My teaching experience

As a new yoga instructor, every new teaching moment, every new student is a source of inspiration.

My first students

My first experience with #teaching yoga, or better, introducing yoga to others was when I introduced yoga to my husband in November 2020. We had just returned from Crete and found ourselves in another lock down in Belgium. My husband was curious about what I was doing every single day upstairs and so he become my first student.

We practiced the only flow I knew at the time up to three times a week. Because of him, I got to understand the difference between Asian & European body types, between women and men, even before reading any book. Even our little boy was curious on what was going on with mom and dad!

Apart from my husband, three teenagers (all siblings) who lived right next door and who often looked after our boy were interested in trying out #yoga as well. Every Wednesday afternoon, after class they came over and I introduced them to yoga. Seeing their flexibility and core strength simply amazed me. I realized that each and everyone of us are all born as yogi, capable of things that in time we all tend to forget.

New flows

After registering for the yoga instructor course, I started to expanding my practices by creating new yoga #flows. After trying them out myself, I asked some of my friends to try them with me. We performed the flows at my home or outdoors when the weather allowed it. The experience was so fun that even strangers joined in on our classes.

People with all diferent backgrounds and ages were now regularly joining my trial lessons, providing invaluable input to my personal development as an instructor.

Online classes

Just like the pandemic reinvigerating my passion for yoga and making me take the step to become a yoga instructor, the pandemic also introduced me to #online teaching. Back in Vietnam in August 2021, many of my family and friends had to spend months in strict lockdown at home, while in Europe restrictions were dropped one by one.

Looking for things to do, I suggested to do some online yoga classes together. First person by person but quickly up to 10 people dialled in on #Zoom and we practiced yoga together. An invalualbe way for me to get experience with teaching online and a great way for my friends to distract their mind from the lockdown at home.

Not much later and with some hesitation, I introduced the online classes to my students in Belgium. Since my husband and me are often residing in different countries, online classes would be the only way for me to keep these classes going in case we would move again. To my surprise, even more people are now joining the online classes as its fun, convenient and still as challenging as in-person classes.

The future

So although I only recently received my yoga instructor certification, I feel very comfortable teaching others because I have been teaching my husband, neighbours, friends and family over the past year. These moments provided me with invaluable experience and feedback on my flows, way of teaching etc. Up to now, most of my first students are still joining my classes in-person and online. They fell in love with yoga and we are growing together. Every single one of them has seen a clear change in their body and mind while I have grown more and more into my role as an instructor.

Whether it's online classes or in-person classes, I enjoy both of them. Each of them has its own advantages but online class have the additional advantage of being able to do yoga from the comfort of your own home, additionally it allows me to reach out to more people as well.

So in the end it does not matter which type of classes you would like to join, it is more about how committed you are to joining a class regularly and do dedicate yourself fully to a yoga flow once you are in the class. Dedication is always the key of every practise and yoga is not an exception.

Namaste

Emmy