🌿 What if we started gently?

Elodie Abadie • 19 mai 2025

🌿 What if we started gently?

Welcoming a beginner to a yoga class is about more than just softening the practice or skipping inversions.
It's about building trust, offering an accessible and positive experience, and creating a true first encounter with yoga.
Because those first few sessions leave a lasting impression: they can open the door to a regular practice… or close it abruptly if the student doesn’t feel seen, safe, or welcome.
As a teacher, you have the power to create a space that feels both supportive and inspiring.

In this article, we explore the key pillars of a well-designed beginner class: mindset, structure, common pitfalls to avoid, and practical tips for teaching with clarity, patience, and kindness.

🧘‍♀️ Understanding the Beginner's Mindset

Before planning your class, take a moment to step into the shoes of someone walking into a yoga studio for the first time.


Here’s what they might be feeling:

  • Physical fears: not being flexible or strong enough, fear of injury.
  • Emotional hesitation: fear of being judged, doing it “wrong,” not belonging.
  • Mental overload: struggling to follow instructions, remember names, or stay focused.


A beginner class isn't just about "easy" poses — it’s about whole-person guidance: body, breath, and mind.


🤍 1. Create a Safe and Welcoming Environment

The foundation of your class isn’t the first pose — it’s the way you greet your students.


Here are a few simple yet powerful tips:

✨ Before the class:

  • Greet everyone with a smile. Use their names if possible.
  • Ask if they’ve practiced before and if they have any injuries or concerns.
  • Remind them that everything is optional — there’s no pressure to perform.


✨ During the class:

  • Slow down. Allow time to explore, feel, and understand.
  • Celebrate effort, not perfection.
    For example: “It’s not about how far you go, it’s about how deeply you listen.”
  • Observe without judgment. Guide without forcing.


✨ After the class:

  • Stay available for questions and connection.
  • Encourage consistency without pressure:
    “What matters mos    t is how you feel after class, not what you achieved during it.”


🧱 2. Structure a Progressive and Supportive Class

Here’s a gentle structure designed to support learning and embodiment:

🔹 Phase 1: Grounding

Goal: bring awareness to the breath and body.
Format: seated, lying down, or in any comfortable position.
Start with a few minutes of guided breath, stillness, or a body scan.


🔹 Phase 2: Warm-Up

Gentle joint mobility, breath-to-movement flows.
 Goal: release tension, connect breath and body, prepare for effort.


🔹 Phase 3: Core of the Practice
Choose 4–6 simple, meaningful poses and adapt them with:

  • props (blocks, straps, cushions),
  • slow, logical transitions,
  • moments to pause and observe.

Favor grounding standing poses (Warrior II, Triangle, Chair),
gentle floor poses (modified Downward Dog, Cat/Cow, Sphinx),
and include regular rest (Child’s Pose, short Savasanas).


🔹 Phase 4: Cool Down
Passive stretches, breathwork, and guided relaxation.
 Goal: integrate sensations and end on a soft, nurturing note.


⚠️ 3. Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best intentions, certain teaching habits can create discomfort or confusion for beginners.


Here are a few to watch out for:

  • Rushing: give time to feel, breathe, and process each cue.
  • Over-correcting: too much alignment detail can overwhelm.
  • Using too much jargon: skip the Sanskrit and anatomy lingo — use clear, visual language.
  • Staying on your own mat: move around, be present, observe and connect.
  • Forcing physical adjustments: prioritize verbal cues and always offer alternatives.


💡 4. Practical Tips to Teach with Clarity and Compassion

  • Speak slowly and clearly. Leave space for integration.
  • Use visual metaphors (e.g. “Lengthen your spine like you’re creating space between each vertebra”).
  • Gently guide breath awareness without forcing a rhythm.
  • Validate sensations — even when they don’t match your plan.
  • Celebrate consistency over performance. Yoga is a practice, not a test.


✨ Teaching Beginners Means Returning to Yoga’s True Essence

As teachers and guides, we hold a great responsibility:
 to offer a beginner their first meaningful encounter with yoga.

Every beginner is a future practitioner — perhaps even a future teacher.
The experience you offer today shapes the path they’ll take tomorrow.

So let’s slow down. Let’s listen.
Let’s teach a yoga that breathes.
A yoga that doesn’t aim to impress, but to nourish.


📚 In Summary

  • Teaching beginners means embracing patience, simplicity, and clarity.
  • It requires real pedagogy, adaptability, and present-moment awareness.
  • The goal? Create a space where everyone feels welcome to explore, breathe, and — most importantly — return.


🔗 Want to Go Further?

🧠 Ready to refine your teaching skills and design even more thoughtful, beginner-friendly classes?
Check out our article “Smart Yoga Starts Here” — all about anatomy, safety, and conscious cueing.


🪷 Or dive into our professional training programs, designed for mindful, embodied, and empowering teaching:
👉 Discover all our courses on YogaDanse.eu


💬 What are your favorite tips for supporting beginners with grace and ease?


Let us know in the comments or come chat with us on Instagram!


Namaste 🪷

Why Teaching Yoga Is Never a Neutral Act

par Elodie Abadie • 19 janvier 2026
Teaching yoga is never a neutral act. Behind every class, every transmission, every guided posture, there is a deeper intention than it may seem. For some, teaching yoga comes from an inner calling—almost visceral.
For others, it is a fully structured profession, grounded in economic reality.
And for many, it is also—sometimes without intending to be—an engaged, almost militant act in a world that moves fast… too fast. So, teaching yoga—
Is it a vocation?
A profession like any other?
Or a conscious stance toward society? The truth is that teaching yoga often sits at the crossroads of all three.
And that is precisely what makes it so powerful… and so complex.

