Building confidence

It's taking a long time for me to feel confident and comfortable teaching yoga.  I started very slowly after I completed my training in the summer of 2011--the first opportunity I got was to apprentice with an experienced teacher who was leading adaptive yoga and pilates classes for a physical therapist's patients.  I was gaining experience, but had few opportunities to lead the classes on my own, and was pretty tentative when I did.  Just before I completed my training, my former employer asked me to come back to work part-time, so I didn't pursue other teaching opportunities.  I wanted to focus on teaching yoga to seniors, and those classes meet during the daytime.  I did chair yoga for about a year on a volunteer basis at a local senior apartment complex, but was using a video.  It gave me a start, but then became very limiting.  Just as my stint with my former employer was winding down, in Jan. 2013, I learned of an opportunity to teach at a senior center.  The timing was perfect--I started the week after my work ended.  The prior teacher had been teaching at the center for 5 years, and was very good (I observed a few of her classes), so I felt pretty intimidated taking over from her.  Hopefully, I've improved since then.  And they've added a second class, so now I'm teaching there twice a week.  People have been very polite, so if they're disappointed they don't show it.  I'm sure they miss the other instructor, but they enjoy doing yoga and have continued to sign up for the class.

And a few substitute teaching stints look like they're going to turn into more permanent arrangements.  I'm subbing for 2 senior yoga classes this summer, and as a result am teaching Monday through Thursday.  The Monday instructor isn't returning, and it's in the works for me to take over that class.  In addition, the yoga/pilates instructor decided to stop teaching at the physical therapy practice in January, so I've been the lead instructor there since then.  And another senior center where I subbed a few months ago has asked me to take over for that yoga instructor, who is quitting.  I'm also teaching once a month at Washington National Harbor--they have a great program through the summer where people can do yoga twice a week at no charge.

I'm still anxious about teaching, but less so as the weeks go by. I prepare a plan for each class--I started doing that initially to minimize the chances for panic; now I prepare them in part so I make sure I'm doing a different mix of stretches and poses each week.

I've received very positive feedback from students the two times I taught at the National Harbor, and today after one of my senior yoga classes, a woman in the front row blurted out "I love your class" and another said I should be on TV.

I have a lot of anxiety and self doubt, so this kind of feedback means more to me than it might to others.