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Have you ever noticed that yoga teachers really LOVE it when students ask them questions they know an answer for? I haven't quite figured out if we just get questions we don't have answers for so often that we get a little too excited when we actually have a response that might be useful to someone or if it's just an ego thing, but I've been in way too many classes where teachers have just gone on and on (and on) answering one student's question while everyone else sat silently, staring at their toes.

"Oh! You have SI issues! Allow me to tell you (and everyone else waiting for class to begin) EVERYTHING i know about the SI Joint! ... You see, I was reading my anatomy book last week when my SI joint flared up and I found out that sometimes it has to do with a tight psoas. Then I talked to my physical therapist about it .... Let's have you march in place for a minute, so I can show you (and, again, everyone else in the room) what I know."

At this point, all of the other students are waiting politely and genuinely trying to get something out of the demonstration (even though it has nothing to do with them at all), and the poor student who asked the question wants to crawl under a rock. I know this because I ask a lot of questions.

Sometimes the lessons you learn from other teachers aren't particularly positive. Sometimes you learn what NOT to do. As a teacher, I intend to answer only the question that was asked of me, and in a succinct fashion. There is such a thing as too much information.

What things have you learned NOT to do from your teachers?

P.S. Here's an article from Yoga Journal's My Yoga Mentor email newsletter about incorporating silence into your teaching. Silence as a Teaching Tool (http://www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/2433)

There are many poses I avoid teaching to my class because the poses are too advanced for the students. And then there are those poses that I omit because, well, I hate them. These are the poses that when they come around in classes that I'm a student, seem like the perfect opportunity to take a break to adjust my pony tail or my yoga pants because that will cut the pose short by at least a breath or two. Then, when I actually make it into the pose, I might be so uncomfortable and frustrated by it I'll mumble profanities under my breath (or at least in my head).

It's not that I intentionally leave out Revolved Triangle and Revolved Half Moon Pose from my class sequences. It's just that when I'm teaching, my mind tends to go to poses that I think would feel good in the moment, and I never think those poses feel good.

I think there are valid reasons for not teaching poses that are like torture. First of all, the last thing I want to do is pass on my disdain for a pose to a group of students who haven't had enough experience with it to form an opinion. And since I don't practice those poses much myself, I may not be able to guide others to find the essence of the pose.

However, if I always omit poses I don't like, my students might never get to experience them—and the joys and frustrations that come with them. I could be depriving them of a pose they desperately need!

So I'm wondering, how do you know when you should teach a pose you hate and when to skip it?

This is an email I wrote to send to my students as an attempt to inspire them to come to my next yoga class. I thought I'd share it with you. DISCLAIMER: It's meant to be fun and playful, not totally serious.

10 Reasons to Do Yoga

1. You noticed your shoulders creeping up toward your ears . . . again. Yoga helps manage physical, mental, and emotional signs of stress.

2. Your yoga mat really brings out the color in your eyes. ;)

3. If someone gives you one more thing to do you feel like your head might explode. Yoga lets you slow down, take deep breaths, and encourages you to do one thing at a time.

4. You're worried about the state of the world. You can make an impact simply by setting an intention, taking care of yourself, and emitting a positive energy into the universe.

5. If you ever want to touch your foot to the top of your head, you better start practicing now.

6. You ate pizza and popcorn for dinner last night. The increased awareness yoga class brings will spill over into other areas of your life—just like the soda you spilled onto your keyboard while you were checking your email.

7. A yoga studio is the perfect place to pick up girls. (If picking up girls isn't your thing, it's also a really great opportunity to make new friends.)

8. Two words: Yoga Butt. You can be of "those people" who look fabulous spandex. And even if you're not, a regular yoga practice will bring out all of your most beautiful features—inside and out.

9. It will make you more popular. Trust me. People will like being around you more when you're calm, balanced, serene, and uplifted from your postyoga buzz.

10. A Monday yoga class will set the tone for a great week! It takes just an hour to align your body, mind, breath, and spirit.

Once upon a time, in a far away land, a college student sat down at her local Barnes and Noble to flip through Yoga Journal for the first time. She wouldn't dare actually buy the publication, much less anything advertised within it's pages because, frankly, yoga classes were expensive enough. The articles were about massage, organic food, and exotic yoga vacations. Puzzled, the student (OK, it was me) scowled, closed the magazine, and placed it back on the shelf thinking, "Who has the time, money, and dedication to live that kind of lifestyle?"

Fast forward a few years, and today I sit in my Yoga Journal cubical. I do yoga during my lunch break (or when I get home) daily. I get a chair massage once a month. I avoid buying lunch at the salad bar down the street because their kale is not organic. I just had three yoga books delivered to my desk (literally the office manager just handed me the box). I plan to read them during my exotic, tropical vacation in a couple of weeks. (The trip is a special occasion, but you get my point.) I regularly discuss my new Sacroiliac Joint injury or my tired, achy muscles with my yoga friends. They always have new ailments, too.

