Why I don’t give ready-made lesson plans in my Yoga Teacher Training
I have found over the years that I have been running yoga for cancer teacher trainings that I often get teachers reaching out to me with questions along the line of, “I have a student who has just been diagnosed with cancer, what should I teach and what precautions are there?”, or “what asana practises are best for breast cancer, I want to support a friend who is going through treatment?” or “do you have lesson plans you can share with me for someone with bowel cancer?”. These are probably questions I would have asked too in the years before I started working with cancer patients.
These of course are valid questions but in fact this not the best place to start as there are other questions that need to be asked and answered first BEFORE we jump ahead into actual teaching. It is natural that as caring people we want help others and to get teaching right away. But until we have a better understanding of the whole picture and whole approach required, we might not be helping much at all.
So, on my course I do not give out cookie cutter lesson plans for my course students to then deliver in their classes. My training is not a set style with trademarked sequences for specific conditions or symptoms. This is because I have no idea who precisely you will be teaching and so any lesson plan I create may not best serve the person you want to teach. In my opinion it is not optimal to think about creating lesson plans for a condition or a symptom but rather create a lesson or series of lesson for the person or people you are teaching.
We teach the person not the condition!
Cancer is not just one thing, there are many different types. The stage and grade also play a part as does the overall physical and mental health of the student at the time they received the diagnosis. What each person wants and needs for their yoga practise varies enormously.
It’s all about understanding your student’s diagnosis, treatment and holistic needs and as a teacher, and being able to adapt your teaching to them. We are not trying to have the student adapt to the yoga we want to teach, we are adapting our lesson plans and style to deliver classes that give them real therapeutic benefit.
Instead of learning set asana sequences or set meditation practises, I teach the underlying principles and guidelines that are crucial when working with cancer. These help you understand the ‘why’ behind lesson planning not just the ‘what’ to include or leave out. When you really know and understand these principles and guidelines, you will be able to skilfully select and adapt from all the practices you know to create lesson plans that serve the needs of the people you are teaching.
The possibilities for your classes then become endless, so much more adaptive and creative than simply learning set plans. It also means you get to teach in a way that is authentic and natural to you and empowers you to create your own style of teaching yoga for cancer.
Of course it requires a bit more work at the beginning and can be a slower process than immediately teaching a ready-made lesson plan, but the rewards are much greater both for you as a teacher to be fully creative and take ownership of your teaching and for your students who will be learning from someone able to adapt to changing circumstances and truly meet their needs.
If you would like to develop your teaching skills and become a specialist Yoga for Cancer Teacher, the next cohort starts in September 2024 and applications are now open. If you’d like to join, you can apply via the website, where you will also find the full course curriculum:
https://www.yogaforcanceracademy.org/teacher-training-course