There are over a dozen really nifty features within the Online Yoga Lesson Planner, but one of the best features has got to be the shared yoga lesson plans. Today we’re feeling a wee bit happy with ourselves because we just passed a rather big milestone.
Today, the 500th yoga lesson plan was created (and shared) within our Online Yoga Lesson Planner.
Update: There are now 100,000+ shared yoga lesson plans within the Online Yoga Lesson Planner.
And it gets better.
Every day 20+ new yoga lesson plans are being shared on the Online Yoga Lesson Planner.
Top 10 Reasons Why Yoga Teachers, Trainers & Trainees Are Benefiting From The Online Yoga Lesson Planner
Reason 1: Quickest Way To Learn
Editing yoga lesson plans that were created by other yoga teachers is one of the quickest ways to improve your own teaching.
Even if you’ve been teaching for 30 years or more, you’ll learn a lot from using and editing plans created by other yoga teachers. You don’t have to edit the shared lesson plans. You could just copy a shared lesson plan and not edit it.
When you copy a lesson plan, it will be added to your personal yoga lesson plans which you can download as a PDF or edit (e.g. delete poses or add new poses).
Reason 2: Less Pressure
With a yoga lesson plan, you feel less pressure.
Reason 3: Time Keeping
With a yoga lesson plan, you don’t misjudge time.
Reason 4: Track Progress
The Online Yoga Lesson Planner stores every lesson plan you create (or copy from a “shared lesson plan”). That means you can keep track of what you have been taught throughout the months and years.
Reason 5: Big Picture
With a yoga lesson plan, you understand the Big Picture of the lesson. Without the big picture, your classes run into the danger of becoming just another run-of-the-mill exercise class.
Reason 6: Drag & Drop
You’ll save lots of time creating yoga lesson plans with the easy-to-use, drag-and-drop feature.
Reason 7: Winging It Doesn’t Work
Winging it (on-the-fly teaching without creating a plan) sounds good but rarely produces good results.
The myth is that if you’re an experienced yoga teacher, you shouldn’t need a Yoga Lesson Plan. That’s okay if you’re teaching the same thing each week (e.g. Bikram yoga), but if you mix things up a bit every week, creating a yoga lesson plan is a good practice to get into.
Reason 8: Creativity Flows
The drag-and-drop feature allows creativity to flow. A blank sheet can cause writer’s (yoga teacher’s) block.
Reason 9: Practice On The Mat
Once you’ve completed the lesson plan, you can practice it on your mat. This preparation will give you lots of confidence going into a class.
Reason 10: Practice In Your Mind
You can practice the yoga lesson plan within your mind using this yoga lesson planning visualisation technique.
I print, fold and place my yoga lesson plan in my back pocket. Then throughout the day I’ll look at the plan and imagine myself teaching the class.
I copied this visualisation technique from Olympic athletes.
Every single successful Olympic athlete mentally rehearses their event. I think every single yoga teacher could benefit from whipping out their yoga lesson plan, closing their eyes and visualising how they are going to teach.
For example, I’ll look at my yoga lesson plan and visualise myself teaching “standing forward bend” (if that’s one of the poses in my plan). I’ll read the “teaching directions” on the lesson plan for standing forward bend and visualise myself saying those words. I’ll then read through the benefits, precautions, modifications and alternatives for the pose, and visualise myself telling the class.
If there’s a student I know who shouldn’t go into a standing forward bend, I’ll read one of the modifications on the lesson plan and visualise myself adjusting the student (e.g. into a half forward bend).
If you visualise teaching your class for a few short minutes, I promise your students will notice the difference (and so will you).
