Teaching vs Instructing

I recently guest taught at a couple of yoga teacher trainings and it has me thinking. Like the last thing I think about before I fall asleep thinking. Pardon the word count, I gotta get this out. What’s the difference between teaching and instructing?

Even when we say it’s not about what it looks like, our verbal alignment cues and hands on adjustments can suggest otherwise. As time passes a right way behavior pattern emerges. This walks hand in hand with access and inclusiveness. Our words have power. What we say about movement matters as much as what we don’t say about movement. It’s not enough to say, listen to your body... modify...do what you can. Instead of parking people in child’s pose TEACH them the way in. This is where the distinction between teaching and instructing comes is. That or I’m just being pretentious.

I urged these new teachers to think critically about how we communicate in the yoga studio. To not just be an expert in asana, but in movement, because when we understand more broadly how the body moves the skies the limit. We get to create an environment that empowers people to learn 👉 and move. As teachers we get to really teach and rely less on the same handful of cues and one right alignment that over promises safety from injury.

Letting people explore their relationship to how their bodies move and make their own decisions about what feels good creates connection and empowerment. There will always be skills that require technique and coaching, but when you consider that what we deem aesthetically pleasing or right is simply a man-made idea, applied in a specific setting, it becomes important to ask if the cues given by movement professionals are offering alternative strategies and improving movement options or if they are creating a feeling of “I don’t move well enough.” In a society where people rarely feel like they are enough, not moving well enough becomes one more thing to fuel the feedback loop of inadequacy and anxiety.

TLDR: Widening circles of access in a mixed level class happens when we can go from calling shapes to teaching movement and I’m here for it!