How to Audition for a Yoga Studio. Includes: the worst piece of advice you’ll get.

AuditionsThe yoga industry has finally made it.  Auditioning has arrived.

The very word “audition” conjures up the image of nervous and leotard-clad showgirls warming for A Chorus Line while singing, “Got I hope I get it/ I hope I get it/ Please God I need this job.”  But whether we call it a “practical interview” or “Karmic Casting,” the yoga audition is becoming a mortifying necessity as the marketplace becomes saturated with skilled teachers.  So while we may cringe at the process, let’s look at the bright side and take heart in the growing popularity of our cherished practice.

The worst advice you’ll get

Ask a studio owner or manager for advice on the yoga audition, and here are some of the pearls of auditioning wisdom that you’ll hear:

  • “Just be yourself.”
  • “Don’t be nervous.  Just show us who you are.”
  • “Have fun.”
  • “Relax.”

Poppycock.

As a veteran of the stage, I can assure you that this advice is absolutely useless because:

  1. It’s impossible to do.
  2. When you can’t do it (because of point #1) you will feel as if there is something wrong with you, which will make you feel more nervous, incompetent and freaked out.

So let’s just be candid.

You will not feel relaxed.  You will not feel like “yourself”.  You will not feel comfortable.

You will feel nervous.  You will feel giddy.  You may even feel nauseous or slightly ill.

Here’s the truth: you are undergoing this icky audition process because you want to be a yoga teacher.  And when you want something badly, you will feel nervous when you put yourself on the line. You are invested. You care. Not feeling nervous would be inhuman – or indicate that you didn’t really want the gig.  So let’s let go of that sweet little fantasy of “just relax” and get real about what you actually can control.

Preparation

Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Every audition is different in its specifications, but usually you’ll know which poses you are going to teach.

 

Review:

  • Your alignment points
  • Breath work
  • Transition cuing
  • Use of imagery
  • Use of effective language
  • Thematic moment

Then:

  • Practice early (as in, a week before the audition) so that your unconscious has a chance to cement all your work into your body and mind.
  • Practice on your friends until you can get them in and out of the pose in your sleep.
  • Practice it until you can do it easefully.
  • Practice teaching the pose in several ways.
  • Don’t script yourself.  Give yourself room to improvise.

Find out: 

  • Everything you can about the studio
  • Who will be in the room, who else will be there (how many participants)
  • The audition format.
  • Know as much as you can so that you can have a good picture in your mind of what to expect.
  • If you can, go to the audition location prior to your appointment so that you can get a feel for the space.  The audition will be different from your expectations, but familiarize yourself as much as possible.

Also find out what kind of teacher is the studio looking for?

While we want to “be ourselves” (more on that later), it’s good to be clear what the tone of the studio is so that you can play in their parameters.  For example, auditioning for a gym is different than auditioning for a traditional shala, and how you teach should adjust accordingly.  An obvious example: if you’re auditioning for a gym, you’ll want to limit your use of Sanskrit, philosophy, and enthusiastic use of the harmonium.

Visualization

As part of your preparation, visualize your teaching before you go to sleep at night.  Visualize it going just as you wish.

Whenever a fear-based thought comes to your head, practice pratipaksah bhavanam and cultivate the opposite thought.  Replace it with a positive thought, such as, “I am going to rock this audition.”  “I am going to be calm, steady, and kind.” Choose a  phrase that resonates with you.  Remember: this is a practice.  You will naturally have fearful thoughts occasionally and it’s not a big deal.  But when you find it happening, deliberately replace them with a positive mantra.

Seem normal. 

“Don’t be a crazy hippie,” as my friend Chris Brandt likes to say.  Studio owners want to work with responsible, punctual, friendly, safe teachers who play well with others and understand professional standards.  This is not the ideal time to burn incense and perform 15 minutes of Vedic chanting (unless that really defines you as a teacher and is appropriate for the studio, in which case, rock on with your Veda chanting self).

  • Arrive at least 10 minutes early.
  • Smile.
  • Be nice to the people who work there.  Especially the desk staff, as they will relay their impressions to the owners.  (Since you’re a yoga teacher, being kind should go without saying.  But.  Just saying.)
  • Dress professionally.
  • Your audition starts as soon as you enter the building.  Be your best from the moment you arrive.

 

How to control your nerves

Your thorough preparation will help you to control your nerves, because you will have confidence in what you are doing.  However, adrenaline is normal.  To take the edge off of this natural response:

  1. Breathe.  Use your pranayama. Controlled breathing regulates your nervous system.  Lengthen your exhale to control your breath and the crazy butterflies will calm down.
  2. Slow Down.  When we are nervous, most of us turn into speed machines.  You have time.  Breathe and think before you speak.
  3. Feel your feet.  Stay connected to the earth.
  4. Power Pose for 2 minutes to reduce your cortisol and increase your testosterone.  (See this amazing Amy Cuddy video).

