amazing intense yoga class (teachers take note?)

This is Ashtanga Yoga Tech Support. Real questions from the yoga community, answered.

Our Response

Okay. I love the enthusiasm. I really do. And that teacher sounds like they care, which matters. But let me offer a slightly different angle.

Stopping class to redo sun salutations because of bad chaturanga form — that takes guts. Correcting everyone individually — that takes skill and attention. Those are good things. I'm not arguing with that.

Here's where it gets complicated. "My arms were shaking" is not inherently a sign of a great class. Shaking means fatigue. Sometimes that's appropriate. Sometimes it means someone pushed past the point where their body could maintain integrity in the position. And that's where injuries live.

The best teachers I've ever practiced with made me work hard AND made me feel safe. Those two things aren't in tension. The intensity came from precision, not from volume. From holding me accountable to my own alignment, not from making the whole room suffer together.

What this person is describing — the correction, the individual attention, the high standards — that's teaching. That's what you're paying for. The part about everyone's arms shaking and feeling destroyed? That's a side effect, not the goal.

If you're a teacher reading this, yes, absolutely hold your students to a standard. Correct form. Stop and reteach when something isn't landing. But measure your success by whether people moved well, not by whether they're wrecked afterward. There's a whole study guide on this at ashtanga.tech/study-guide/teaching-authentically/.

And for the alignment and adjustment side: ashtanga.tech/study-guide/alignment-adjustments/.