The argument for expensive yoga classes, monthly massages, Ayurvedic consultations, retreats, conferences, organic food, and trendy yoga clothes is a good one. Health should to be a top priority, and the mindfulness encouraged during a yoga class helps me get there. A heightened awareness of the foods I put into our bodies and my physical weak points should help me live a longer, more fulfilled life, right? And if I don't take care of myself first, how am ever going to have the energy to take care of anybody else and make the world a better place?

The alternate view: I'm spoiled. Rotten. It's all in the name of a healthy, mindful, conscious lifestyle. And it all started with yoga.

Which view is right? When does living a conscious, healthy lifestyle cross the line and turn into a selfish, pampered, princess lifestyle? Do yoga students have a heightened awareness of their intuition and physical pain or are we just whinier?

After my first experience as a yoga sub, I couldn't wait for my next attempt. If there's one thing I love more than a perfectly aligned pose, it's a second opportunity to redeem myself after I've failed miserably. Luckily, this week the asanas AND the stars aligned for the class I was subbing. It was one of the most fun teaching experiences I'd ever had. Ever!

Unlike last week, I knew when class was scheduled to end, so I planned accordingly. Some of the students who were there to witness my not-so-great class the week before actually came back for more (so it must not have been THAT bad). As an added bonus, one of the students had brought his son with him (so a potential new client for my teen class!) Yay!

I didn't even freak out when one of the students approached me before class to tell me she was in early stages of a pregnancy. (Let me reiterate that one of the reasons I love teaching kids is that I don't really have to worry so much about such things, so it really is quite amazing that I kept my cool.) I just told her what I knew and made sure she knew to modify anything that didn't feel quite right. It ended up being completely fine and she could still do most of the class normally.

In fact, I left the class thinking about how nice it might be to be a full-time sub. Substitutes get all the great reward of teaching—the experience, the paycheck, the warm fuzzy feeling you get from knowing you're helping people. Plus, you get practice modifying for all kinds of injuries and medical conditions, and meet so many more amazing people because you're teaching in varied time slots.

I think the best reason to sub, however , may be that if you put all your energy into doing a great job teaching, you don't have to do all the constant marketing it takes to build your own student base from scratch—something that I loathe. Marketing is the regular teacher's job. As a sub, you just have to show up, do your thing, and bask in the glory! It's brilliant! Anybody need a sub?

Have any of you tested by "full-time sub" theory?

I've never subbed for another teacher before. It's not that I haven't had the opportunity. I was just too scared. Why? All of the students would be total strangers to me, which means I don't know the level of their practice or their injuries. If my teaching style is different from the teacher I'm subbing for, I run the risk of surprising or upsetting the regulars (and I know they'll tell on me when their teacher returns). And let me count the ways adult classes are different from my teen classes. Many of these, I realize, are preconceived notions and generalizations.

1. Adults pay for their classes themselves, not their parents. So they have something invested other than time, and probably even more upset if you don't give them what they think they've paid for.
2. Grown-ups are more likely to be averse to change. Teenagers kind of go with the flow.
3. Adults are stiffer, and thus more fragile, than kids.
4. They have way more injuries and health complications. (The possibility that my teenagers will be pregnant or recovering from a surgery is very slim.)
5. Adults have had the opportunity to do a lot more yoga (and some of them probably know more about it than I do). They will know, and judge me, when I mess up.
6. Adult classes are an hour and a half, my teen classes are an hour. (More on this later.)

So for a very long time, when the opportunity to sub came up. I just wasn't interested. But all of that changed a couple of weeks ago when I got an email from another teacher at my studio who needed a sub for her Saturday morning class. Despite my reservations, I thought a Saturday morning class would be a blast so I agreed, thinking "What's the worst that could happen?"

Well, let me tell you.

I wasn't prepared. I didn't have change. (At my studio we act as the cashier as well as the teacher.) I was nervous. My sequence was all wrong—too many Sun Salutes and energizing poses. I said right when I meant left. All of this is par for the course when you sub a class because you don't know what/who to expect. The biggest mistake of all. I looked up at the clock, and thinking I had ten minutes left in class set them up for a restorative pose. When the students settled into the Supported Child's Pose, I realized that the class wasn't supposed to be over for another half an hour. Oops!

I totally PANICKED! Once you get students into a restorative pose, you can't take them out and have them do active poses again. And even though restorative poses are great, it's not really what you want the focus of a class to be at 10:30 in the morning! But I already had them there, so we did two restorative poses for ten minutes each, then had a long Savasana (Final Corpse Pose).

However, the students' reactions to my mistakes were another surprise. (Trust me, I did not hide them well.) They were anything but judgmental and disappointed. All I saw on their faces was empathy, and maybe just a hint of pity. When they gathered up their belongings to leave the studio, they expressed gratitude for the time to rest. Phew! So even though I messed up (big time), I consider my first experience as a sub a success.

Have you ever had a subbing experience go terribly wrong? What makes a great sub stand out from a not-so-great sub?

