Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher

In this episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential, I sit down with my dear friend and longtime writing partner, Alexandra DeSiato, for a conversation about our new book, Yoga Off the Mat, out July 14. It is the fourth book Alexandra and I have written together, and it grew from a simple question: what happens when you take the attention you practice on the mat and let it shape the rest of your life? We...

A few weeks ago, I posted a simple carousel on Instagram in my “Here’s the Tea” series for yoga teachers: not every pose needs you to call out a Sanskrit name. The comments rolled in—some grateful, some furious, most somewhere in the thoughtful middle. This episode is the longer answer that didn’t fit on eight slides. I walk through what I was actually trying to say in the post, where the conversa...

Ninety seconds of Instagram scrolling. Five distinct forces firing inside you, so fast you experience them as a single feeling: “I’m not good enough.” But it’s not one feeling—it’s five. Yoga philosophy named them twenty-five hundred years ago. In this episode, I’m walking through the five kleshas from Book Two of the Yoga Sutras: avidya (wrong-seeing), asmita (ego), raga (craving), dvesha (aversi...

The first time I felt true parasympathetic rest, I was ten minutes into legs up the wall during a restorative workshop, and the entire outline for my book The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery dropped into my head, fully formed. I had no idea this state was even available to me for free—and once I felt it, I understood why so many well-meaning restorative classes miss the mark. Telling students to relax...

You’ve cued it a thousand times: “Find the balance between effort and ease.” In this episode I take Patanjali’s sthira sukham asanam (Yoga Sutra 2.46) off the mat and show you how it runs underneath every cue you give, every class you plan, and every decision you make about your teaching career. You’ll learn what sthira (steady, firm, structured) and sukha (literally “good axle space”—smooth, well...

Right now, three tracks are playing inside you. One is heavy—the energy that makes you hit snooze. One is wired—the one drafting tomorrow's class at 2 AM. And one is clear—the energy that shows up when teaching just flows. Yoga philosophy has a name for this trio: the gunas. In this episode, I walk through one of the most practical frameworks in all of yoga philosophy. Your students will gras...

If you teach in any climate with real seasons, summer attendance has its own logic. The first beautiful spring day empties the studio. A July heat wave fills it back up. By August you're juggling subs, outdoor classes, your own travel, and a schedule that no longer makes sense. After twenty-plus years of teaching and fifteen years of co-owning a studio in North Carolina, a state with four sea...

You know the spiral. A student walks out of your class early, and by the time you reach your car, you've decided your classes are getting stale, the studio is about to replace you, and you should probably go back to your day job. The student leaving was the first arrow. The forty-minute story you built on top of it? That's the second arrow—and it hurts far more than the first one ever di...

Have you ever had a student freeze in tree pose and apologize for wobbling? In this episode, I'm rethinking how we teach balance so every body in the room—regardless of age, injury history, or experience—can work the skill without feeling like they're failing. I walk through the four systems that keep us upright (vestibular, proprioception, vision, and musculoskeletal), why the brain&apo...

For over a decade I taught private yoga to Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams, and somewhere along the way I realized I'd been teaching privates wrong. Not because I didn't know yoga. Because nobody had ever sat me down and said, A private is a different craft. Here's how. In this episode I walk through the three shifts that turn a group-class-with-one-student into an actual private le...

If you've ever spent hours creating a brand-new yoga sequence every week, only to wonder if your students even noticed the difference, this episode is for you. I spent over a decade coaching endurance athletes to age group world championships and podium finishes at ultramarathons. In all those years, I never once gave an athlete a completely different workout every single day. That's not...

The best yoga teachers never stop being students—but the longer you teach, the harder that becomes. In this episode, Sage Rountree shares how selling her yoga studio after fifteen years unexpectedly gave her back something she'd been missing: the freedom to simply be a student again. Sage explores the difference between continuing education and true studenthood—the kind where you sit in the s...

