266 - Demoing vs. Observing: Finding Balance

Paying attention to students is crucial for effecting teaching. Demoing is important, too, but it shouldn't overshadow student observation. Today we explore some ways to find the balance, and I share with you what I call my "95% rule."  

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The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie (00:01.07)
Hello, my loves. Welcome back to the podcast where we talk about the practice of paying attention as you have just heard in the intro. And today is going to be such a relevant conversation for this. I would like to bring something that I shared on social media to the podcast and give it some more words. And it very much has to do with paying attention as a teacher. So, are you ready jump in?

This is especially for those people who are yoga teachers. So get ready to share this podcast. I think these are both really important things. I'm gonna be talking about how much we're watching our students and about demoing. And there is a lot of opinions, but not just opinions, there's a lot of feelings that people have around this. I think there's a lot of shame that people might feel, a lot of pressure people feel.

And there's a lot of, I want to put air quotes around the word rules about watching your students and queuing, because that's just part of a queuing conversation and demoing. So all of those things kind of combined, that's what we're going to be diving into today. So you ready? Let's do it. Okay. So my take on watching your students is the 95 % rule.

And so I say in flow school all the time, heads up flow school, online flow school is going to be beginning the last week of February. And as you are listening to this, at the time that this podcast is shared, then flow school is open for registration for online. And there's some exciting things that are happening for this upcoming flow school. It's eight weeks. We have class on Wednesday mornings. Well, Wednesday, Pacific time, we have class on Wednesdays and we have lab on Fridays. So a little bit of a new format, but it's gonna be so good.

So good, so transformational. So, Flow School, heads up that that is now available. But in Flow School, not but in Flow School, you're gonna hear me talk about the 95 % rule. And that means that I am trying to watch my students 95 % of the time. That is my goal. If I can watch my students 95 % of the time,

Bonnie (02:18.956)
then I'm paying attention to how things are landing. Am I saying words that make sense? Who's struggling? Who needs more attention? How is that person doing over there, right? If we don't watch who's in the room, it will be really difficult to learn how to teach better, because we won't even know how our teaching is landing. And there is a balance of...

of trust in this, where we are trusting our students to show up and take care of themselves. And also, they don't know what the hell they're doing. Like we're asking them to come and to practice yoga where maybe it's the one class a week they come to. Maybe it's the one class a month or a year and we don't even know. And maybe it's somebody we see every day, five days a week, right? And they're coming, but we don't know what they just were doing last night. We don't know who they are now today. And even if they've been coming, we don't necessarily know.

them all the time. Like we can think we do, but there's still a deeper dive to have. so having this experience of watching them and really tuning in to how you're being received in the room, which can sometimes be deceptive, I am zero. I am zero for asking people to like smile for my own benefit because...

I want people to be able to relax their face, unmask themselves. They don't need to show up to yoga class and wear any particular sort of joy on their face for the practice and for what they're doing in order for me to be satisfied. Because really my satisfaction is going to come from them actually showing up and having the experience that they want to have. I am there as a facilitator and their sense of peace does not...

mean that they need to smile for me. And sometimes that can be tricky as a teacher as we are watching people, because that is part of this experience of watching people, is that they might look like they're not having a pleasant experience. They might look confused. They might look like they are interpreting that we are a terrible teacher and they're super bored in class and etc, etc, etc. And we can layer a whole bunch of stories on students as teachers.

Bonnie (04:38.508)
So we have to not do that first. We have to say they chose to be here, they could walk out the room right now. And we have to be okay with letting people walk out of the room, because it might not be the place that they need to be. And truly trusting that, truly trusting that. And opening our palm. And letting them be autonomous and sovereign, letting them make their own decisions and just showing up there and holding the space if that's the space for them to be in and being okay with that, right?

Okay, so in this experience, in this 95 % rule where I'm saying, I want to watch my students, this is then where I really can have the experience of, is my cueing landing? Are they understanding? Where do I need to spend more time? Where do I need to spend less time actually? I'm like, they already have that. I'm saying too many words, right?

It also gives the opportunity to personalize it and say, you're doing a great job, Mary. Yeah, Sam, exactly. I love the way you personalized that. Yes, Bob, 100%, Samantha, A plus, right? Ebony, yes, I love what you're doing there. Right, so say, like you're able to see people, you're able to be with them. And that is so my hope as a teacher is to be with you.

to be with you, feel like you're having this experience that I have your back. I'm here with you. And that even listening to this podcast, if you're listening to this and you're a teacher and you're thinking, oh, I don't do this or I do do this or whatever, as I have things that I've said or that I will continue to say, that we have to also like set down any shame, right? We are here and you're listening to this podcast, you're like, okay.

