How to Control the Room when Teaching Yoga with Byron

0:00 So, if you want to control the room and healthy way, then you need people to listen to you right now. You can't control everybody. So not everybody's gonna listen to you. So let's just talk about the, the ones that are going to listen to you, or at least have a chance at listening to you. Welcome to the going pro yoga podcast, nugget series. My name is Michael Henry, and I'm Byron de Marseille and these short 15 minute episodes.

0:24 We're going to be answering some of the most common questions in the yoga industry so you can walk away with the answers and 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 student.

0:38 I'll be approaching these questions as a physiotherapist or physical therapist with over 10 years experience treating. So the most common and complex injuries. And my guidance will be from the perspective of having taught 7,000 classes, roughly 10,000 hours over 10 years.

0:52 Welcome to our podcast. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the going pro yoga, podcast, the Nugget series. We are going to be digesting and talking about with our powers combined. We talking about how to control the room teaching yoga.

1:10 So this is going to be more Byron's wheelhouse, but I will contribute to where necessary and simple question but also somewhat challenging. How do you control the room in yoga class? Where they're in this relevant? This is relevant to a previous podcast that we did talking about controlling or not. It's like controlling but the difference between teaching in a gym.

1:30 Fireman, so controlling the room in that case is somewhat relevant. But where specifically just talking about controlling the room in general and there's lots of nuggets that we can share with you today. So Byron, yes. Okay.

1:43 How about we start start talking about controlling the room in general? Okay. I'm gonna rattle off some stuff as it comes. First of all, if you have a negative relationship with the word control, which I think that can make sense for some of us just know that this is a healthy.

2:00 I'm of control. It's more of a boundary setting for your class. Michael asked about generally. So let's let's put it into categories. Let's put it in the category of controlling the actual room, like the environment of the room.

2:16 Like the, whether it's the music, the space things like this, the temperature, and then the actual class itself. So, controlling the room, the class, the experience of vinyasa flow. Perhaps or breath, counting or verbal cueing those types of things.

2:35 Okay. So now we've categorized controlling the room into those two subcategories. And let's go into the actual environment of the yoga room. Let's face it. It's very important. The magical experience is that many of us have had have come from pristine yoga environments where the temperature is controlled. The so is controlled the.

3:02 There might even be standard set by the studio where you start at a certain time. You ended a certain time. These are standards in place that ultimately are helpful in controlling the room. Now, when I go into a room, the things that I'm very conscious of.

3:17 First of first off is, I'm very picky about the airflow in the room. It's not something that I think a lot of newer teachers are thinking about their a little more caught. Ben what they're going to teach that day, but I'm always thinking about, how can I get the person taking my class? The people comfortable, without even me doing anything makes my job easier.

3:40 And yeah, well, they're my wild, there might be some people who enjoy a fan and some wind on their skin. Most people. If the temperature isn't too warm. They're going to enjoy a still environment, a quiet environment. They're coming there to quiet down their mind.

3:56 So let's check that first airflow. Is there a window? Oh too close, you know make sure it's not too stuffy in the room. Maybe you need to air it out first. If there's a class before you sweep the floor, those types of things.

4:07 Have somebody clean the room. Okay. So we've now talked about the airflow. Let's now talk about the eyesores possible things that are in the room that are distracting. Maybe this person who runs the studio is not super a type, A personality kind of anal with their organization.

4:29 And there's some Big rack of Matt's in the corner of the room. This is a real life experience. I used to have and it took a long time a month or two to get them to move those. Ding mats out of the corner of the room. It bothered me.

4:41 If it bothers you, it will affect the class. That's number one. If it's in the room, if even if it doesn't bother you, it's gonna bother someone else, maybe not everyone else. So think about that look around the room make sure it's not cluttered, clear it out Fung.

4:55 Shui. I believe is a word that might be relevant for some of our Listeners here, think about the energetic flow of the atmosphere. Okay. So as I go into that, what else is important with that room environment? The temperature, the temperature is very important.

