I bet you’ve had the experience of walking out of a class feeling frustrated, unseen, picked on or unappreciated. I know I have. If you’re new to any sort of movement or fitness class, it’s especially disheartening. After all the stress of going into a new and kind of scary environment, you got slapped down. Or ignored. Or just felt really out of place.

In those situations you might want to fill in that blank in the title with some sort of expletive rather “yoga teacher” or “Pilates teacher.” :)

Whether you’re taking classes or private lessons there are some things to think about when working with a teacher that may help with some of that.

  1. First of all, good job making the effort to do this in the first place! It can be overwhelming to do a new thing, or even a thing you’re familiar with if you’re having some tough times. I take aerial classes regularly and sometimes it’s just not a good day. On those days my buddies and I will say something like, “We showed up, we did things! We’re calling it a win.”
  2. Think about what you want to get out of this experience. Do you like a good sweat? Or are you managing an injury and need some careful and precise instruction? Do you want to have fun or just some zen time to get away? Do you want a lot of individualized attention or do you want to be left alone with your experience? Is there something specific you’re trying to achieve? The more specific you can be about what you want to get out of your time with this teacher, and the more clearly you can communicate that to them, the better for both of you. Your teacher probably has a goal in mind as well and it may or may not match up well with your goal. Not every teacher is for every student at every point in life and it’s great to recognize when you’re just not a match quickly.
  3. Speaking of the teacher’s goals: Have you talked with them, or with others who have taken their classes or worked with them? Talking with the teacher about their background and training and what particularly lights them up can give you a sense of whether they’re right for you. (By the way, a good teacher should have a lot of training and/or a lot of experience, and they should love learning about their field! They may still not be right for you but those are key things to look for.) Talking with other students will tell you a lot about what people do and don’t like with that person and may give you another perspective.
  4. Keep an open mind and respect your teacher’s experience. Your teacher may have a different approach or a different way of talking about things than you are accustomed to. If they do have a lot of experience, they’ve been looking at different bodies doing these exercises for a long time. They have a trained eye for alignment details and a good general sense of helpful tools for specific issues or challenges. If you have a mixed first experience, remember they may have had a bad day. Try a few times to get over your first class jitters and get a better overall sense of the teacher’s style. Pay attention to whether or not your experiences with this teacher are helping you overall and giving you some kind of value. If you’re getting some value, but with glitches, try talking with your teacher about what is and isn’t working.
  5. But also, your teacher should always allow you autonomy over your own body. Regardless of what the teacher’s general experience has been, or what they’ve learned, you are the N=1, the one and only human in your continuously running life experiment. Your experience in your own body counts. And you ultimately are in charge of what’s right for you. A teacher may be more or less hands on, depending on their preference (and on whether we’re ever in person again), but they should always let you be in charge of what happens to your body and to the language you prefer in reference to your body.

It’s 100% okay to decide this teacher is not for you. Any good teacher will be happy for you to find what you need, even if it’s not with them; ideally, they’ll even be willing to help you find what you’re looking for! As teachers, we want people to enjoy the experience of working with us and the bottom line is we want people to be healthy.

What about you? Are there things you have particularly liked or disliked from fitness teachers? Are there particular things you check on with a new teacher that make a real difference in your experience?

copyright 2021 Autumn Needles Pilates and Fitness LLC