The second class I ever taught went off the rails before I said a word—and then I spent an hour making it worse by apologizing for not being the regular teacher. Two students set me straight the next day, and I still teach from that lesson two decades later.
In this episode, I’m separating the two things yoga teachers mean when they say a class went off the rails: the logistics problem that happens in the room, and the private disaster that happens entirely inside your own head. Only one of those is visible to your students.
I’ve covered the logistics side elsewhere on the show: medical issues (Episodes 34, 40, and 52), challenging behavior (Episode 33), rooms that are too small or too big (Episodes 39 and 49), phones and watches and timers (Episode 96), covering someone else’s class (Episode 38), and the class nobody shows up for (Episode 24). This episode is about the other kind.
I draw on a few earlier conversations along the way: why the student who walks out mid-class almost never has anything to do with you (Episode 3), why a bored-looking face is usually a sign of concentration (Episode 8), why silence is a tool rather than a failure (Episode 19), and why one honest debrief beats replaying the tape a fourteenth time (Episode 59).
You’ll walk away with language for changing course mid-class, a way to triage what’s actually an emergency versus what’s just embarrassing, and permission to let a mistake pass without comment at all. Listen now!
September’s lesson plan in the Prep Station is Balance Play Trio. The recording is already waiting in the Movement Library, and I teach the plan live on Mondays, September 14, 21, and 28, at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward for your questions. Every class posts as a recording. It’s all part of the Yoga Class Prep Station, $39 a month.
Join us:
The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.
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