I had low expectations for my class yesterday. Last week, not one student showed up. It's been so slow this summer I had been considering taking a hiatus while I re-grouped and put my energy into a marketing campaign for the fall. But, I was sitting in the empty studio, thinking "Why am I even here? No one is coming . . ." a new student waltzed through the doors.

This was not the kind of student I've come to expect . . . It was a BOY student! That's right, the first boy ever to walk through those doors and into my class. His story: he just graduated from high school, and decided to do yoga this summer to complement his baseball training.

This brought a whole new element to the class. My classes usually focus on strength building and relaxing—which I hope will bring balance to my students' naturally bendy bodies. But this is a different body type, and a new and exciting challenge.

What might have been even more gratifying that watching my athlete-student sweat as he learned the art of Chaturanga Dandasana, was watching the student next to him—the first student I ever taught. When she came to my first class more than a year ago she really struggled with the pose. Even with her knees on the floor her back bowed and her arms shook. It was amazing watching her do the full pose with ease as a muscular baseball player struggled.

And just like that my faith in the teaching and learning processes—and in myself—was restored. I can't wait for next week!

I don't like to market my class. I could tell you it's because I think commercialism is killing the soul of yoga, but that would be a lie. The truth is, I just don't have it in me. It's not that I'm lazy, it's just that after working 40+ hours a week doing my regular day job I am tired. And there hasn't been a large enough return on my past efforts at making Myspace accounts, distributing flyers, and posting ads on Criagslist to justify doing it. So about six months ago, I just stopped trying. Amazingly, some folks found my class anyway.

I thought I had found the key to prosperity as a yoga teacher. The bonus, I thought, is that I didn't have to actually put forth any effort. My marketing plan was to just show up with good intentions and let the students find me. Unfortunately, that's not working so well for me during the summer months.

I realized the absurdity of my "marketing plan" last week when I led a special workshop for a group of girls from a local summer camp. (BTW, this was SO MUCH fun!) This was the biggest class I'd ever taught—there were probably 17 people total, all new students for me. When they were leaving, the camp counselor who coordinated the workshop asked if I had business cards I could give to her so she could distribute them to the campers. I didn't. On my way home, I realized I had also forgotten to announce when my normal class was! It's one thing not to go out of your way to promote yourself, but it's completely ridiculous not to when the perfect opportunity arises.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I had the opportunity to teach my first ever workshop. I was so excited because it sounded like such a great chance to reach out to new students and for my regular students to go a little deeper than they get to in our 1-hour classes. It seemed like the perfect time to have a workshop. Class attendance was up. Summer break was about to begin. The students who were coming were excited and motivated, and many of them had blossomed—from a basic, beginning practice to a more sophisticated practice. It's sure to be a success story, I thought.

Ironically, as soon as the workshop was added to the schedule, my class attendance dropped dramatically. As it turns out when students get a break for summer, they also take a break from yoga. To add to that, several of my regular students will be studying abroad in the next few months. The workshop was scheduled for Saturday, and as of now, it looks like we'll have to cancel it because no one has signed up. So I'm down, but not out.

Just as my dreams of facilitating an amazing summer workshop were fading fast, another opportunity came my way. Next week, I'll be exposing group of about 15 summer campers to the wonderful practice of yoga for the first time. (With any luck, a few of them will fall in love with yoga and start coming to my class, too!)

Isn't it funny how things work out?

This week as I walked into the yoga studio ready to teach my class, I was armed with a new sequence. I remembered my sign-in sheet, pen, and even my tingsa bells. I was so excited to be teaching again after a two-week hiatus that I felt like a kid on the first day of school. I sat nervously as I anticipated the arrival of my students. I couldn't wait to see my girls!

The feelings were not mutual.

In my absence, my students must've forgotten all about my class. I know that teenagers have a shorter attention span, but com'on!!! Not one of them showed up! This was the first time this had happened in probably a year. And I'll be honest, I was a little devastated. I'm still learning not to take it personally when the numbers aren't there to validate me as a teacher, but it's not easy.

Logically, I realize there are so many scenarios that can keep people (particularly teenage people) from yoga class that do not involve suddenly realizing a hatred for the yoga teacher. I will now list OTHER possible excuses in an attempt to try to make myself feel better about life.

1. It's the first week of summer! I think I'd rather hang out with my friends this week instead. I'll be back next week for sure... and I'll probably bring my friends.

2. Now that it's summer, I have to catch up on all my doctor's appointments. My mom forgot I'm supposed to go to yoga and scheduled a dentist appointment for the same time. I'm still mad at her.

3. I was injured water skiing so I decided to give my body time to heal.

4. I usually come with a friend, but my friend had a doctor's appointment during yoga class.

5. I was studying for the SATs.

6. All of my yoga clothes are dirty.

7. I had soccer practice.

8. I decided I'd rather practice yoga with fancy, new Wii Fit. (I'm sure I'll be tired of it by next week and come to class.)

9. We had family visiting from out of town.

10. I took a nap at home instead.

Help me add to the list!