Teaching Yoga at Any Time: Strategies for AM, Midday & PM Classes

Want to create a yoga teaching schedule that works for both you and your students?

Whether you’re aiming to offer a variety of class styles or build a schedule that feels sustainable and fulfilling, this discussion will help you design classes that align with different times of the day—and the unique energy each one brings.

Watch the full video below, or scroll down for transcript notes and specific strategies for your own classes at any time of the day!

Teaching Yoga at Any Time: Strategies for AM, Midday & PM Classes

What’s the difference between an early morning yoga class, a lunchtime corporate class, and a later evening class?

Is it in the theming, sequencing, pacing, music, or environment you create?  It’s all of the above!

In this discussion we’ll explore teaching yoga at any time of day – from early mornings to the post-school-drop-off classes, lunch-time corporate or express classes to post-work and evening wind-down classes.

We’ll explore how class timing impacts student needs and expectations and how we can respond by  adapting our teaching strategies accordingly to influence and respond to the energy of our classes.

We’ll also talk about how you can manage your own energy as a teacher and make choices about the class times that work best for you.

1. The Influence of Time on Class Energy & Student Needs

Every yoga class has its own unique rhythm, but time of day plays a big role in shaping student energy and expectations. While there are patterns we can recognize—morning students often need a gentle wake-up, while evening students may seek release from the day—each class is also influenced by the individuals who show up.

As teachers, we guide the experience through sequencing, theming, pacing, and tone, but we’re not the only ones shaping the class. Students bring their own energy, shaped by their routines, stress levels, and how they feel in the moment. Recognizing and adapting to these shifts helps us create meaningful experiences.

In this session, we’ll explore how class timing affects student needs, how to read and respond to different energies, and how to balance leading with listening—so we can meet students where they are and offer the most supportive practice possible.

Consider:

How does the time of the day impact physical, mental, and emotional states?

How can we recognize and adapt to different student energies?

2. Listen, Question, Learn: Who, What, Why, How?

Every class is unique, but there are some generalizations we can make about the dynamic of each of these different classes just based on the time of day, what type of students are attending at different times of day, and what those students’ needs and goals are.

To understand your students and meet their needs, aims, and energy, ask yourself (and your students) some key questions:

• Who are the students attending these classes?
• What is their experience level, needs, aims?
• What is the energy of that time of day?
• Why are they at class (relaxation, movement, self-care, flexibility)?
• How do you plan out a class for these needs?
• How do you create a teaching schedule that offers multiple types of classes (style, experience level, etc.) throughout the day or week?

How are your students showing up: energized, overstimulated, tired, preparing for their day or unwinding from their day, chatty or quiet, stiff or flexible, hot or cold?

How are you showing up: focused, drained, energized, tired, stiff or flexible, hot or cold?

What do students need at this time of day: relaxation, focus, energizing, heating up or cooling down, technical study or spiritual study or something in-between?

3. Let’s Get Specific: Teaching Yoga at Any Time

Early Morning (Before Work / School Drop-Off)

• Participants: Professionals, early risers, shift workers
• Energy: Waking up, possibly stiff, quiet, inward-focused
• Needs: Gradual warm-up, breath awareness, focus for the day ahead

Mid-Morning (Post School Drop-Off / Mid-Morning Movers)

• Participants: Parents, retirees, students, those with flexible schedules
• Energy: More open and awake, looking for movement or deeper study
• Needs: Balance between effort and ease, possibly more technical study

Lunchtime (Corporate / Mid-Day Reset)

• Participants: Office workers, busy professionals
• Energy: Coming from a desk, mentally overstimulated, possibly rushed
• Needs: Efficient use of time, focus, stress relief, movement for circulation

After Work (Post-Stress Release / Transition Time)

• Participants: Professionals unwinding, those seeking stress relief
• Energy: Mentally fatigued, physically tense, emotionally scattered
• Needs: Flow to grounding, release, space to transition from work to home

Evening (Late Night Wind-Down / Restorative Practice)

