history form.
Even for your regulars, they may feel super energized one week and exhausted the next. So before your session starts, make sure that you’re familiar with a few options on a sliding scale of energy and styles.
Yoga asana offers a wonderful opportunity to benefit people both inside and out. Being prepared for your private yoga client by having a few key yoga props or tools on hand like yoga blocks, bolster, and a strap can make a posture more comfortable and supportive while, sometimes, a modified or alternate posture altogether is a more suitable choice for your student.
Eventually, you’ll get to know your students and memorize the most common modifications so you’ll only need to prepare for new or more complex postures.
3. Familiarize Yourself With Tech Beforehand
Now that online yoga is more popular, the risk of technical difficulties is that much higher. Reduce your likelihood of technology interruptions by familiarizing yourself with the music, camera, and other devices beforehand.
This goes for every session – regardless of whether you’ve taught there before.
If you’re in-person or in-home, take a moment to set up the space, gather your props, and ask about your client’s music sound system or preference for silence, so that there aren’t any distractions or interruptions during your private yoga session.
4. Price Your Sessions Intelligently
When you’re first starting to offer private yoga sessions, it may be difficult to set a price. You may even be tempted to offer your first sessions for free or donate too much of your time.
Please charge for your services. Your students will see it as an investment and you’ll contribute to the valuation of yoga teaching as a whole. But do keep in mind your audience and location.
Are you teaching college students with tight budgets or in an area with lots of disposable income?
The average range of private yoga sessions are $60 to $150, depending on experience, training, specialty, and location. But you can’t compare yourself to others. What value do you offer?
5. Leave Your Sh*t
This is one of the most vital things to learn as a new yoga teacher. Your yoga classes are a container for your students to grow, not a therapy session for your own life.
Our humanness gives a beautiful authenticity to our yoga classes and dharma talks, so go ahead and use it!
But don’t go into detail or trauma dump on your students. Yes, we have bad days and we’re human. But do your best to not let that influence you when you’re in the private yoga session.
6. Don’t Rush Warm Up and Cool Down
Getting to that peak pose may be high on the priority list but not at the expense of our student’s bodies or nervous systems.
Always remember to add in time to warm up and cool down. If you have time after a particularly vigorous sequence for an extra-long Savasana, your one-on-one students will thank you for it by returning week after week.
7. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Sometimes, after all of our sequencing, planning, playlist-prepping, and dharma talking there are still people who don’t sign on to a five-class pack. But, guess what? That’s okay!
This is their yoga practice. Your job as a successful yoga teacher is to facilitate a space for expansion to occur.
If they love it and shower you with grateful compliments, wonderful! But don’t take that personally either.
You never know what your students are carrying with them, mentally and emotionally, when they step onto their mat. But if you do your best to create the space, those who are meant to find you will benefit.
Bonus: Get Insurance
Despite all the effort to offer a safe private yoga session, injuries happen. Whether you’re teaching online or in-person, full-time or part-time, insurance can protect you from any costly liability.
Plus, some insurance companies offer cool yoga discounts and offers like your very own professional website! Having your insurance policy in place from day one is a sure way to set you up for a long and fulfilling career teaching yoga.
For a limited time, beYogi is offering YogiApproved.com readers $30 off your annual premium, dropping the annual cost to $149. Learn more here
The Takeaway on Teaching Private Yoga Sessions
It’s a big step to shift from student to teacher. And when you leap from studio teacher to private teacher you may, once again, feel like a beginner.
The best way to learn is practice – so, get out there and share your offerings! Keep practicing, keep teaching, keep learning.
These seven tips will help you hone your private yoga session skills so you can inspire and help your students for years to come.
What’s the best teacher tip you’ve received? Please share in the comments below – we love hearing from you!
