Mobility is about to be as normal as lifting. Yoga already exploded. What is still missing is a way to run a class that a stiff grappler will come back to. Traditional sequences read as unrelatable. Most people wing a few stretches.

This is the Yoga Coach ebook as a pillar. After 14 years of live classes, a studio, and thousands of athletes online, these are the 10 lessons that kept working. If you teach at a BJJ or CrossFit gym, this is the job.

1. Certification is a driver's license

The paper is permission to begin, not a medal. New teachers clutch the cert and still do not know how to run a room. That is normal. Teaching is a craft. Reps, feedback, failure. Stop stacking credentials to feel ready. Get in the room.

2. Take your own class

Record it. Watch it. It is awkward. You will hear the rambling, the missing demo, the cue that only made sense in your head. Fastest feedback loop I know.

3. Just do it

You will not feel like an expert. The perfect moment does not arrive. A teacher I like said teaching yoga is simple: find people who know less than you, and teach them. You need something useful and the willingness to share it clearly. Teaching teaches you.

4. Find an accountabili-buddy

Someone who does not move like you. Different body, honest mouth. Your favorite cue will fail on them. That is the point. You get less precious and more useful.

5. KISS

When the class gets too complex, you get stressed, and it spreads. Students can only absorb a fraction of what you find interesting. You care more about mobility than they do. They want to feel better. Filter. Over-cueing breath is a trap. Beginners need where the hands and feet go. Then let them breathe.

6. Bring your notes

A plan is professionalism, not weakness. Drift if you must. The structure is still there. Jot what landed, what confused people, during the water break. Those notes are the gold for next week.

7. Connect, do not correct

The worst feeling in a class is an instructor who is annoyed you are not already good. Demo. Use a palm to let them push into alignment. Eye contact. If they leave feeling seen, you did the job. Constant correction is how you empty a room of grapplers.

8. Break it down, then put it together

Do not throw beginners into a full sun salutation and watch them panic. One pose. Demo. Try. Repeat. More than half the class can be this. Then a short flow where it clicks. You might only get five minutes of real flow in an hour. Those five minutes are why they come back. End in a real savasana.

9. Watch your body bias

(Ebook #9.) What is easy on your body is not the class. If you have hamstrings from another life, your "simple fold" is someone else's injury. Teach to the stiffest person you are willing to keep.

10. Make it about their sport

Grapplers will forgive ugly alignment if the session made closed guard less of a nightmare. Name the position. "This is the hip for the knee cut." Athletes stay when it is obviously for them. That is why Yoga for BJJ is not a generic vinyasa with a gi in the thumbnail. Use mobility for BJJ and stretching for jiu jitsu as the class map.

If you want the course

The ebook is free. The Yoga Coach training is the Yoga Alliance course we built for people who want to coach athletes, not chant. No fluff. Real classes we already ran.

The ebook is free. Follow-along classes sit at yogaforbjj.net.

Keep reading

FACT SHEET

ClaimSource rankNote
10 teaching tips2Yoga Coach ebook #1-9 + sport-specific close
14+ years teaching2ebook intro
Yoga Coach = YA course for athletes2ebook intro