Teaching a Bad Yoga Class: How to Bounce Back with Byron de Marsé

0:00 We're talking about how to bounce back whenever you teach the worst yoga class. Ever. At least, if it feels that way. Welcome to the going pro yoga podcast, nugget series. My name is Michael Henry and I'm Byron de Marseille and he's short 15 minute episodes.

0:17 We're going to be answering some of the most common questions in the yoga industry. So you can walk away with the answers in a short period of time. That's right. Michael with each topic, that we choose will be discussing it from two different perspectives, the teacher, and the Don't I'll be approaching these questions as a physiotherapist or physical therapist with over 10 years experience, treating some of the most common and complex injuries. In my guidance will be from the

0:39 perspective of having taught 7000 classes, roughly 10,000 hours over 10 years. Welcome to our podcast. Hey, hey. Hey, this is Byron de Marseille and across the way. We have Michael Henry, Michael. What's on the menu for today? Well, we're talking about how to bounce back whenever you teach the worst yoga class.

1:03 Ever. At least if it feels that way. Oh, don't bom. Bom bom. So this probably happens a lot or at least. It seems to happen a lot for teachers at the beginning of their career because maybe every Go class feels like the worst class because of lots of thoughts that come up.

1:21 Whether it be self-doubt, maybe things don't go so well because you are new. I don't know. How do we want to break this down? Deconstruct this or start it off. I think. Let's put ourselves in the room right now. Imagine you're teaching a yoga class. You are in your Zone.

1:36 You think at least at first and then, dot dot done, things, start to go wrong one at a time. Somebody cell phone goes off. Boom! That magic thought you had gone. Somebody limps out of class. You're like what? Like this person is living out hurt somebody.

1:54 Now you're thinking, you're not sufficient enough to be teaching yoga and then somebody leaves and they don't tell you why. Now, your imagination takes over. Boom, all of a sudden you're doubting yourself. You're starting to feel like you're not a good teacher.

2:08 You leave. Not a lot of thank yous. Not a lot of hugs people just kind of dry up and dissolve and you're left to just wonder like should I be doing this for a living? Okay, so now you're there. How do we cope with this? How do we bounce back?

2:26 We've got a class at 4:30 p.m. Well, maybe that's a night class. You're waking up early in the morning. You get a refreshed fresh start. You get to do it again. Well, knowing that there's going to be a future opportunities. I think, is number one, Michael take over. I'll jump in.

2:42 Well, what do you mean by Future opportunities? Future opportunities is to teach again. Yeah, you're going to have more opportunities to teach again. Right? Right, right. I mean, if you're judging yourself up one class. You're in trouble because you don't even have a something to compare it to a past experience. So I'm assuming this is an experience that's happening because you're you're now on the regular schedule, right? Not just a one-off substitute

3:05 opportunity or Workshop. Yeah, so yeah. Yeah. Okay. So two things come up, always seems to be two things. But the first thing is that first of all, everyone makes mistakes if there's a mistake to be made. So if you do believe that you made a mistake and that doubt is You know how some evidence or proof behind it.

3:25 Then? That's still okay. But what I'm thinking is that least the way that you were describing it, I definitely felt the self-doubt and the thoughts going through my head as you were explaining the situation. I was imagining myself in that situation and then part of me was like, but you know what, all this might be fine.

3:45 Maybe this person was waiting for some sort of important phone call and they're like, I just want to go to a yoga class, but I have to have my phone on because someone says in the hospital or something's going on some sort of situation and maybe the one person got And like walked out of class because there was something that was very triggering that happened that was unrelated to your teaching style.

4:04 Right, but now all of a sudden were internalizing it as it's something that I did wrong. It's something that that, that I did, that's causing this to happen, right? Which may be true. But it may not be true. We don't know the people's stories.

4:15 We don't know what's necessarily going on, but we're always going to internalize it as we did something wrong. So to me, it's like you don't know and you could easily just Have someone come to the class after come up to you after class and be like, that was a fantastic class despite all those things happening. So the now you're kind of juggling. Two pieces of information of like, wait, I thought it wasn't so good because this and this happened person left, this person would limped out, but

4:41 you're saying it was an amazing class. So at the end of the day, how do you really kind of come to a summary or conclusion of like, how was that experience? Like what just happened? Boom, right on. So I'll come at it from a perspective.

4:57 Of not everyone's going to like you, bro, you know, it's simple. Like we know this in life yet. We let it bother us in life as well. Well, when we're on the center stage is a yoga teacher and we're associating all these different like career paths and all this past experience of effort. We've been putting into this career path. We think there's a lot on the line. So when somebody doesn't like us, we are strongly opposed to them not liking us.

5:25 We're like, how can we get them to? Like us. This isn't everybody. And at the same, it is most people at some point in their life. It's just that some people have learned how to cope with this. Okay. So one way I do that, is that I think about how I'm actually part of this person's Journey, right?

