I Don't Take & Teach.

Aggressive hot take... Which could absolutely give me a lot of haters and make no studio want to hire me. But...

Practicing while trying to teach a hot yoga class is fucking stupid.

There are exceptions. Naturally...

Such as if it is an advanced style class where everyone is an experienced practitioner and the teacher's job is to demo poses along the way. 

But the traditional "26 & 2" or "Bikram" style class?

No. 

You do not practice while teaching.

The studios I have practiced at for the past few years here in Tucson allow teachers to practice while they teach. 

In fact, some of the classes are called "silent" ones where the whole purpose is for the teacher to practicee and silently lead the students through things. 

I hate it. And often do not really practice when I teach those.

I actually teach... Which is more than salling out poses.

It involves checking the humidity and heat throughout the class. Turning on fans when relevant. Opening the vent to push air out. 

Like last Thursday, when I taught the 5:45am class...

The teacher the night before had left the vent open to the room AND turned off the heating system. (The system has a timer. You shouldn't ever need to turn it off at all.) But I came into a very cold room. And I ended up leaving the humidifier on most of class because I couldn't get the temperatures up to where they needed to be. 

I know the thermometer says 64% humidity... But I actually let it get up to 85% in the class.

Afterwards the students said they preferred a more humid class with less heat when it is so early in the morning. The body is still waking up and not warmed up. 

Stretching is tough first thing!

 

So having more humidity helped loosen things up faster.

But I couldn't really practice and guide the 12 bodies in the room while also monitoring how to get the humidity and heat up efficiently while trying to squeeze everything into 60 minutes.

I have to teach a class to music this coming Saturday, which the teach normally practices in it.

But not me.

:)

I will lay down my mat and start some of the poses... But I will not be practicing with them.

There are too many things to monitor. And I am anal retentive about ending things on time.