Many of you know I’m niching my teachings around helping Yoga Teachers cultivate their own deep energy…. and teaching yoga teachers how to be a better teacher through Ayurveda Wisdom.  Download this Free Talk for Yoga Teachers with me and my star student, Marjorie Nass, that goes with this post. I promise you will learn more than you expect. The talk includes:

2 Basic Lessons on Ayurveda for Yoga Teachers

1.  The Essentials to optimize your own energy.
2. How to read your students constitutions on the mat and personalize your instructions.

Applying Ayurveda as a Yoga Teacher

As a yoga teacher, you’re in the room full of students with various constitutions. The yoga works to balance everybody in different ways. For your vata students, you are providing a safe space and guided movement which creates an even energy in their bodies. For your pitta students, you are creating an opportunity to feel universal support and learn how to balance effort with surrender. For your kapha students, you’re inspiring their tapas, their transformation into a lighter, more uplifted experience.

Yoga for Vatas

Many students walk into the studio with their wind element (vata) a tad elevated. Simply offering a grounded, comfortable, friendly environment starts to bring your students into balance. When you have students who are anxious, distracted, or overwhelmed, you can help them specifically with these basic guidelines:

Vata Body Types  –  Teach how to become rhythmic, regular, grounded.

Vata Mind Types – Teach how to organize and stabilize. Encourage the intrinisic support of the universe.

Vata’s Spiritual Lesson= Faith. Teach how to put your heart in something greater.

Yoga for Pittas

You know your student’s pitta dosha is out of balance if they are intense and overly effortful. You job is to teach them to diffuse and expand their energy and awareness. Simply inviting them to let go of effort and get into flow can change their day.

Pitta Body Types
Teach to diffuse and drop energy and gaze. Teach to use less intensity with greater organization of body parts.

Pitta Mind Types
Teach to calm, to sooth, to relax while increasing integration. Specific instructions may include relaxing the gaze, the jaw, the breath and allowing (not controlling) energy to move envely down and up, in and out.

Pitta’s Spiritual Lesson = Compassion
Teach how to diffuse difference and live from connection instead of comparison.

Yoga for Kaphas

Your kapha students need your inspiration and encouragement to play their edge. With those who under effort in class, your job is to help them skillfully engage their will with their muscles to make water into steam. The role of the yoga teacher with Kapha students is to bring them to a higher vision of their life, and consistently motivate their energy in that lofty direction.

Kapha body types
Guide your kapha students to try harder, strive for more, turn their water into steam. Be very engaged with their effort expenditure – and let them know they can move mountains, and truly use their strength and grounding to make a difference.

Kapha mind types
Teach to stimulate, encourage, motivate, enliven. Be high energy yourself and give positive reinforcement to goals within reach. Create a strong bond through allowing their easy nature to be, while encouraging them to strive for more.

I hope you want to learn more. I’ll be offering 3 day trainings on Ayurveda for Yoga Teachers during the next few years. Start with this one hour audio lesson to increase your connection and impact with your students.