Let's go, let's dive in, let's like be better, let's do better, let's see what's underneath this and that and who am I today and what kind of teacher can I become? And it's not about right or wrong, it's about continuing to ask questions and being courageous enough to ask questions and to lean into curiosity more than leaning into fear.

Bonnie (06:58.711)
So.

with the 95 % rule, this does not mean that I am not demoing, that is not what it's about, right? So if you are teaching, this means that if you're demoing and you're standing in warrior two, you could be in that practice and warrior two, the very typical sort of eye gaze for warrior two is looking over your front fingers.

Now, some people practice the mirror at the front of the room and the teacher mat is in line and parallel with the other students' mats. And sometimes teachers with a mirror in front of them then look into the mirror and then they see students and it's all through reflection. So then it might make sense for you to look forward at your fingertips. But if your mat is set up perpendicular to the students' mats, if you look towards your fingers as the traditional gaze, which it does not have to be the case for Voyeur 2, Voyeur 2 will still count, even if you look down at your back foot, right?

or up at the ceiling or sideways, it will still count or close your eyes. But for you as a teacher, if you're looking forward at your fingers as you're queuing warrior two and what to do, and the whole time you're looking forward at your fingers, you are missing who's in the room. So there's a part of the experience of teaching that's paying less attention to you and more of who's in the room.

So if you're teaching warrior two, strike the warrior two stance that you want to teach. Maybe gaze forward at your fingers, but then quickly gaze right back at your students. See what they are doing. All right, so this is one example. You can apply that to so many other poses as well.

Bonnie (08:42.944)
is your head down. If you're in a pose with your head down, downer facing dog, a forward fold, so many things, dolphin. If your head is down and their heads are down, they can't see you. You don't need to demo that and you can't see them. And so I think those points were like, yeah, that's right. They can't see us. And I remember a teacher pointing that out to me and saying like, we don't need to

demo here because they can't see us. You just watch them and then mimic it. This also pertains to if you have your students turn all the way around on the mat so they're facing backwards and you're still demoing on the front of the room on your mat, you gotta get off your mat. You have to get off your mat and go walk to the bathroom. You don't need a mat there. Go squeeze between people. You just go to the back wall. Demo if you need to demo. Teach from the back of the room.

So if you're having a hard time getting off your mat, then this can be an excellent way to help you do it. Sequence a turnaround flow on purpose and then make yourself walk to the back of the room and stand there, squeeze between other people's mats and be with them. Then also if they turn sideways, go to the side that they're facing, right? If you wanna teach Skandhasana, have them go Skandhasana, you go on the side of the room where

they are facing rather than them having to crane their neck and look over to the side. At some points in the room, that might be easy to look at the front room, other people, they're gonna have to turn and look sideways. So go to the side or the back of the room where the students are, that can be a really helpful way to get off your mat. And so this is not necessarily a convo of like how much time you should or should not spend on your mat demoing. I do think that it's really helpful for students to have teachers walk the room.

And also is very helpful for students to have demoing and to have the visual representation of what is happening. It also though depends on the type of class that's being taught. If it's a Yin class where you're just like chilling for so long, you have a lot of time to get in and out of things, right? So that class is gonna be demoed differently. If you're going through a class, I'll take mine for example, if you're going into my class where I'm teaching you to move to a peak flow experience.

Bonnie (11:03.182)
We're gonna do some tricky transitions. You're gonna have brain games. I weave together flow in ways that is not seen very much. As part of what is so exciting about flow school is helping teachers find new ways to express the yoga practice. It's still yoga. We use yoga postures, but we reorder them. We find ways to weave them together and make the transitions even more important than they are.

very typically in traditional yoga and how the transitions and the poses be balanced together. And so with that, it brings a different experience of flow. It is very important for people who come to my classes to see me move. It really is because of the way that I'm funking it up. So demoing is important. The 95 % rule does not mean no demoing.

Or it does not mean that we're not demoing 95 % of the time. That's not what the 95 % rule of watching your students means. It means that you're going to demo and you're going to watch your students 95 % of the time. And if you're not demoing, you're still watching your students because then you can see if things are landing. This is why I'm a huge proponent of preparing your classes before you go in to teach them. Yes, we need the skill to be able to impromptu teach a class. Yes.