5:13 So if you have control over the room, I like 80 degrees Fahrenheit. You'll have to convert that in Celsius. Not real sure, but I think that's probably around 20. Okay around 20. Thank you my Canadian. And you know, if it's a hot yoga studio, obviously, they're they're partly.

5:30 That but, you know, just think about that. The stuffiness, the quality of the air in the room again, back to the air and the temperature being the main, the main concern, do anything, you want to jump in and say, I'm going to keep going otherwise. No, keep going.

5:43 I think you're you're hitting a lot of good points. Okay, so yes, so that's the external. Let's go ahead external environment of the actual room. After the class is over. You can turn the fans on, think about playing music before, or after.

5:59 Class or not at all. Just choose what you want to do. Try to be consistent with that. Again. You're setting a mood. You're affecting the energy of the class without actually teaching the class. OK. Let's move on to the actual class teaching. Demonstrating.

6:17 Okay. I talked about demonstrating a lot. And this case I'm not talking about just demonstrating or not demonstrating. I'm teaching about, I'm teaching I'm talking about when you choose to demonstrate setting yourself up in a part of the room, where they can all see you without contorting their neck without having to change and move and ultimately break away from the flow or their breath. So, think about a wide forward fold. This is a tricky situation.

6:45 Action. Wide-legged forward fold, where your face standing where you're facing one side of the room. Now, you're not facing the front. You're safe facing the side. Your legs are wide, you're in a forward fold. And if you kind of go where you might initially, think you need to go.

7:00 No one can see you. You're going to stand the same way that their toes are pointed and nobody can see you because their head is underneath them. So you'll need to go actually on the opposite side of the room, for them to see anything that you do. Otherwise, you have to ask them to look at you. And that shows that you're not quite as a professional as as hopefully you would like to appear as you are. Okay, so think about that, anytime you demonstrate. Now, you can see why

7:25 demonstrating. The whole class at the front of the room will be inconvenient for everyone at some point. But this is speaking more of if you're not demonstrating the whole class and just little bits and pieces where you want to show them something. I'm not a stickler at the end of class. If you want to set up in the middle of the classroom to say shavasana, you know, it's safe to say I'm a stay at the end. Thank you for coming.

7:47 That's that's a personal Flair. That it doesn't bother me. And I am perfectly fine with that actually. Might start doing that myself. Let's move on to commanding the attention, using your voice and using direct cues. So if you want to control the room and healthy way, then you need people to listen to you right now.

8:09 You can't control everybody. So not everybody's gonna listen to you. So let's just talk about the, the ones that are going to listen to you, or at least. Have a chance at listening to you. So, how do you use your voice, directing your voice?

8:21 Think about the position if you're demonstrating and again, you're in a forward. Fold there in a forward, fold your face in one side there, facing the other. Nobody can hear you. Take notice of that look around. If they're looking around. They can't hear you figure it out. Is it?

8:34 Their capacity of listening is low. Do they not speak English or did you could you possibly done something more in your end so that they could hear you. So you can also use your voice to manipulate it speak louder at certain points. You can use your hands.

8:48 I'm cutting my hands right now. Notice how that changes the sound. These are just little little things that you can kind of add in as you as you please balancing. Okay. So balancing poses are tricky, tricky way, kind of a sneaky, I should say, sneaky way to command the room.

9:06 So if you start to find energetically, people are tapping out there tuning out a little bit, put them in a balancing pose. Strategically, I've learned to do it near the beginning of class, no matter what near the beginning of class, not the beginning mitigating, but like 10, 15 minutes, and they're standing on one leg tree pose.

9:25 Perhaps, it's Warrior three depends on your sequence. Nobody's listening, or there's they've checked out there thinking about what they're going to eat for dinner. What their plans are after class, or who knows, what they're thinking about, and all of a sudden stand on one leg and they're back. So that's a little trick that can help you to command the room as well.

9:47 Let's see if there's a couple more notes Here. What pose balancing Focus attention, commanding voice. I saw her room at that's all. I wrote down Michael anything you'd like to add to that. I actually loved all of it. You were rapid-firing that exactly how you proceed or how you led the the start of the conversation.

