111: Answering Student Questions: Teacher’s Series

Today hosts Tiffany and Rachel dive into the topic of student questions and share their thoughts on how to answer them. Student questions can be intimidating, prompting anxiety around whether we will be able to answer “correctly”, but so many positives can come from opening a dialogue with students actively seeking more information.

We talk about ways to handle student questions relating to pain, injury, and medical conditions, on pose alignment and progression, and around the choices you make as a teacher.

Listen to this episode to learn how to handle yoga student questions and maximize the positive outcomes that can stem from the resulting conversation.

“Sometimes it is important to say ‘I don’t know.’ It builds trust and confidence in your work as a teacher.” – Tiffany Cruikshank

“I am just a guide to help you find what is best for you.” – Tiffany Cruikshank

Show Notes:

• Anxiety around student questions and a suggested response [1:10]
• The myth of teacher x-ray vision [3:55]
• Answering student questions with questions of your own [6:41]
• Reading the situation around the question [9:00]
• Questions on pain and injury; how to say “I don’t know” [16:13]
• When a student flags pain or injury before class [25:55]
• Questions around alignment [30:50]
• Using questions as seeds for content [40:10]
• Questions around yoga teacher choices [41:15]
• How to handle tangential student questions [46:23]
• Final takeaways [51:13]

Links Mentioned:

• Watch this episode on YouTube

“We are evolving the practice to suit our needs and as modern day yogis we are applying it through a lens of anatomy and physiology and also the context of who this person is that we’re working with and trying it on for size to see what is most helpful for the person.” – Tiffany Cruikshank