Our response: Couldn’t we flip the script on this and consider demoing an efficient means of teaching (instead of lazy)? And isn’t efficiency a good thing? As yoga teachers, do we always need to be taking the harder path?
2) If we’re demoing a yoga pose, then we’re not able to pay attention to our students.
Our response: It’s possible in many cases to both demo a pose and pay attention to students. The ability to do so can be honed with experience. Additionally, if we’re forcing ourselves to work harder to figure out how to describe a pose verbally, could we potentially spend so much cognitive energy on this effort that we might not be paying attention to our students anyway?!
3) When we demo a pose, we pull our yoga students “out of their practice”, disrupting their inward focus.
Our response: Does watching a demo pull students out of their practice that much more than listening to spoken word? One’s a visual input and the other is auditory. Either way, our brain has to pay attention to both! What’s special about physical demoing in this regard?
