What Does It Mean To Be A Good Yoga Student?

There’s a lot of talk on the media platforms these days about what makes a good yoga teacher. But what about the other side of that equation? What makes a good yoga student? If you’re a teacher and you’ve taught yoga for a few years or more, you’ve likely had many great students. And, in that time, you’ve probably had a challenging student or two. But what makes the difference between a good student and the one who makes you reconsider why you started teaching yoga at all? In this article, we’ll explore what makes a good yoga student and how, as students and teachers, we can navigate the sometimes uncomfortable experience of learning new things in a healthy way.

Qualities of a good yoga student

A yoga student is simply someone who shows up to a yoga class. But a good student shows up with:

• Curiosity
• Openness and willingness to learn
• Respect for the process, the teacher, and the other students in the room
• Intention and attention

Curiosity

Good teachers love curious students! We love interesting questions. They remind us what it is like to be a beginner and even prompt us to think about yoga and the specific practices we do in new ways. Curiosity helps keep the energy up in the class for everyone.

If you’re a student, share your curiosities about yoga with your teacher! Something got you interested in yoga. What brought you to that first class? Was it a friend who raved about their favorite yoga class, something you read, or just a broader curiosity to try something new? Whatever it was, something sparked that initial curiosity. As teachers, we’d love to know what got you interested in yoga and what you’re still curious about. This helps us tailor your practice to your interests and engage with you in a more meaningful way.

Openness and willingness to learn

We’ve probably all heard those mythological stories of the aspiring yoga student traveling to some far-flung place, only to be ignored on the prospective teacher’s doorstep for days, just to prove their enthusiasm for learning. Is that what I mean by showing up with openness and enthusiasm? No.

Part of being a good student is honestly acknowledging where we are in our stages of practice. If you’re brand new at yoga, then there is simply a lot you don’t know yet. And, the only way you’re genuinely going to garner that knowledge is through experience. And that means being willing to try things and explore.

Getting started

When we begin any new practice, we don’t know what we don’t know. We all start there. This is a potentially vulnerable time. As a practitioner, we have to seek out supportive, knowledgeable teachers to get us started and set us off in a healthy, informative direction. But since we’re new at this, we don’t have a lot of experience to judge a teacher’s knowledge. So, we have to make a guess, trust the teacher and the process to some degree, and just get started.

At the skill-giving stage on day one, you’re initially just learning some vocabulary to work with. You can’t go deeper or work with more complex concepts until you have some initial foundational understanding of postures and theory to work with. So on day one, as long as it doesn’t hurt, feel injurious, or feel unsafe in some way, just try the basics as they’re taught.

Retaining your agency

However, that doesn’t mean giving away your own agency or allowing harm. Good teachers want to see their students thrive. They want to empower their students with the physical skills and decision-making process skills to take ownership of their own practice. They don’t want students to become dependent on them.

So, as you explore yoga, openness to learning may mean trying a pose in a different way than you’ve done before. It likely means exploring what you notice with the new approach over some days or weeks before you come to any conclusions about the impacts of the change. But, it also means staying in communication with your teacher about what you feel and what you notice. Good teachers welcome that kind of dialogue and want the shaping of a student’s yoga practice to be a collaboration between student and teacher.

Respect for the process

Learning is a long-term journey with lots of twists and turns. There is no end to learning in yoga. Good yoga teachers have a plan for unfolding the complexities of yoga in a way that is healthy and goes in a direction. They have goals for their students that relate specifically to students as individuals and respect their interests, fitness, and their level of engagement in yoga. Good students respect that their teacher has a big-picture plan in mind. But, they aren’t afraid to ask why when they want a better understanding of the reasons for the suggestions their teacher is making. If you’re confused, find your teacher’s instructions unclear, or are simply curious about where all this is going, ask your teacher! Good teachers are willing and able to explain the “why” behind their suggestions and directions.

Attention

Good yoga students recognize that everyone in class is in mid-process. Everyone is in their own place along the yoga path. That includes the teacher and the other students in a class. For that reason, a good yoga student will practice keeping their attention on their own mat. Good teachers see and work with each student’s needs and offer guidance specific to that person. That means that inevitably, some students in a class will be doing different variations of a pose, possibly different postures altogether. Postures may look very different in someone else’s body, and some aspects of yoga practice will be easier, harder, slower to change, or faster to evolve for the other students around you. A good yoga student practices keeping their attention on their experience, goals, and needs, rather than comparing themselves to others.

Intention

The student-teacher relationship best supports students when both the student and teacher are clear about their intentions. Big picture, as a student, what are you interested in learning? How invested in studying yoga are you? There is not a single right answer to those questions, but good teachers will meet you where you are. If you’re new to exploring yoga, you might not be sure what your long-term intentions are yet. That’s okay! As you spend more time with your yoga practice and develop a clearer sense of where you’re interested in investing time and energy, share these insights with your teacher. It will help them help you in your practice.