• Participants: Those looking for deep relaxation, introspection, or spiritual study
• Energy: Slower, reflective, possibly exhausted
• Needs: Restorative movement, slower pace, minimal effort, a quiet atmosphere

4. How to Adapt Your Teaching

A few key areas to consider when adapting your teaching to classes at different times of the day are:

• Sequencing & Pacing: Energizing vs. grounding, slow build vs. immediate movement
• Theming & Cues: Setting intention based on students’ state of mind, using cues, tone, imagery that meets those intentions.
• Class Culture: When to encourage interaction vs. introspection
• Your Own Energy Management: Showing up fully present at any time of day

Theming

AM Classes:

Focus on themes that promote grounding, energizing, and setting intentions for the day. Examples include focus, energy, resilience, or a fresh start.

Corporate Classes:

You might focus on themes around self-care, taking time for themselves, destressing, or themes around balancing their bodies from the stresses of their physical or mental workspace.

PM Classes:

Highlight themes centered on relaxation, reflection, and release. Examples include letting go, ease, or balance.

Sequencing

AM Classes:

Begin with gentle movements or breathwork to awaken the body, like joint movements, spinal warmups.

Build up to dynamic, energizing flows such as sun salutations, standing poses, and balance postures to build heat and focus.

End with a brief Savasana to rest without falling asleep.

Lunchtime Classes:

Lunchtime or corporate classes often don’t want to get too sweaty. Include sequencing that balances their bodies – for example desk workers would benefit from things like chest stretches, hip stretches, and experiencing some flow.

In my own experience teaching lunchtime corporates, relaxation was a key for my students, so I was sure to plan for 20% of the class to be guided relaxation and silent rest.

PM Classes:

Start with slow, grounding movements, meditation or breathwork to come back into ourselves after a busy day before we begin.

Incorporate restorative sequences with longer holds, gentle twists, and supported poses to calm the nervous system.

Conclude with deeper relaxation, such as guided meditation or yoga Nidra, to prepare for moving into a time of rest.

Environment and Atmosphere

AM Classes:

Create a vibrant atmosphere with natural light or uplifting music. Encourage students to greet the day with open hearts. Set an intention to energize without overexerting. Use a steady, encouraging tone and lighthearted cues.

PM Classes:

Dim the lights, use soothing music or silence, and emphasize grounding to help students transition to rest. Approach with a calming presence, speaking more slowly and using softer cues. Model relaxation to guide students into a restful state.

By aligning the tone, theme, and sequencing with the natural rhythms of the day, you can create meaningful experiences for your students and meet them where they are at.

4. Tips for Yoga Teachers

We’ve talked a lot about meeting your students’ needs and energy at these different times of the day, now let’s talk about you as a teacher.

Managing your time and energy, whether you are teaching part time or full time, is really important to the health and longevity of your teaching practice.

Choosing classes that meet your students needs but also fit well into your own work and lifestyle schedule, reduce travel time, don’t impede your personal and health needs too much, these are all essential consideration.

I want to preface this by saying that you and I may have different lifestyles and experiences – I’ve been teaching full time for almost 30 years, it’s my only job. I don’t have kids or dependents, so I’ve had the freedom to explore different ways of teaching and the freedom to make choices about when I teach. You might have more restrictions in when you can teach, or different considerations when it comes to your teaching schedule.

While I’ll acknowledge all the logistical challenges, I don’t actually know them, so that’s something for each individual teacher to explore, experiment with, so that you can find a work/life/yoga balance.

What I do know is what it’s like to try to carve out a teaching schedule living with chronic pain and disability which requires its own considerations. I’m no longer able to teach in the way that I used to, but I’ve found a way to make teaching still work for me and my body, and I still ask myself the same questions that I’ll pose to you now:

Question: What fits into your schedule?

Let’s take the most common example – you work full time and teach a few classes a week. Take some time to really game out how that will work for you to get up early to teach, use your lunch hour to teach, run classes in the evenings or on weekends.

Think about the logistics – how you’ll manage your time and energy, and how you’ll organize your days to accommodate travel, set up, teaching, pack down, meals and snacks, admin, marketing, planning, etc.

