Twenty minutes of continuous talking to a room full of people lying still with their eyes closed has scared off more experienced yoga teachers than any arm-balance workshop ever has. I hear the same question from teachers who can sequence a 90-minute class in their sleep: what do I actually say for 20 minutes? If that question has stopped you from offering yoga nidra, this episode is your orientation session.

I’m walking through what yoga nidra actually is, why it’s a distinct practice rather than a very long savasana, and how it differs from meditation in one specific way: in nidra, your voice carries the student’s attention for them. That’s exactly what makes it intimidating from the teacher’s seat, and exactly what makes it learnable. Continuous narration sounds like improv. It isn’t. It follows a map that has been in the tradition for a very long time: the koshas, the five layers of the self that Alexandra DeSiato and I describe in Yoga Off the Mat as a set of nested lampshades.

You’ll also hear why your students need this more than almost anything else on the schedule. Nearly every class asks students for more output, and skilled, structured, permission-granting rest is the one thing most of them get nowhere. Nidra is also radically accessible: the student rehabbing a shoulder, the pregnant student, the 75-year-old newcomer, and the student who “can’t meditate” can all do this practice completely on the first try.

By the end, you’ll have three things to do this week: practice nidra yourself as a student, play the which-you-is-which game with the kosha map, and draft two minutes of body-scan language and listen back to yourself. Then come build the rest with me on Thursday, October 15, at this month’s Comfort Zone Conversation on teaching yoga nidra, free in the Zone. If you want the complete training with full scripts and continuing education credit, that’s the Fundamentals of Teaching Yoga Nidra course: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/nidra

Start this week with the free 5-Minute Yoga Nidra Script: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/nidrascript?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=nidrascript&utm_content=e105

Listen now!

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.

Every September I promise myself this will be the year I stay on top of my class planning. By week four, the notebook holds four lesson plans and a grocery list, and the fall shine has worn off—for me and for my students.

In this episode, I'm revisiting atha, the very first word of the Yoga Sutras and one my coauthor Alexandra DeSiato and I return to throughout our new book, Yoga Off the Mat. Atha means now, and it turns out to be exactly the word a mid-season teacher needs.

I walk through what atha actually means (it's not just an auspicious opener—it assumes the student arriving has already lived some life before showing up), why week four is when the syllabus meets reality, and three ways to teach with atha this month: building it into your opening minutes, using it as a mid-class reset, and giving your own fall schedule a midterm look without overhauling everything.

If the season's early shine has started to wear thin, in your own teaching or your students' attendance, this episode meets you exactly where you are.

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.

Every September I watch teachers, myself included, sign up for something new: a fresh planning system, a training, a whole approach to class we’re sure will finally stick. By October, most of it has quietly stalled out.

In this episode, I’m talking about the difference between motivation and discipline, and why the surge you’re feeling right now is weather, not climate. I dig into tapas, yoga’s teaching on disciplined effort, and why the structure that looks like it limits your teaching is actually what sets it free.

You’ll hear how a restaurant kitchen’s mise en place explains why prep work is what makes spontaneous, responsive teaching possible, and why a small, repeatable habit beats an ambitious overhaul every time.

By the end, you’ll have a concrete way to build a planning structure that holds up long after the fall motivation fades, and a better way to talk with your own students about discipline, so it lands as relief instead of a report card.

Listen now!

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.

For years, I refused to build an Instagram account for Comfort Zone Yoga. I could see exactly how the treadmill goes: post the same thing twice with a different caption, fall behind on both accounts, and eventually one goes dark. So I built @comfortzoneyoga to be finished in one afternoon instead. It still is.

In this episode, I'm previewing the September Comfort Zone Conversation, where we're spending an hour finishing your Instagram so you can stop opening the app and closing it forty minutes later having dealt with nothing. I walk through the three wrong assumptions that keep a yoga teacher's profile permanently unbuilt: that you have a content problem, that the profile is about you, and that it can never be finished.

I also lay out what a finished profile actually answers—three questions a stranger is silently asking when she lands on your page—and a three-second self-audit you can run on your own account tonight.

If you've opened Instagram meaning to deal with this once and for all, and closed it having dealt with nothing, this one's for you.

Listen now!

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.