5:45 And so it's meant to be. If they don't like me, that's meant to be as well and I help them essentially go into the next experience, possibly liking it, they know now no more what they do. Like, and also understanding. And I've seen this happen over the years that person could come back to your class, have a second experience, a year, later a month, later a day later, 10 years later.

6:08 And now all of a sudden they're ready for, whatever you're delivering. So that's one. Major thing that came up. And then another thing is that take risks, right? First of all, like don't let that keep you from being yourself, being yourself is the biggest risk, you can take in some ways.

6:25 It requires the most vulnerable. Leti and authenticity. So being yourself feels risky, but at the same time that's the way people connect with you. And that's how you actually develop a career with what we call followers on Instagram.

6:43 And that's actually what some people call them in yoga following. And just understand that these people are all on a different path. I think that's, you gotta, you gotta be gentle with yourself and not. Everyone is going to like, you take Risks. And if there's Not Strong opinions, being formed about you and one way or the other you're not taking enough risks, you're not being yourself enough, unless you're just kind of an in that neutral fall in between.

7:11 Now. Let's just point out that do that. If you're a regular teacher and that Vibes with you do that, 100% if you have a full-time schedule, do that, right? If you're just teaching to a certain audience once in a while, you gotta cater it a little bit, but doesn't mean you can't be yourself.

7:27 Okay, be yourself and cater to the audience that you're teaching. Okay. Wow, that landed really well. I liked how you basically mentioned that as a teacher. You don't necessarily need to have everyone like you. And in fact, when you're climbing a ladder, if you will or you're trying to build something up, anyone who's ever really built, anything has faced a significant amount of criticism or self-doubt or, you know, negative feedback these types of things because When you

8:03 start to grow anything, there's going to be more numbers in general. You know, if you're having classes at only have a small amount of numbers, maybe like six, seven, ten people that attend, your class, the, you're less likely to get criticism, you're less likely to, you know, upset someone or trigger someone, or something like that.

8:19 So it's kind of safe. Like you said, there's not a lot of risk necessarily going on. You start to increase those numbers. You start too big a bigger following or a bigger student following, and then all of a sudden, you're attracting new people, new students new.

8:32 Faces. And All of a sudden. Now, there's a bigger sample population or sample size that there's more percentage of people or it's more likely that someone's going to come with some criticism or someone if it's some sort of feedback or yeah, I – comment.

8:49 I make sense to me. Yeah, right. And this is what happens whenever you start to have a big following and we can talk about it online. You start to get into these thousands and thousands of followers. Now, all the sudden you're going to have these what you call them trolls, right online that just people are just, they're just out to kind of get you and not to say that someone To come to a yoga class to come to get you but they just might be really irritable that day.

9:10 Because who knows, right? Maybe something happened earlier that day and they're just trying to like steam it all out. There's nothing you can do it in that position. Exactly completely out of your control. So to internalize and to take that on as your fault or something you did or any of that stuff.

9:28 It's just you can't go down that road. It's a slippery slope. You just need to focus on what you did your confidence and And how you are presenting yourself and teaching. If there are certain things that you feel like you could have done better great.

9:42 Maybe that's true. Try to, you know, improve on it. Try to like figure out ways to level up your craft to improve your style, to prove, your teaching, maybe talk to your Mentor or one of your teachers and say hey this situation happened. What do you suggest?

9:56 What do you recommend? They might say, hey, that's great, continue doing it or they might say, you know what, you can try this one next time. There's no right or wrong answer. You just got to explore it and get on the runway and I have an idea.

10:08 Okay, meditate. All right, like there's there's something to be said about the proof is in the pudding. The magic practicing yoga and not just vinyasa flow sweat, five minutes, savasana pack up and leave and not think about it to you next shavasana, right? So meditate on it, like sit there. If it's something that bugs, you and bothers you, you can ask for all the help you.

10:33 What and that will help to a degree, but there's something within you that's waiting to unravel the needs to, and it needs to be looked at needs to be given time and energy. So get out your crystals, your incense, your essential oils, and get all lathered up. If that's what it takes, you know, clean your energy field purify.

10:53 Take care of yourself. Get some sleep, drink, water. You know, these are these are simple things that should go without saying. But we need somebody to remind us. And sitting down like you said to meditate is kind of to me, just reflecting and thinking or not thinking, just kidding. Yeah.

11:13 Well you could do that if you can get to that level, but to me in, this is probably my own anecdotal story of just, whenever something happens and triggers me to create a lot of self-doubt, or a lot of reflection on like, oh, shoot.

11:26 Like that would terribly when I sit in idleness or sit in Stillness or meditate, And I'm not, you know, avoiding my mind of thought I start to just break it down a little bit. I step into the thoughts and be like, what is the true scenario?

11:40 What is the most worst? Worst case scenario? What is most likely that just happened and is my brain creating stories and beliefs that might not necessarily be true or factual? And it's really just the fact that I'm thinking about it too much.