We need to be able to look at who's in the room and tweak our class plans. But I'm gonna go in with a plan. It helps me be more creative if I go in. It makes me feel like I know how to progress things. It also helps me know, wait a second, I can sit with that flow and say, this is tricky here. This is a tricky pose and tricky transition. How do I teach this in the least demanding way first? And then give them options if they want more.

If I haven't done that work before I'm in the room, y'all, it is hard to do it on the spot because in the moment of teaching a class, you're trying to remember all of their names. You're trying to remember what side you're on. You're trying to be like, what is the music too loud? Am I competing with the music? Do I need to turn it down? Wait, the heat is there. Do I need to dim the lights now? Great, okay, cool. Wait, what part of the sequence am I on? And.

Bonnie (13:16.674)
wow, these pants are kind of uncomfortable. Wait, what are they doing over there? And that person's totally lost and this person, okay, no, that's okay, great, right? We have so many things happening in our heads that if at the same time you're trying to design class in the moment of the thing, of course, this does not pertain to anybody who is given a sequence that you're like, is...

sequence right like a hot 26 sequence or a baptiste sequence or ashtanga sequence like there's sequences where this is the sequence you teach so this doesn't necessarily pertain because you're given the sequence and how you teach it is going to come out in that particular order but with your own voice in it so this is specifically for those people who are creating new classes who are creating flow classes that are not a rote script

and a certain order of poses that need to be taught.

And so if you are in that process of trying to build a flow in the moment of the thing, then it can be really easy to drop into your own personal yoga asana practice, where that's not what we're trying to do. As teachers, class time isn't the practicing yoga asana time, it is the practicing teaching time. And I...

I definitely don't count the practice of yoga as my time when I'm teaching. And I know that sometimes teachers were like, okay, actually this is what I'm getting my movement in. We are definitely gonna be moving as teachers. We're also leading the room. It is a different experience. And because I define yoga as the practice of paying attention, right? If you're showing up as a teacher and you're paying attention to your students and you're showing up in the room, you're practicing yoga.

Bonnie (15:09.486)
But the asana practice, so you're gonna demo it, you're practicing yoga. Like what counts? This is like a good conversation to say, what counts as practicing yoga? Is you doing demoing part of the time practicing yoga? Yes, it is. Do you need to practice the entire class in order to call it like counted as, okay, I got my yoga practice? And no. If you strike a couple of poses in front of your stove while you're cooking some noodles, like is that practice? Yeah.

It is. If you spend 15 minutes before bed doing some slow stretches and having the moment with yourself and feeling into the end of your day, is that practicing yoga? Yeah, it is.

So I think that's important to say because.

Bonnie (16:03.714)
When we practice and when we are a student of the asana practice versus the teacher of the asana practice, it is a different experience. And yes, movement is so important and teaching and movement, it is important to do movement that is not just yoga as well. It's important to strength train. It's so important for yogis to strength train y'all. Like, now learn how to deadlift, learn how to grow the strength of your entire backside body.

to learn how to hold heavy things in your hands. Like this is so important for your body today, for your body as it ages, for your ability to get on and off the ground. Getting on and off the ground is something that should be taught even more in yoga classes. Yeah, it's hard. I like teaching people how to do that and in a lot of different ways and how to scale it and how to move it at a speed that a lot of abilities and experiences can like practice, absolutely. So a couple things.

There's a lot of visual learners in our classes. I love watching people. I'm like, wait, just let me watch you again. Okay, now let me practice it. Okay, now let me watch you again. So that can be really helpful. And we also don't know who's hard of hearing. I have definitely had students come up to me at the end of class, sharing how they had to watch a lot because they actually couldn't hear well out of one or both ears. Knowing that as well, it's important to...

position those people where the music isn't super loud. I am such a proponent for not competing with the music. I'll turn the music up and down all the time. It is more important for those students to hear what I'm saying so they can understand where they're even moving and what the invitation is. And then once we have the flow of it a little bit, right? Once we've done it a couple of times, I can turn the music up and then we can drop into that experience. it can totally work. Just don't compete with the music, right?

and I really do funk it up. I funk it up and I love it and it's important for me to demo and to have a teacher, Matt, and to be able to show up with the students and to mess it up and to show the different options. And as a teacher, when you're demoing, demo the easiest thing.

Bonnie (18:24.928)
If you're telling people to go ahead and use blocks for this, but then you never use blocks, how are they going to know how to use the blocks? Maybe you use blocks every time. Maybe you show it once how you use it without. then other people think, okay, that's how you use the blocks because students don't know actually how to use the blocks unless we show them how to do it. So a couple things for demoing though is that

because it goes hand in hand with cueing. Cueing for me is clear, concise, commanding, and compassionate. And cueing...

