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!

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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:

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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.

My husband took his first yin class with me at Kripalu and told me afterward that I should rename the practice. He wasn’t entirely wrong: a room built on stillness produced an enormous reaction in his body, and that’s yin working exactly as designed.

In this episode, I break down the three mistakes I see yoga teachers make most often when they teach yin: treating it as a slower version of a flow class instead of its own physiology, cueing “find your edge” as though it’s a complete instruction, and building a class from five favorite poses instead of a real sequence.

Yin looks like the easiest class on the schedule to teach, and it’s the one most likely to leave a teacher at the front of the room wondering what her job is right now. Getting the physiology, the cueing, and the sequencing right is what turns a yin class into one students come back for.

You’ll walk away knowing what tension and compression actually explain about why every body looks different in the same shape, how to cue an entry so a first-time student understands what you mean, and how to adapt the 6–4–2 framework you already use for flow into a structured yin arc.

Listen now!

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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
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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.

All yoga pants are see-through. Your expensive pair, the clearance-bin pair, all of them—under the right light, in a deep enough fold, the fabric gives away a little more than you bargained for. That isn't a flaw in you or your students. It's fabric and physics, plain and simple.

In this lighthearted episode, I walk through the 2013 Lululemon recall that erased roughly two billion dollars in market value, then tell the story of my student Andrea, who landed a job teaching the New York Jets and got handed an XL t-shirt as her dress code. The lesson lands without anyone having to lecture: you read the room, and you dress for it.

From there I get practical. There are two sides to this for teachers—what we wear and where we look. I share wardrobe advice you can use this week (including the dressing-room test that tells you the truth), when a private word to a student is genuinely a gift, and why looking away with kindness is its own form of hospitality.

Underneath the jokes is something every teacher recognizes: the very human feeling of being seen before you feel ready. Dressing with care and looking away with grace is one small way we take care of the room—for our students and for ourselves. Curious about teaching athletes, dress code and all? That world is what I get into in my Teaching Yoga to Athletes training.

Listen now!

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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
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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 was the phone police. I taught with a sensitive wireless mic that glitched every time a phone buzzed, so I asked everyone to power down—and told myself I was protecting the practice.

Then I watched a student at a workshop keep fidgeting with a little device. I caught myself judging her for it, until I realized it was her insulin monitor. That moment changed how I think about technology in class, and I want to share where I've landed.

In this episode I walk through the small stuff I've learned to relax about and the two things I'll never bend on, both rooted in consent: staying present for the people in front of me, and never photographing a resting body without a clear yes.

You'll also get six practical moves—meeting students in the middle with Do Not Disturb, recognizing when a phone is actually an accommodation, narrating your own tech use, teaching a class you know well enough to look up from, recording yourself to sharpen your craft, and honoring a studio's house rules.

Stay relaxed about the phones, stay firm about presence and consent, and you'll run a warmer, more welcoming room. Listen now.

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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:

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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.

Most yoga teachers have heard some version of don't demo. Get off your mat. Cue with your words. Be a real teacher. The advice is reaching for something true—but the rule, as it usually gets delivered, hurts newer teachers and doesn't actually capture what experienced teachers are doing differently.

In this episode, Sage walks through when demonstration genuinely serves your students (and when it doesn't), why studios that ban demo entirely are missing the point, and the truth that flips the whole conversation: the more you demo, the less you see. You'll hear the four ways to present a pose, the teacher-trainee habit that proves the teacher isn't really in the room, and the six rules for demoing in a way that keeps your eyes—and your attention—on the students who came to practice.

Repetition is what makes all of this easier. Teach the same sequence over four weeks and your students learn the shapes; your demo load drops on its own. The Prep Station ($39/month) is built exactly for that—a 6–4–2 sequence each month, a Movement Library with 180+ follow-along practice videos so you've already had your practice, and a community of 2,400+ teachers refining their craft alongside you. Pull up a stool at comfortzoneyoga.com/prep.

Join the conversation in The Zone, Sage's free community for yoga teachers, at comfortzoneyoga.com. And if this episode helped you think differently about your time on the mat in front of the room, please rate and review—it helps other teachers find the show.

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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.

