The Great Guiding Principles for Yoga Teachers

By Tom Lang

TThe Great Guiding Principles for Yoga Teachers helps build communication and leadership skills for yoga teachers. the book discusses: Building confidence in Uniting and Motivating Groups; Effective Techniques for Teaching a Skill; Fine Tuning Public Speaking; Exercises for Consistent Performance as a teacher; How to Set a Tone, Build a Theme and Create a Mood; Understanding the Arc of a Career as a Yoga Teacher; Pro Active tools for Burn Out; Daily Checklist to Maintain Great Performance as a Yoga Teacher

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Lang
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310051869

Tom Lang

Tom Lang divides his time between Haines, Alaska and Bali. His humor books have been featured on National Public Radio and in hundreds of newspapers and magazines. Tom has been the featured speaker at universities, conventions and private functions. Since 1991 Tom has worked as a river guide and lecturer outside of Haines, Alaska in the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, site of the largest gathering of bald eagles in the world. Tom’s talks on nature are known for their humor and distinctive insight into the natural world. Tom is the co-founder of Great Guides, www.greatguidingprinciples.com, an international consulting company that brings a fresh approach to building leadership and teamwork for companies in the service industry. Great Guides was originally created to inspire workers in the tourism business, but Tom now conducts his innovative workshop, The Guiding Principles, for yoga teachers, management teams and educators. Great Guides conducts workshops in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and Central America

Book preview

GREAT GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR YOGA TEACHERS

TOM LANG

The Great Guiding Principles for Yoga Teachers

Copyright 2001, 2016 Tom Lang

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Published by Boudelang Press

PO BOX 852, Haines, AK 99827

www.boudelang.com

www.tomlangbooks.com

www.greatguidingprinciples.com

Email [e-mail]

Illustration by Eleonore Grace

ISBN 978-1930124257

Table of Contents

Introduction

AUM Acknowledge, Unite, Motivate

Positive and Negative Pathways

Power of Three

Public Speaking 101

Setting a Tone, Building a Theme and Creating a Mood

Teaching a Skill

Classroom Toolbox

The Arc of a Career

Internal and External Consistency

What Do You Love?

Ritual

Guru Flu

Burnout

Daily Checklist

Introduction

This is a little book with big ideas. A workbook to help become a great yoga teacher. We don’t become great by reading big books and we don’t become great overnight. We become great by taking simple principles and concepts and mastering them over many years. Each short chapter in the Great Guiding Principles for Yoga Teachers has questions and exercises we can continually use over and over again to hone our skill set as teachers and ultimately our skill set as human beings.

The word great is loaded with misconceptions and restrictions.

She doesn’t have what it takes.

He doesn’t want it bad enough.

We all have what it takes; we often don’t know how to access the strengths we already have and how to build on those strengths to become great. It is not that we do not want it bad enough, it is that we do not really know what we want and we pursue what we have been told we should want. When we find what we truly want we cannot help but want it bad enough.

Any of us can be a good yoga teacher if we put in the time. Practice with knowledgeable teachers. Immerse in a quality yoga teacher training. Continue education in anatomy, sequencing and injury prevention. A consistent teaching schedule combined with a consistent personal practice are essential tools to reach and maintain a high quality level of teaching.

There is a giant step between a good yoga teacher and a great yoga teacher. Greatness demands from us a higher degree of commitment, dedication and continuous quality improvement. Greatness requires us to make an internal transformation to leap from good to great. We need to know who we are and where we are going.

In the yoga world we all have what it takes to be great teachers. What often holds us back is that we use the wrong tools for us individually, or we have the right tools and we don’t know how to use those tools effectively. The Great Guiding Principles for Yoga Teachers is a workbook to guide us toward greatness so we can deliver the most effective service to those we teach.

Like all great principles, these are not new (clear communication, honesty, integrity, devotion to the greater good). These principles