hari om,

I have recently started to teach Yoga and i find that I sometimes have complete beginners in a class with more advanced students.
How do I keep the more advanced students challenged whilst not pushing the beginners too hard ?
Any comments greatly appreciated.

joe

Hi Joe,

I have taught a lot of mixed level yoga classes and what I find most effective is to stage many of the poses, giving modifications / variations for different levels.

For example Tree pose: I start with everyone having the foot at the side of the standing leg with the big toe on the floor. Then side it up to your "working position". Have the hands in front of the heart, or for more stability out to the sides, or for more challenge over the head.

I also start the class with simple warm-up movements that are synchronized with the breath. Even though the movements are pretty basic, the technique of synchronizing them with the breath creates a deep absorption and engagement for all levels of students.

I also try to weave in a theme or yogic concept throughout the class which creates another layer of engagement for students. Beginning students will be more focused on the basic details of the pose, so this will give more advanced students something to focus on in the poses that they are already comfortable with.