"Will I fit in?" In over a decade of personal conversations with prospective students, that question came up nearly every time. In this episode, I answer it honestly—along with everything else you'd want to know before enrolling in a 200-hour yoga teacher training. This is a full guided tour of the Comfort Zone Yoga 200-hour YTT: the teaching frameworks you'll learn (including...

"Get out of your comfort zone." It's practically a bumper sticker. But here's the definition I keep coming back to: the place where you can operate without fear of failure. That's not a limitation. That's a superpower. In this episode, I share the story behind the name Comfort Zone Yoga—what it actually means for your teaching, your confidence, and the kind of teacher...

Think about the last time you sat down to plan a themed yoga class. Did you freeze—staring at your notebook, wondering whether to use a Sanskrit concept, a seasonal metaphor, or a quote from a book you half-remember? You're not alone, and you're probably overthinking it. In this episode, Sage Rountree breaks down what a yoga class theme actually is—and what it isn't. A theme is simp...

I was teaching my regular Monday night balance class when I realized something: the centering I've been guiding for years—body, breath, mind, intention—is a walkthrough of the koshas. I just never called it that. In this episode, I break down the five koshas (body, breath, brain, belly, bliss—the five B's) and show you how this ancient model from the Taittiriya Upanishad is already woven...

Website copywriter Sara Joelle joins me to talk about something every yoga teacher needs—storytelling. Whether you're theming a class, writing a newsletter, or trying to tell people about your workshop without cringing, Sara has practical methods to make it easier. We dig into the mindset around selling and why the voice in your head telling you you're annoying is one you made up. Sara s...

Have you ever noticed how even your most loyal yoga students eventually drift away? Life happens—schedules change, people move—and without a way to stay in touch between classes, those connections fade. In this episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential, Sage Rountree breaks down why a newsletter is one of the simplest, most ethical tools yoga teachers have for building lasting relationships with studen...

A vivid dream about teaching Spinning brought me face to face with something I've known for years but never quite articulated: teaching yoga is fundamentally different from every other kind of teaching I've done. In this episode, I'm drawing on my background in Spinning instruction, university English literature, and public radio to show exactly where those skills help in the yoga r...

Classes end in a variety of ways. Last episode, we talked about choosing to drop a class on your own terms. But what happens when the decision isn't yours? Maybe the studio cut your class. Maybe an illness or injury forced you to step away. Maybe life circumstances made it impossible to keep showing up. This is a different kind of loss—and it deserves its own conversation. I'm coming at...

I recently dropped a class I'd been teaching for nearly 23 years. Monday nights at 6 p.m.—since the literal day when the studio opened in 2004. Walking away from that class was one of the most bittersweet decisions I've ever made. In this episode, I'm sharing the full story of how I came to that decision, along with the signs that it might be time for you to let go of a class: decli...

I was teaching a free yoga class at an outdoor gear store in Edmonton when a woman walked in with a toddler and an infant. Not a sleeping infant in a carrier: these children were alert, wandering, making noise. And if you've ever taught yoga, you know exactly what happens to your nervous system in that moment. In this episode, I'm sharing what I've learned about staying composed—and...

I once sat next to the drummer from Loverboy on a plane, and we realized our lives were almost identical: city to city, same performance, different crowd, trying to find a salad somewhere. Except he was an actual rock star, and I was coming back from teaching yoga at an REI store in Minneapolis. In this episode, I'm sharing what sponsorships and brand ambassador deals actually look like from...

If you've ever spent three hours planning a sixty-minute yoga class—or shown up with nothing but vibes and hoped for the best—this episode is for you. I'm unpacking what I call the Planning-Confidence Cycle: the exhausting trap that keeps yoga teachers bouncing between meticulous overpreparation and chronic underpreparing. Here's the thing: neither extreme gives you what you actuall...

Instagram can feel like a second job-especially when you became a yoga teacher to teach, not to perform online. In this episode, I share a simple reframe that takes the pressure down fast: your job on social media is not to entertain the algorithm. Your job is to help the right students find the next step into yoga with you. I walk through three struggles I hear from yoga teachers all the time: ha...