Where Did My Own Yoga Practice  Go?

How to Sustain Your Own Yoga Practice as a Yoga Teacher

This week we will talk about how to maintain your own practice once you begin teaching. It’s a common problem when we begin studying and teaching – we get busy with study, preparation, admin, and teaching, and we can start to lose track of our own practice. Not all at once, perhaps, but slowly, over time, our own yoga needs get shifted to the back burner.

This is a common problem in any teaching or helping profession – our focus shifts to sharing with others, and we sometimes start to lose the energy in our own practice.

This week we’ll talk about some strategies, but first we’ll do a bit of self-inquiry so that you can make conscious choices about what will inspire and support your practice and choose strategies that will work best for you at this stage of your life and development.

Watch the full video below, or scroll down for the transcript notes and journal prompts.

Where Did My Yoga Practice Go? Sustaining Your Personal Practice as a Yoga Teacher

One question I get a lot from students, and have struggled with myself as a teacher, is how to create and maintain a steady and nourishing yoga practice as a teacher, especially when the whole process of teaching takes up much of your energy and time.

Depending on how much you teach, you might have hours every week of program development, admin and bookkeeping, student support, emails, social media, travel, and of course teaching.

In my own experience as a full-time teacher, this made it feel like my whole life was invested in yoga, meanwhile my own practice – where I got what I needed and filled my own cup – just kind of faded into the background.

This is common for many yoga teachers and is a common symptom or even a cause of yoga teacher burnout. With all of your focus on teaching, you can lose touch with your own practice – the practice that is just for you. Because remember, when you are on the mat in front of your students, that is not your practice. When you are participating in a class and you are thinking about “oh this is a cool prop” or “oh, that’s a great sequence”, that’s also not for you – that’s for your students. So, we have to think about maintaining the practice that is going to nourish you – your body and your mind.

We might fall out of our practice because of lack of time or energy,  repetitive strain, burnout, or, and this is what I’ve experienced a lot, your practice becomes a place to strategize for your next class rather than a place for you to be with yourself.

If this is something you are facing, I do have some strategies to share, but I think it’s a good idea to begin with some self-inquiry to understand your needs and aims as you are evolving as a student and teacher.

Begin with Self Inquiry

There are no one-size-fits-all answers, but I do have a few questions that might help you in choosing strategies that might work for you.

1. What are your practice goals now?

Once you begin your deeper study of yoga, you might find that your practice needs, aims, and interests shift. Take some time to consider what your practice goals are now. Do you want to develop your practice in a particular direction – for example greater movement complexity and fancy yoga tricks, or are you really interested in meditation, mudra, breathwork, or exploring a particular lineage or sequence? You might find that you have different aims or perspectives as your practice and teaching evolves. Your practice aims might change, and that’s okay.

2. What kind of movement do you need now?

Is it strengthening, stretching, flow, balance, stillness, recovery, or relaxation. You might find that you need to balance or compensate for a lot of teaching. For example, if you teach a lot of vinyasa, you might want to add some restorative yoga, or meditation, or you might need more strength training or cardio.

3. What will fill your cup?

Consider what energy you’d like to receive. As a teacher you will be putting a lot of energy out into the world. What do you need to receive in order to renew your own energy? Is it the energy of community? Or do you need more seclusion? Do you need playful, curious exploration? Do you need structure and routine? Do you need time in rest, or ritual, or contemplation?  Do you need someone else to hold space for you as a student?

4. Where do you need freedom/boundaries?

Do you need to set some ground rules for yourself about ensuring you have a minimum of practice time for yourself each week? Or do you need some freedom to go with the flow of each week? Do you need to set some boundaries around how much time you engage in movement or certain types of movement in order to reduce burnout and repetitive strain? Do you need to carve out a time that you won’t fill with another task for others – a time that is dedicated to your practice? Consider whether scheduling and tracking your practice is productive or limiting for you at this stage. (for example, if you don’t get to the class that you intended, can you do a short flow in the lounge room instead?)

Sustainable Practice Strategies

Once you’ve done some reflecting on what your needs are, some of the following strategies might be of use:

1. Practice for you, not your students.

We spend so much of our time thinking about our students, picking up new ideas and planning new sequences, readings, or ideas for our classes. However, our own practice should be for us, our needs, goals, and energy – not for anyone else. You might find, like I have, that you need to make some rules around what practices are just for you, and what practices can be for your learning. If you find yourself over-intellectualizing in classes – trying to note cool props, sequences, or ideas you want to try out in your own classes, you might need to set some boundaries with yourself about classes that are just for you as a student, and classes that can be for you as a teacher.

2. Set a schedule

Establish a realistic, specific, and engaging schedule for your movement, meditation, breathwork, and other yoga practices.

3. Have a yoga buddy

Having a yoga friend to practice with can really help with motivation, accountability, and fun!

4. Yoga snacks

You don’t have to do a full practice every day to have a regular practice. Yoga snacks – shorter, focused yoga moments – have so many benefits and are easier to fit into a busy life while keeping yoga a part of your day.

5. Do what you love

The key to regularity in any habit or practice is doing something you enjoy. If you aren’t loving certain poses, sequences, or styles at the moment, set them aside. Do what you love, and you’ll look forward to your practice and maintain practice momentum.

6. Energy In/Energy Out

Engage in practices and activities that fill your cup. Pay attention to your need for self care, support, space, and recovery.

7. Find inspiration

Seek out new ideas, inspiring people or practice, receive support or mentoring, and engage fresh ideas and new perspectives. Staying curious helps keep the energy in your practice.

8. Explore outside your lineage

You aren’t cheating on your own lineage/style if you explore other forms of yoga. That might mean exploring other forms of modern postural yoga, or you might explore traditional lineages, meditation, kirtan/mantra, yoga philosophy, etc.

9. Movement diversity

Try new types of movement beyond yoga. You might add walking, strength training, dance, Pilates, swimming, cycling, soccer, etc.  Having variety in your movement practice can reduce the risk of injury and burnout – and it’s fun.

10. Build community

Put in some effort to build and maintain your yoga community – in particular fellow teachers. It takes some time and energy, but then the rewards can be worth it.  Teaching can be a lonely profession if you don’t have a community of other teachers to give and receive support.

11. Trade classes with a friend

Especially if the cost of attending classes is an obstacle, make a trade with a friend to attend each other’s classes at no cost.  It’s a great way to hold space for each other, share ideas, and have a backup teacher for times when you are unable to teach your class.

12. Adjust your expectations

Maybe your practice won’t look the same, but it can still be a valuable and rewarding practice.

Acknowledge the natural ebbs and flows of practice.  Practice is a fluid thing, rather than counting in days or weeks, consider the rhythm of your practice over months or years. Sometimes your practice is exciting and full, and sometimes it’s finding shorter moments to spend with yourself in time and space.

A final thought on sustaining your yoga practice

I hope you have found these inquiries and strategies of use. Perhaps you’ll pick one or two to bring to your practice this week.

One final reminder that it can be lovely to have someone else hold space for you. If you’ve been feeling burned out, or lonely, or stuck – get to a class, pop on a video, or pull out a yoga book and let someone else be the teacher today to pour some energy into your cup.

Find more podcasts, articles, and inspirations on yoga practice and teaching on the BLOG here or on our YouTube channel

Need some help in your yoga practice or teaching? Check out our yoga coaching packages with senior teacher/trainer Heather Agnew here