Every yoga room has a smell before you say a word of your opening—the space itself, the scent you add on purpose, and the students who walk through the door. In this episode, I’m working through all three: how to get a room ready before class, what to do with your own products and oils, and the real difference between a student who arrives already smelling strong and one who gets that way forty minutes into a good workout.

Strong smells in a classroom tend to fall into one of three buckets—perfume, smoke, and body odor—and they are not equally hard. Perfume is a room-level fix. Smoke calls for patience, since a movement practice is often part of how someone eventually quits smoking. And body odor is where teachers most often collapse two very different situations into one uncomfortable moment.

I’ll also walk through how to actually have the conversation when one is warranted: which channel to pick, how to keep it brief, and how to end with a question that hands the problem to the student to solve alongside you, instead of handing her a verdict.

And yes, we get to gas. Bodies do what bodies do when you fold people in half and ask them to breathe deeply on purpose for an hour. I’ll tell you exactly what to do about it (nothing, on purpose) and why that’s the kindest response you have.

Listen now!

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.

One hundred Tuesdays, and I have opened every single episode with the same five words. I never planned it that way, and I never mentioned it out loud until now, which is a little funny given that I have spent two years telling yoga teachers that repeating yourself is a professional skill rather than a failure of imagination.

In this episode I look back at what actually changed over ninety-nine weeks. I got the register of the show wrong at the start: I thought you wanted confessional, and what you wanted was useful. I sold my yoga studio, which gave the thinking room it never had while I was running a brick and mortar studio. And I started writing the episodes out in full sentences instead of teaching from bullet points, which made them shorter rather than stiffer.

I also went back through two years of comments and found two yoga teachers whose stories I had been following without meaning t—one planning her very first class, one teaching her last—along with the three things you keep telling me: consistency beats variety, the worry about being good enough does not care how experienced you are, and service beats performance every time.

If you have ever felt guilty about repeating a lesson plan for the students in front of you, this one is for you. Ninety-nine episodes of the same structure with one topic swapped each week, and nobody got bored: that is the argument, and the show itself is the evidence. I also tell you where the next stretch of episodes is headed, and what I would like from you—specific topic requests from your own classroom. Listen now!

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.

The second class I ever taught went off the rails before I said a word—and then I spent an hour making it worse by apologizing for not being the regular teacher. Two students set me straight the next day, and I still teach from that lesson two decades later.

In this episode, I’m separating the two things yoga teachers mean when they say a class went off the rails: the logistics problem that happens in the room, and the private disaster that happens entirely inside your own head. Only one of those is visible to your students.

I’ve covered the logistics side elsewhere on the show: medical issues (Episodes 34, 40, and 52), challenging behavior (Episode 33), rooms that are too small or too big (Episodes 39 and 49), phones and watches and timers (Episode 96), covering someone else’s class (Episode 38), and the class nobody shows up for (Episode 24). This episode is about the other kind.

I draw on a few earlier conversations along the way: why the student who walks out mid-class almost never has anything to do with you (Episode 3), why a bored-looking face is usually a sign of concentration (Episode 8), why silence is a tool rather than a failure (Episode 19), and why one honest debrief beats replaying the tape a fourteenth time (Episode 59).

You’ll walk away with language for changing course mid-class, a way to triage what’s actually an emergency versus what’s just embarrassing, and permission to let a mistake pass without comment at all. Listen now!

Live online classes are back in the Prep Station this fall: one lesson plan a month, taught live by me on three Mondays, 6:00–7:00 p.m. Eastern, with 15 minutes afterward to talk teaching. Balance Play Trio in September, Yoga for All Athletes in October, Meet the Warriors in November. Every class posts as a recording. Membership is $39 a month.

Practice with me

The next cohort of Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing Mentorship Membership—MMM, my six-month group mentorship for yoga teachers—starts in January 2027, and the wait list is open now. Doors open to the wait list first, in December, before anyone else hears about it. MMM is also the required half of the Comfort Zone Yoga 300-hour yoga teacher training.

Add your name:

Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Join Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you!

For more insights, subscribe to Yoga Teacher Confidential, check out my YouTube channel, and follow me on socials:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Threads

And come explore my mentorship program, Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education and 200/300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at sagerountree.com.