10:08 So, you know what I'm going to do. Actually, I'm just going to repeat a reiterate maybe summarize what you said for not only myself but also for our listeners, so I think the main thing was categorizing, the two situations of controlling. First of all, what is controlling and recognizing that it's not necessarily more of an aggressive words as it is, just more of a commanding, the presence of the room, commanding the control of the room of the physical room itself. And that being said, the two

10:33 categories being the actual, the actual physical room. And then the actual participants are the humans that are in the room. So kind of controlling or having an influence on those two factors. The first one, influencing the room itself.

10:47 So, you know, the temperature in the room considering airflow, how comfortable are the students going to be during this class and you would probably want to set that up so that they are comfortable because you probably want them to come back to your class. Right?

10:59 So thinking about those environmental factors, even things like the sound, you know, maybe there's something going on next door. There's music or something like that and maybe you can close the window and then the window will help to, you know, reduce the sound or something along those lines, then considering airflow. And so does it Ultimately just kind of looking at the classroom and like what can I do to make this experience better and that can tip into the eyesores?

11:22 Maybe there's a clutter of unorganized yoga blocks or yoga mats or weights in the corner that someone clearly didn't put away and it looks a little bit funky. So just be a little bit more attentive and awareness to what is around in the physical environment.

11:35 And then the last piece that you added within this, which I thought was important was just the punctuality. So controlling, and this isn't necessarily the room, but just kind of the energetics of the room making sure that you Start on time and on time and maybe the studio itself, kind of controls that overall environment, but that I find is very respectful to the people's time because if someone only has 60 Minutes specially in a corporate type of situation or

11:57 maybe you're teaching at a gym, people have things to do. So the more punctual you can be is going to command more presence and attention. I think for the overall class that being said, transgenic transitioning into controlling humans in the room. Okay, so demonstrating making sure that the person or the Vince can see you and depending on their transition and weatherize might go on certain pose. You need to make sure that you can actually are they can actually see you.

12:24 So you're going to need to move around and kind of think ahead a little bit to some degree and then moving into commanding the attention and ultimately using your voice and different ways to project. Your Voice Change volumes in your voice. Maybe not sound.

12:36 So monotone. And that will ultimately help to control the command of the commanding presence of yourself within the room. It's a good summary and then by listening to I realized I left out a couple important things. Cool. You got two minutes to go positive reinforcement. Give your students pot as positive reinforcement. Great job, Michael.

12:53 Summarizing that right then, you know, give them a couple of times to if you want to take control of the room. And with my last minute or so, I maybe if I could record this again, I would have started with the rules at the beginning of class. Maybe being the most important part, set the external part up first, the actual environment.

13:13 And then Reduce yourself to the class. If you want to take command of it, maybe you know, the students and there's less of a reason to need to do that. But if you have a high, let's say, you know, High rate of new students in your class, the turnover, you say, would it be high then guys? Grab one block, or grab two blocks, put one at the front of your mat one at the back of your mat because you know, and that sequence that this certain sequence requires that and that's going to save time.

13:38 My name is Byron. And today we're going to do a class is based off of a core and back. Ends. I'm going to invite you to lie down on your back, this point of class and make sure all phones are off. We don't want to have any distractions while we're here. No.

13:51 Machines. Something like that. And yeah, I think that's about art. I'm pretty close to it. At least. And I wanted to make sure to add that because that is a very, very important piece of the puzzle. Absolutely. And I'm glad that you mentioned it because we did almost forget about it, which is the first thing you should do with for the actual control of the humans.

14:09 In the room is just establishing expectations. Allowing them to know what they're Going into and also just helping to support them with regards to just the preparation because they're not going to know. Yeah, cool. Awesome.

14:22 Well, I think that's it for us. Thank you so much for listening. This is another quick and condensed episode nugget of information. Lots of information in this one talking about how to control the room when you're teaching yoga, ultimately the physical room and also the actual humans that attend your class. So again, thank you so much for listening. Thank you Byron.

14:41 Thank you, Michael. And thank you to everyone here. We appreciate you and I hope you have a beautiful beautiful day. Bye.