🌿 How to Find Your Path: A Journey Back to Yourself

par Elodie Abadie • 5 janvier 2026
Finding your path.
These words sound like a promise… and sometimes, like pressure. We’re constantly told to “find our purpose,” “follow our heart,” “live our passion.”
But in reality, it’s rarely a straight road. It’s more of a winding path — full of doubts, sparks, turns, and awakenings.
A deeply inner journey before anything else. So how do you find your path when you feel lost?
How do you know what’s truly right for you — without being influenced by others’ expectations?
And most importantly, how do you move forward even when the answers aren’t clear yet? This article is an invitation to come back to yourself — not to search harder, but to listen differently.

🧘‍♀️ How I Stay Organized as a Yoga Teacher & Entrepreneur

par Elodie Abadie • 29 décembre 2025
Between teaching, creating, managing projects, running trainings, and nurturing a personal life, being a yoga teacher and entrepreneur can easily feel like a balancing act.
You’re expected to inspire, teach, plan, organize, create — all while leaving space for yourself, your family, and your breath. People often ask me: “How do you manage it all without burning out?” So today, I’m opening the doors to my own routine — not a perfect or rigid system, but a living, breathing, adaptable rhythm that changes with my energy, priorities, and inspiration. If you’re a yoga teacher, a creative entrepreneur, or simply someone trying to find balance between structure and flow, this is for you.

🪷 Yoga: Spiritual, Physical or Political?

par Elodie Abadie • 15 décembre 2025
Yoga intrigues, fascinates, and sometimes even divides.
Some see it as a physical practice, others as a spiritual path, and some as a symbol of engagement or resistance. But deep down… what is yoga really?
Is it a lifestyle? A path of awareness? A way to connect with yourself and the world? In this article, we explore the many faces of yoga — physical, spiritual, and even political — to rediscover its essence: a living, embodied, and profoundly human practice.

🌿 Living Yoga Every Day

par Elodie Abadie • 1 décembre 2025
What if yoga wasn’t just about postures?
What if, beyond the mat, this ancient practice became a way of inhabiting your life — acting with awareness, breathing with presence, and connecting deeply to yourself and the world around you? Through its eight branches, yoga offers far more than a series of physical exercises.
It’s a complete philosophy of life, a daily art of living, and an inner compass to navigate with balance, authenticity, and serenity. In this article, you’ll rediscover the 8 limbs of yoga — known as Ashtanga Yoga — and learn how each one can transform your life, step by step, breath by breath.

Yoga Alignment: Beyond the Postures

par Elodie Abadie • 17 novembre 2025
You might think that alignment in yoga means placing your knee perfectly above your ankle, keeping your hips square, and your spine long and straight.
But what if it was so much more than that? In our culture of “doing things right,” alignment is often reduced to a technical cue — a matter of perfect lines and precision.
Yet in yoga, true alignment goes far beyond the body .
It extends into the breath, the energy, the emotions — and the way you connect to yourself. This article invites you to revisit this word we hear everywhere and rediscover its deeper meaning — on your mat and in your life.

Simple Yoga: Returning to What Really Matters

par Elodie Abadie • 3 novembre 2025
What if we practiced yoga to return to simplicity? 
Not to perform.
Not to master a thousand postures.
Not to impress.
But to come back to what truly matters: one breath, one presence, one body we truly listen to. Today, yoga is often seen as a performance discipline — associated with the image of the perfect body or the most advanced pose. 
Yet, in its essence, yoga is a practice of awareness and unity .
It’s not about doing more, but about being more present. This article invites you to drop the masks, let go of the “shoulds,” and rediscover yoga as a path back to yourself — to slowness, to simplicity, and to truth.

Emotional Release Through Movement

par Elodie Abadie • 20 octobre 2025
What if your body had messages that your mind can’t put into words?
What if free movement was a doorway to everything you feel deeply but don’t dare to express? The body remembers.
The body speaks.
And sometimes, all it takes is letting it move differently so it can finally set itself free. In this article, let’s explore the emotional intelligence of the body, the blocks that manifest through physical tension, and the power of spontaneous movement to bring back breath, clarity, and inner peace.

Dancing Your Yoga: Freedom and Expression

par Elodie Abadie • 6 octobre 2025
What if your yoga mat became more than just a space for postures?
Imagine it as an inner playground, a sacred space where you can move differently, breathe deeply, and express yourself freely. Dancing your yoga is a unique practice that blends free movement, breath awareness, and spontaneous creativity.
It’s a yoga that both grounds and liberates.
A yoga that isn’t limited to “doing it right,” but one that invites you to feel, create, and vibrate. In this article, discover what it means to dance your yoga, the benefits of this practice, and how to integrate it into your daily life.

How to Overcome the Fear of Failure?

par Elodie Abadie • 29 septembre 2025
The fear of failure affects everyone, regardless of age, background, or life path. It often prevents us from taking action , seizing opportunities, or truly believing in ourselves. Combined with the fear of judgment from others, it can become paralyzing if we don’t learn how to understand and transform it. In this article, let’s explore why the fear of failure exists, what the signs are, what failure can teach us, and above all, how to overcome it to regain confidence, serenity, and motivation.