What they want.  What you want.

Okay, so here’s the trick.  They want to see “you.”  They want you to seem relaxed and confident and yourself.  (Hence, their terrible advice.)   But we generally only allow ourselves to be relaxed when we are, well, relaxed. Which you won’t be.

So, before you go to this audition, do a little research on YOU.  Ask your regular students, “What’s my best quality as a teacher?”  Find out why they come to your class.  If you aren’t teaching yet, then as your 200-hour classmates what they perceive as your strengths. Also, do a little self-reflection: why do you teach yoga?  What do you want to bring to the classroom?  What makes you excited about sharing your passion with others?  And how does this manifest tangibly in your teaching?

When you prepare for the audition, brainstorm and practice different ways that you can create opportunities to share your strength or your passion with your students.  How can you reveal your strength and unique passion through your teaching?  Keep your larger mission in mind during the audition.  Remembering your larger purpose will help to anchor you in a broader and more meaningful context than the audition.

Easy Brownie Points.

Naturally do your research, but I’d wager these actions will be appropriate for most studios you’ll audition for:

  • Make eye contact
  • Smile
  • Stand up straight
  • Be audible
  • Match your vocal tone to what you’re teaching
  • Keep it simple
  • Plan how you want to walk around in the space so you’re not stuck pacing at the front of the room like a caged tiger.  No wandering.
  • Plan a time to give a verbal or hands on assist to a student (they want to know that you can see your students; work an opportunity to display that into your actual teaching plan so you make sure it happens)
  • Don’t sit down or squat, unless you’re teaching the beginning or end of the class
  • Be kind, not casual.
  • Plan one simple and short thematic moment (if you like theming)

And hey, if fun just starts to happen, then go with it.   🙂

Happy teaching.

Psssst: You might like this video 🙂

Squeeze your Ass-ana

 buttsqueeze2

Okay, okay, we’ve all heard it in yoga class:

“Don’t squeeze your glutes,” or “Relax your buttocks,” or something poetic like, “Allow the tissue of your ahem, buttocks flesh, to melt and soften…”

However you’ve heard it, the message is the same: don’t squeeze your ass.

 

Where “don’t squeeze your butt” started

Now this pithy bit of wisdom has very well intentioned beginnings.

First let’s take a closer look at the muscle in question.

 

Your gluteus maximus is a noble muscle, a large muscle, a power muscle.  It’s like a huge and happy dog: it loves to work and get things done.  The glute moves your thigh at the hip in two ways:

  1. Extension of the thigh at the hip.
    1. This means that your glute will move your thighbone (femur) backwards at the hip.  Example: you’re standing and you lift your leg back behind you.
    2. And it also means that it will bring your thigh from a position forward from the hip (flexion) back to neutral.  Think walking up the stairs.  Your glute is what you use to get from having one foot on the stair in front of you to actually stepping up.  It’s also what helps gets you from squatting to standing.
    3. Rotation of the thigh at the hip.
      1. The fibers of your glute run diagonally from your sacrum to your thighbone.  That directionality means that the glute also has the capacity to externally rotate your thigh at the hip.
      2. Try it:  You can easily feel this if you stand up and  – again –  lift your leg back behind you.  Now squeeze your butt.  A lot.  Do you notice that your lifted foot turns out?  This is because when your glute is fully working, it will rotate your thigh.

So, here’s the problem.

When your thigh is rotating outwardly, it can make your lower back feel…well…crunchy.  There’s less space in there now to lengthen your lumbar spine (ie: lengthen your tailbone down, which you may have heard before as a yoga cue) because the muscles around the hip are so engaged.

 

Try it:

You can feel this by comparing how easy it is to lengthen your lower back with your legs neutral versus externally rotated.

  1. First, stand with your heels together and your feet turned out like a ballerina.  Squeeze your butt.  Now try to lengthen your tailbone to the floor.
  2. Now, try the same action with your feet parallel, or even turned in.
  3. Which was more spacious?

 

Most of us will find that it’s more challenging to find length through the lower back when you stand like a ballerina and squeeze your butt.  As a general rule, it has made a lot of sense to not have ballerina legs when we do backbends in order to avoid over-compression in the lower back.  And because the glute muscle is the primary culprit behind the external rotation, yoga teachers started emphasizing a relaxation of the glutes during backbends.  They figured that if we cued everyone to keep the glutes relaxed, the thighs wouldn’t turn out, we wouldn’t get lower back compression, and everyone would be happy.  Presto!  Problem solved.

 

Problem not solved

As you may have guessed, this did not solve the problem.