With cueing, we are trying to really say less, better. And the order that we give our cues in matters. It can make things more or less confusing. This is a big part of flow school. This is like two days a week. All of Fridays for online flow school is CueLab. And in person, you get the whole thing. But in online, it's CueLab, right?

clear, concise, commanding, compassionate. How do we hold the room and how does our holding and owning of, knowing exactly where we're gonna go, help our students drop into the trust of saying, ooh, this is kind of tricky, ooh, this is a little bit hard, I don't know where I'm going, but that teacher, that teacher has, she's got it, he's got it, they've got it. So I can release a little bit of my fear or not knowing.

because I can feel that they know where we're going. So I can trust that. So cueing is important. It is part of the experience. And cueing does not mean not demoing. I think the tricky part is, that, and it comes with learning how to teach, is that sometimes when there's demoing, it can be really easy to get lost in the feeling of the practice as a teacher.

Bonnie (20:37.186)
And so we have to pull ourselves out of the feeling of us in the flow so we can really pay attention to who's in the room and how they are in the flow. So it's a little bit of a separation in your brain where you have to have done the work preparing the class so that then you can show up in the room and deliver it and where you have felt it prior to that moment so you know the feeling of it so you can actually help other people have the feeling of it.

And so that's where it can get a little bit sticky sometimes when we are coming to class and we can get stuck on our mats because we are so trying to be in the feeling of it. And we want to unshame this and say, if you are learning how to teach and you're learning how to guide people in this, it is gonna be a process and you might feel glued to your mat and you're like, I will die if I get off my mat.

I won't be totally lost. How am going to do this? How to remember which side is which, like if I'm not in it. So that can be a whole learning process. So I get it. And also, even if you're demoing, even if you're in the flow, watch your students. Your head is turned sideways the entire time. You are looking in their eyes the entire time. If you were to watch me in my online studio, you can...

Practice with me. have like over 400 classes in my online studio called Studio B. I have slow flow classes, I have power flows. My power flows are going to a peak flow. They're not your typical power flow class. So you can practice with me there. You will find that I look at the camera very directly because I'm looking at you. I am there with you. That is how I teach. I am with people. I want to see their eyes. And so part of this practice too is like you have to be seen.

You're gonna be at the front of the room and you have to be seen.

Bonnie (22:30.478)
For studios, some studios make it a hard rule that there is no demoing allowed. And I think that is unfortunate. I understand the sentiment behind it of wanting teachers to really get off their mat and to really refine queuing and to not maybe be in the practice. yes, but like the and part of this is I was working with one of my mentees, the client, and

She, as a yoga teacher, was inviting friends to one of her classes. And her friends are not very familiar with yoga. And her friends knew that it was a rule in the studio that...

people that the teachers were not able to demo anything in class. And this teacher's friends were uncomfortable coming to yoga class because they didn't know what they were gonna be doing. And they felt apprehensive about showing up. They felt nervous because they didn't want to, they didn't wanna look dumb in yoga class.

And if they just had to follow off of somebody's words when they were very new to yoga and they didn't know what was happening and they just had to figure it out by watching other people or trying to listen to the teachers say words that they didn't even know, they were really overwhelmed. And so what this teacher did was invited them to her house ahead of time so that she could teach them the flow in her own house.

so they would have the experience of it before they went to the class. So then they would feel comfortable in the class.

Bonnie (24:20.664)
Friends, that does not seem like the way.

If people are so nervous to come to yoga class because they will not know what to do, that they are reaching out to their teacher friends to practice in their living rooms before they come to class, that doesn't seem like the way.

I feel like a studios, how do we do that better? That's not a place that people feel comfortable with dropping into. And I know this is not the experience of everybody. And some people are like, I don't care. I'm just going to go try it and we'll just figure it out. And that's going to be true too, right? So there's always an and, but knowing that there's an and of people saying like, I'm not going to come because nobody is showing me what to do. I don't have anybody to watch.

Bonnie (25:15.96)
We should not be having to show our friends and students, we should not be having to show our students ahead of class what we're gonna do in class so that they feel confident enough to be able to come to class.

They're coming to class to learn. And what are the many ways to learn and to teach? I think we can do better.

