My short teaching career has consisted of week after week of planting seeds and waiting for them to grow. Each carefully planted seed—a call to a school, a strategically-placed flier, an random email to youth organizations, had seemed to be fruitless. For months, I spent more money on parking my car for the hour I taught my very small classes of four or five students (on a good day) every week. It was a good investment. Suddenly, I have an entire yoga garden!

It finally seems that my days of wishing and waiting, hoping and dreaming for students have come to an end. The number of students in my classes has doubled overnight.

Yesterday, I had a whopping five new students as well as a couple second-timers I hadn't seen in months in addition to my regulars. You could've knocked me over with a feather. Their faces were so bright and shining with enthusiasm and eagerness. The usual shy, awkward pre-class environment was alive with chatter and momentum. As I sat before my students waiting to start class, one of the new students demonstrated her own version of a pose that looked like something like a cross between Bakasana (Crow Pose) and Tripod Headstand. She then began to instruct her friend (another new student) on how to come into this pose. I took that as my cue to start class.

It didn't take me long to realize that a robust class full of excited 15-year-old girls was going to bring with it a whole new list of robust teaching challenges.

Here it is:

Classroom Etiquette. I'm sure this is an issue in every beginning yoga class, but I think with teenagers it's particularly hard to address without coming across as preachy. (They at preached at all day long at school, and I'd like to give them a break.) I'm going to have to come up with a subtle, clever way of getting across this idea: "If you come into class late and can see that we're in the middle of seated meditation, please don't scream out, 'What's UP!' to announce your arrival.

So Many Bodies, So Little Time. Beginners need more adjustments to keep them in alignment. Unfortunately, they can't hold poses for as long, so it's impossible to offer everyone the adjustments they need. This is when a classroom assistant could come in handy, but until then I have to be really specific and clear about the way I bring students into and out of poses so everyone is safe and learning.

New Bodies. Up until a couple of weeks ago, most of my students were of comparable fitness levels. Many of them also took dance lessons or played sports and had good body awareness for beginning yoga students. This isn't the case anymore. I have students who are flexible, but not so strong. I have students who are strong, but get winded easily. And I have students who struggle with even the most basic poses. Adjusting my teaching to include everyone—without boring to tears the students who have been coming to my classes for months—is going to take some practice.

I have many more thoughts running through my mind right now, but I realize I will be likely be working on these three challenges for years to come. Any advice you might have for me will be much appreciated!