As a yoga teacher we want to learn the principles of effective teaching. We teach from the heart and not from the brain alone. The teacher should learn to cultivate persistence in the student, build up their will power, give them the knowledge and teach them where to focus and how much effort to put into it.
The teacher must remain sattvic inside and show the rajasic nature outside. Sattvic is light and illuminating and rajasic is active and ambitious. The rajasic quality of the teacher helps to overcome the tamasic nature of the student. Tamasic is lazy, inactive, unmotivated. The teacher should maintain effective demonstration skills to show the student the shape, direction, and the movement of the pose. Students that come to class for the first time, who have never practiced yoga previously may have no idea about what yoga actually is so we want to demonstrate each and every pose so that they understand what it is that they are to do. When the student sees the demonstration they then do the pose with the directions of the teacher. The teacher gives instructions on how to move the body so that the student can feel the pose.
As a teacher it is a must to develop good demonstration skills and give clear verbal instructions which are easy to understand. The teacher must teach according to the students needs and maintain a presence of mind.
Some students learn from auditory, which is hearing about the pose, some learn visually, which is seeing the pose and others learn kinetically by feeling the pose. As a teacher we must clearly give the student all of the options so that have the best experience of the pose and yoga.
After demonstrating the the first time, the teacher should then do the pose with the student so that they can see it as they are doing it. The teacher should observe the student doing the pose, see what is missing then demonstrate it again showing them what they did wrong and how to correct it. We do this until we see that the student understands the pose.
Once the pose is understood which can take days, weeks, or months the student then learns to go deeper and to move on to more in-depth instructions which eventually leads the student to understanding the anatomical movements of the body, how the body then connects to the mind and how that connection creates a meditation in movement.