This week is a little different. Sage is joined by her co-author and friend Alexandra DeSiato to read from their new book, Yoga Off the Mat—the book that takes what yoga builds on the mat and lets it shape the rest of your life.

Alexandra reads from the chapter on abhinivesha, the fear of the unknown: why we grip so hard for control, what a Stephen Colbert bit has to do with death, and a few practical ways to loosen our hold on what we can’t predict. Sage reads from the chapter on joy, centered on maitri—the practice of delighting in someone else’s delight instead of sliding into comparison.

From there they riff: why social media is the perfect place to practice maitri, the Lucille Bluth “good for her” reframe, the daily walk where Sage and her husband hope a stranger will say hello, and the Monday-night class joke that still lands fifteen years later. Underneath it all is one idea—connection, with others and with yourself, is where the joy lives.

If these ideas resonate, Yoga Off the Mat is available now. A five-star review on Amazon or your favorite bookstore site, a few words about what the book meant to you, or a quick request that your local library order a copy all help these ideas reach more people.

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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.

In this episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential, I sit down with my dear friend and longtime writing partner, Alexandra DeSiato, for a conversation about our new book, Yoga Off the Mat, out July 14. It is the fourth book Alexandra and I have written together, and it grew from a simple question: what happens when you take the attention you practice on the mat and let it shape the rest of your life?

We start where Alexandra likes to start, with death. She walks through what yoga philosophy says about the fear of letting go (abhinivesha, one of the kleshas), and why making peace with impermanence helps you live with more joy right now. From there we get into presence as the whole practice, why a one-minute practice can still change your day, and how the Yoga Sutras open a door the book then walks well beyond.

Yoga Off the Mat is written for anyone, not only for people who teach or practice. It takes the breath, the noticing, and the practice of coming back, and applies them to work, relationships, and the inside of your own head on a hard afternoon. If you do teach, you will hear how living the philosophy shows up in your classes on its own, without forcing it as a theme.

We also pull back the curtain on co-writing: the shared outline, passing the baton when one of us gets stuck, and how two voices become one on the page. Consider this your invitation to the live book talk on July 16 inside the Zone, our free community. We will read from the book, tell the stories behind it, and answer your questions. Next week’s episode continues the conversation as a book reading.

Resources:

• RSVP for the July 16 live book talk: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/c/comfort-zone-conversations/book-talk-yoga-off-the-mat?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=podcast_e93
• Preorder Yoga Off the Mat (out July 14): https://amzn.to/3LB2JAv
• Sage’s books: https://sagerountree.com/books/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=podcast_e93
• All episodes of Yoga Teacher Confidential: https://sagerountree.com/podcast?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=podcast_e93

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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.

A few weeks ago, I posted a simple carousel on Instagram in my “Here’s the Tea” series for yoga teachers: not every pose needs you to call out a Sanskrit name. The comments rolled in—some grateful, some furious, most somewhere in the thoughtful middle. This episode is the longer answer that didn’t fit on eight slides.

I walk through what I was actually trying to say in the post, where the conversation sharpened my thinking, and why this was never really an English-versus-Sanskrit question. To a brand-new student, “Triangle” is no clearer than “Trikonasana,” so the real skill is describing the shape so well that the name—in any language—has something to land on.

Along the way, I steelman the smartest pushbacks from teachers who love this language—the lineage argument, the repetition argument, and the case for using both—and offer three rules for using Sanskrit well: learn to pronounce it (with teachers from inside the tradition like Dr. Anuradha Choudry and Dr. M. A. Jayashree), pair it with English so the meaning travels, and tell the stories the names came from (with a nod to Dr. Raj Balkaran’s lovely book The Stories Behind the Poses).

I close with a simple way to decide what to say in any given room. The question was never “Sanskrit or English.” It’s who am I serving, and what helps them feel at home in their body and their breath while also respecting the tradition of yoga.

This isn’t a hot take. It’s a call to center. If you’ve ever felt squeezed between honoring the tradition and meeting your students where they actually are, this one’s for you.

• Choose Two—$900: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-two
• Choose Three—$1,250: https://www.comfortzoneyoga.com/checkout/fundamentals-bundle-choose-three
• Choose Four—$1,500: h

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.