These all take some time and often requires a little experimentation to get the balance right.

You might take some time to plan out a week, see what it looks like and feels like, and look for challenges to address, as well as ways to make your week flow smoothly with the addition of your teaching hours.

If you are a teacher-in-training, one way you can do this is to plan your study times for when you hope to be teaching.  Say you have an idea for teaching Tues and Thurs evenings, make that your study time.  See how it works in your life to spend that time immersed in yoga, and how that might impact other areas of your life.  Work the kinks out of your schedule before you begin teaching is a good strategy.

Question: When do you have energy?

Think about when you have physical, mental, emotional, and social energy to give to others. If it’s possible in your schedule, this is when to be teaching.

In my own life, I am an early bird. I am my clearest and most focused when I’m teaching in the mornings. By 5pm I’m kind of stuffed, and I start to lose track of my lefts and rights, my mind is less focused, and if I keep pushing myself to teach later in the evening, I then have trouble sleeping and that throws my whole life balance off.

So, for me, morning sessions work the best, however most of us can’t have a full-time teaching career only teaching in the mornings, so we have to adapt and try out different strategies.

For much of my career when I was teaching the general public, I had morning and evening classes, and that’s where I got my afternoon napping habit from.

And I’ll admit that back in the day I didn’t always build my schedule well. There were days where I had 7 or 8 classes in one day – morning classes, lunchtime corporates or privates, and then evening classes. It wasn’t sustainable, of course, but for a short time it gave me a lot of exposure and experience. I was then able to pick and choose classes that worked.

I dropped classes where I was stuck in traffic, classes that didn’t allow me room to eat or rest or go to my own favorite class as a student, and I kept classes that I felt I could give my best to.

When you first start out teaching you may have less choice, but as you teach and get to learn about your rhythms and what works best for you and you are building up your teaching practice, you can begin to narrow down the classes that are a best fit.

And of course, you also have to consider your other commitments, work, family and friends, home care, and your own practice.

So, take some time to think about what works for you logistically, energetically, and how you can start to make some movements towards creating your best schedule.

Question: What are your needs?

This can include a lot of things, physical, emotional, social, but specifically I want to talk about income. If you are depending on your yoga income, you’ll need to make some choices around what classes pay the best for the time that you put into them.  This isn’t always simple, because you want to factor in how much time it takes you to travel, the cost of transport, the time for set up, running your class, pack down, and getting to your next class.  You also want to factor in costs associated with the class – parking, petrol, tolls, taxes, etc.

Take some time to run the numbers, and you might find that there are some classes that are more financially viable than others.  Again, if you depend on your yoga income this is going to be a really important consideration.

5. Logistical notes for teaching yoga at any time:

It’s a good idea to walk yourself through the logistics around teaching at different times of the day and the factors that will add to your timing, for example:

AM Classes:

Especially in the winter you’ll have to arrive early to warm up the space and warm your own body before you begin teaching. How early will you need to arrive?

Rush Hour Classes:

For those classes just before or just after the workday be mindful of how long it will take you in rush hour traffic to get to and from your classes.

PM Classes:

You’ll need to include time to pack up the teaching space, clean and tidy, and close the venue.  Consider what type of boundaries you’ll need to establish with these duties, as well as people staying after class to chat.

Final notes on teaching yoga at any time:

So, we’ve covered a lot today on meeting your students where they are at, providing theming, sequencing, rest, and environments that best suits these different times of the day.

Paying attention, asking questions, and responding to their needs is going to help you to create amazing yoga experiences.

We’ve also talked about paying attention to your own needs, and to how you’re responding to teaching at different times of day and when you can give your best.

As you develop your teaching practice, you can keep tinkering with your schedule and create a schedule that best fits your needs, and where you can be delivering your best for your students and getting the most out of your teaching practice.

Want to learn more?

Want some help in developing your best teaching schedule?  Have the support and guidance of senior trainer Heather Agnew with professional yoga coaching and mentoring here

Want to upskill and update your sequencing and theming skills?  Check out the 15-hour Sequencing & Theming for Yoga online course here

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