What do You Call a Yoga Teacher

Yogi or Yogini refers to someone who follows or practices yoga philosophy with high levels of commitment. Some people call women practicing yoga ‘yogini,’ however, the term can be applied to either a woman or man just like the term ‘actor.’

Roles of a Yogi

Yoga instructors have several roles to play since she/he leads a group of students through available and comprehensive sequences of meditations, contemplations, breathing and postures exercises.

Create a Nurturing and Safe Surrounding

Yoga instructors work to ensure that the environment they train their students in is safe and nurturing. To be able to offer this, it is the responsibility of the instructor to pick out a location that is peaceful, free from disturbances, noise, interruptions and with adequate security. Also, the training space should be clean, warm, and inviting. This will not only make the students relaxed, but it will also give both the instructor and the students’ peace of mind for the class to run smoothly.

Guide Students

As the teacher, a yogi is responsible for conducting and demonstrating students through series of poses in an understandable and safe way. A yogi helps her/his students modify poses when needed and offer propositions regarding using yoga as a therapeutical tool to heal injuries.

Additionally, a yogi is also in charge of setting the tone in class for students. Besides ensuring the studio is clean, warm and inviting, it is the responsibility of the yogi to jump start the class. This can be attained by either opening up the class with reading a poem or verse or lighting up candles to give a sense of sacredness. Doing this sets intention and internal focus of the practice.

Create Yoga Training Session

A yogi is in charge of coming up with a training session which is appropriate to the level at which his/her students are at. It is of paramount importance that the instructor can modify, demonstrate as well as describe all the yoga practices to his/her students in an approachable and understandable way.

In overall, a good yogi is not only flexible but also certified; he/she should be able to modify poses to suits the students and possess a firm foundation in physiology and anatomy to enable him/her develop a keen eye when it comes to posture alignment. With this, an instructor can be able to quickly and easily adjust postures in cases where a difficulty has risen. This consequently creates a feeling of trust and safety in students making it easier for everyone to relax during the class.