11:56 So you're kind of thinking about it in a way to try, to think yourself out of it. The truth will set you free was. I does that make sense solutely? The truth will set you free. They're like, that's what looking at something in meditation does. It's like you start to see it for what it is rather than what you have not been perceiving that it is in that moment. So now you're reflecting on it allowing time for it to expand and evolve disappear, you know,

12:21 in all those ways and those beautiful ways and when I say the truth will set you free, I mean, Quite literally like the truth will reveal itself within that moment and then you'll feel free because it is now not important and what came up for me. When you said that is trust your intuition a little bit trust that, you know, if you really reflect on it and you sit with yourself and think about it to try to find the truth. The truth is going to, it's

12:47 going to come knocking on your door. You're going to, you're going to see. Actually this class. We went really well and those things that happened. There might be some sort of situation or coincidence, or you might be like Vliet know.

12:56 I could have done a lot better. Yeah, you know. I slept. We're at about 10 minutes. Okay, 12 minutes period. Yeah, and as that is that kind of made me think about this is important as well. So let's say the situation happens where you're just guessing that they don't like the class or the experience.

13:18 How are you going to best bounce back? Like is it a direct experience? Where you know that it was bad? Or are you just guessing that it was bad? So that happens to a lot of times we think should is going wrong. Well, one of the most profound experiences in my life was going to a shaman in a village where there was, I could hear cell phone's going off and babies crying while we were doing a session and it made me realize this isn't Om Shanti Shanti quiet necessarily Sanctuary for

13:46 it to be life-changing for someone. So, just putting it in that perspective. You might be guessing that it was a bad experience, and then after class or, you know, something comes up 32 weeks. Later, someone sends you a message to remember that class.

14:02 You taught. So you said this thing and I did this thing and now my life has changed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, and then you're like, holy shit. I cried for two hours after that class, you know, so it's one thing if it was real. And it's another thing if you're making it up and this is more designed the.

14:18 Before I said that for if it actually was real. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And getting that actual feedback from people like if they literally come up to you and say, that was the worst class ever. That's a little bit harder to like swallow and kind of meditate through, but still you can reflect on it and being like, who knows, maybe there's a reason for maybe there isn't or maybe someone comes up to you and says that was the best class ever.

14:43 What comes to me with regards to feedback is people are more likely to give you feedback about the – and they are the positive. So you might blow people's minds and they'll never tell you about it. Never. And maybe they do week later.

14:55 Maybe they do a couple days later. You kind of just need to really trust that intuition to see like, I doing a good job and obviously having feedback is helpful because then you can do that self reflectiveness to be able to improve and level yourself up but recognize that you kind of got to go through the mud a little bit blindly to figure it out. Yep.

15:13 And that brought up for me Yelp, which I think I might have mentioned this on a podcast, but it's relevant and Yelp is a service. If you're not from the states or somewhere that uses this app, / website, which reviews experiences with various restaurants and yoga studios and Jim. Eames and whatever experience you can have spas. And usually it's, you know, it's somebody who had a bad experience and a lot of times it's fake created by promoting their business.

15:41 Okay. If you I'll give you this, if you go give me a five star review on this yoga studios, tend to have a little more the genuine approach Pugh at least they're coming on there to like, kind of like hate you or love you kind of thing. And I've had a couple of it said exactly what you said. This was the worst yoga class.

16:00 In my life. Now, this was my experience. They came to my class and did a lot of things that I was not interested in keeping around. So I approached them, confronted them in a couple of different scenarios, which he detailed very thoroughly on this review and try to paint me as a person who should be fired and terrible.

16:22 I sense the kicked her out of class. Just so you know in case you're going to prejudge me Yogi's, come on. But the point I want to make before I lose your interest on it is mostly about, I was so bothered by it that I posted it on.

16:38 My Facebook page, Facebook was more valuable at that point. This is about 10 years ago. Nine, ten years ago. I posted it on my Facebook and I posted my response to it. Like, if I could reply to this woman, this is what I would say, you showed up 10 minutes late and she states, she was a yoga teacher to you, say, you were honoring your Body, when you weren't even doing anything. We were doing, you know, so the response I got from my response was so high and so engaging the

17:10 most engagement. I've had till this day that it lifted me up and made me realize that it wasn't only seen by myself. So these secret moments that we have, we can also share them and I learned a lot from just being like, guys, do you really think I was that bad?

17:24 Like this is not ringing. Well with me. I cannot sit with this. Please talk to me. Yeah, get feedback from Different more sources. Other people don't just rely everything on one or two comments, because most of those times, it's going to be negative, right? Yes, cool.

17:38 Alright, that pretty much sums it up. We want a little bit over, but I think it was super valuable. So, thank you so much for listening. Bye. Or do you want to add anything else before? We sign off hungry? Let's go get some food. All right.

17:49 See you guys. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.