And I understand the sentiment too, right? So I think there's more nuance to lean into. And there's practice teaching, right? And sometimes if you're forced into a position where you cannot demo, then as teacher, you're gonna have to like put on queuing really heavily, but then there's not always the support of like, what does that actually mean? Again, come to Flow School, right? Even if just for QLab. So teachers, watch.

your students. And part of this is also thinking about how to workshop in class. We can get really in the groove of, you know, what we do and what we always do in yoga, but sometimes there's a moment where we can workshop and teach a certain posture or transition or posture plus transition. And a way that I will do that sometimes is this pretty, pretty far into class often. We're pretty warmed up, but I will find

kind of a position from where we're at. Let's say I have everybody I say, come to your knees, sit up on your knees, grab a drink and watch me. And that's what I say and watch me. So they're grateful to have a little pause moment and I will tell them we've been doing X, Y, Z and we've been doing PDQ and we're going to weave those things together. We're going to weave them together through the letter

Bonnie (27:08.16)
D.

And then I will show them what D is. And I will show them different ways to do D to weave X by Z and PDQ together.

and then I will do it as I say it and they're watching. That's how we do it first.

I do it and I say it as they're watching.

and I do it at least once on each side. Then I say, we're gonna practice just this part. Then they do it while I do it and I say it and I'm watching. And we go through it a couple of times. And I'm demoing several different versions of the thing because I have thought through how to do this. What am I really asking people to do?

Bonnie (28:00.856)
They're getting to point this, to point that, and what is the simplest, easiest way to do it, and then how can they ramp it up from there if they want something more. And then after they do that, then I'm like, okay, try it on both sides twice, and I'm walk the room. Let me know if you have any questions, and I will walk the room, and I'm there with people, and I'm looking at them, and then I can pop down next to somebody and give them the pointers and the cues to do the thing and how to do it. And I can also say during this whole thing, I said, and.

If you're stoked to just sit there and watch, great. Take a moment, take a break.

So letting there be a workshop moment in class or maybe you teach something in particular and you on purpose say, watch me. And then you cue it and you let them see how to do it. And then you do it with them as you're guiding them. And then you just let them do it and then you can walk around and help them. So it's like a little workshop moment in class. Now, if you're teaching an hour long class, a workshop moment goes very fast, right? There's not a lot of time.

You've got to know what that is ahead of time and how to scale it ahead of time.

Bonnie (29:15.886)
There is nuance in all of this. There are some classes that are going to look one way and some classes that are going to look another way. You're to have the exact same people and at one time they might need one thing another they might need a different thing. You're going to be different as a teacher. Always. Over and over. And so there's always an and. There's always an it depends. But in general

Watch your students 95 % of the time. And that does not mean not demoing. It means that we're gonna be paying attention to our students and trying to meet the needs of those in the room while also challenging them to tap into their movement and their feeling. Because ultimately we're trying to help them have an experience to move, to breathe and to rest. That's all we have to do. Help them move and breathe and rest. That's it.

That's it. Thank you for being a teacher. Thank you for wanting to refine your craft of teaching and letting yourself, giving yourself permission to be a learner in the process. Because y'all, I don't know any other job that like, if you're gonna teach something, you all learn it over and over again, and you're gonna refine it over and over again, you're gonna repeat the same class over and over again, so that you learn how to cue it. Like that's so important actually. Even if you're,

creating your own vinyasa classes, repeat that class, teach it more than once, please. You're gonna learn how to cue it because you're gonna watch your people and then you're gonna teach it again. You're like, I remember that. I totally didn't help them do that. I know classes where I was watching people and I realized I didn't think ahead of time of how to scale something. And I felt some students. I'm sure I still probably will because that's part of the practice.

It's part of the practice of being a teacher is seeing where you can write, refine what you're doing, how you can do it better. Once you know better, how do you do it better? So I get it. I'm there with you.

Bonnie (31:29.102)
We're out here, we're trying to do great. We're trying to help people tap into themselves and help them figure out what paying attention in their lives mean. Because we know that we're here and we're teaching yoga because it has shifted something in us. It has changed, it has helped us grow. It is helping shape us still into the people that we are proud of.

become. Thank you for being a teacher.

Come to Flow School, join me online. Start the last week of February as this podcast is being shared. There's also in-person coming up in 2025. I will be going to Vancouver, BC. There's gonna be an opportunity to join me in London and then also in Portland. So check out the in-person Flow School website and then updates will be shared there for dates when they, as soon as they are available, which is hopefully ASAP.

Okay, loves, message me if you have any questions. I would love to hear your takeaway on this. Share this on socials, tag me. I wanna hear your feedback. Email me, helloatbonnieweeks.com or message me on the gram and thank you for teaching. Thank you for being brave and curious and being here with me.