Instead, over time and years of practice doing this, we’ve actually created another problem.

 

Flabby butts.horrors!

 

That’s right.  Yogis have flabby butts.

See, it’s not just the turning off of the glutes that’s the problem.  As you’ve probably noticed, yoga is all about the forward bends.  You can’t get 5 minutes into a yoga class without doing a forward fold (uttanasana) or downward dog (adho mukha svanasana).  Yogis are just slightly obsessed with opening their hamstrings and – you guessed it – their glutes.  And there aren’t many opportunities to strengthen the glutes in yoga – especially now that we’re cuing everyone to keep them “soft.”.  We don’t have that many movements in yoga that ask the glutes to turn on to their full potential.

So now we’ve been obsessively lengthening this muscle (via forward folds) as well as simultaneously not strengthening it.  And when you ignore them and stretch then for a long time, they’re going to get tired of being ignored.  So they check out and forget how to turn on effectively – even when you need them. 

 

How do I solve my flabby yogi butt problem?

If you’re cross-training – that is, you are doing other activities where your glutes get loads of work – then flabby yogi butt syndrome likely isn’t a problem for you.    So if you’re a power lifter or a marathon runner, then read no further.  Enjoy your glute stretches in yoga class and go forth in happy butt balanced health.

But if you’re a “full-on-love-my-yoga-what’s-cross-training?” kind of person, then you’ll want to take a look at giving your glutes more work during your asana practice.  Let’s look at some poses.

 

Backbends

Most obviously, you can use your glutes more in backbends. Yay!  The curse is lifted!

 

So, for example, Locust pose (salabhasana).

When lifting the legs up from the floor in this pose, we generally keep the thighs neutral (teachers use cues such as, “lift from your inner thighs,” or “keep your thighs parallel to the floor”).   As an exploration, see what happens if you ….squeeze your ass.

Yes, your feet will turn out.  Yes, your butt will become slightly pumpkinish and round.  Yes, your legs will lift higher.  And it might be glorious!   Your gluteus maximus may sing a song of joy!  Like a Burmese Mountain Dog that is finally allowed to run around free through the Alps and do its work.

Or, for example, in bridge pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana).   Explore turning your feet out (just slightly!) as you lift your hips up.  And yes, squeeze your butt!  See what happens!  If your lower back doesn’t like the way that this feels, then by all means back out, return to neutral, and make the lower back your priority.  But if it feels good, then maybe consider walking on the butt squeezing wild side occasionally?

Butt Stabilizing

We can bring the glutes back into the fold by recruiting them as stabilizers.   Take Mountain Pose (Tadasana) as an example.  Yogis have also been a little obsessed with “hugging in” for the last ten years, which engages the inner legs (adductors).  How about pressing your heels out away from each other instead?  (Go on, try it.)  Then you’ll feel your outer hips engage, which is turning on Gluteus Medius and mimimus – Maximus’s little pals!

 

Or – how about this – when we do our (many) forward folds in yoga, engage your glutes and your hamstrings rather than just hanging out in the stretch?   Rather than stretching the sitting bones forever to the ceiling, in a forward fold, instead keep the length of your legs but draw your sitting bones towards each other or towards your thighs to take your hamstrings out of hteir end range of motion.  As a recovering Flabby-Assed-Yogi, let me personally attest that there is a connection between flaccid glutes and torn hamstring attachments.  So protect your tendons by keeping your glutes eccentrically engaged (eccentrically in this context meaning “engaged while lengthening” rather than “bizarre”) as you practice forward folds.

 

Here are some cues to think about when you’re forward folding to keep your muscles engaged as they stretch:

  • Draw your sitting bones slightly towards each other
  • Magnetize your sitting bones to the backs of your legs
  • Hug your outer hips in
  • Root your tailbone down the backs of your legs

 

grainsaltGrain of Salt

Now, as a recovering FAY, I get very excited about all this squeezing of the butt, and it’s been very therapeutic for me to explore it in my personal practice.  However, we must keep in mind that our bodies are happiest when they are in balance.  By encouraging us to lift the ban on engaging the glutes, I am endeavoring to invite the pendulum back to center – not drive it into over-engaged, pumpkin butt dysfunction.  There is intelligence to keeping the lower back lengthened and stable in backbends, and for some of us engaging the glutes is not going to be the best route to stability.

Your relationship to your ass is, ultimately, a personal one.  So let this be a call to personal ass-engaging exploration!  Squeeze your bum in your yoga class and notice the corresponding effect in your hips and your lower backs.  Feel what happens in the backs of your legs when you’re forward folding: are you so tight that you need all the stretch that you can get?  Or are you at risk of going too far with too little stability?

Go on:  explore the full range of your bum’s potential.  Let the ass-ana adventures begin.