How to Teach Yoga in the Park (9 Steps)
1. Confirm legality
Before you do anything, you need to make sure teaching yoga in the park is allowed. Contact administrative staff at the park to see if you need a permit.
Requirements may differ depending on whether you are charging clients for your services or giving everything away for free. Some states don’t distinguish between the two and require yoga teachers to get permits no matter what.
Therefore, make sure you confirm the details with all appropriate parties.
2. Notify students about expectations and best practices
Once everything on the legal front is taken care of, let your students know about the yoga session in the park. Tell them to add a few minutes of wiggle room in their schedules to account for things like finding a parking spot. Students might also have trouble finding the location itself if it’s their first time.
Also, tell students to bring bug spray, water, and sunscreen. It’s the outdoors after all.
3. Get students to sign liability waivers
Since yoga is a physical activity, it has a certain amount of risk. Tell students to listen to their bodies and stop if they feel any pain or discomfort. Be aware of any medical conditions. Students should consult with a doctor if they don’t know whether it’s safe to practice yoga.
4. Pick a good location in the park
Choose a spot that is accessible and not hidden away. Commuting will not be pleasant if the location is in the middle of nowhere. Fewer people might show up as a result.
At the same time, be aware of background noise. If the location is right next to the street, then the sounds of cars, sirens, and people will fill the air. Too much background noise negatively affects class since students will not be able to clearly hear your instructions.
Plus, yoga is supposed to be relaxing. Relieving stress through yoga will be difficult with too much background noise.
Thus, pick a location that is convenient and relatively quiet at the same time.
5. Make sure your students can hear and see you
Using your voice should be enough for small groups. However, if you’re overseeing a tribe of yogis, then invest in a good microphone and speaker system. Students can’t follow along if they can’t hear the instructions that you give out.
Also, consider putting together a raised platform that functions as a stage if you’re teaching a large class.
6. Set up equipment
Will you be using the same equipment from the studio or will there be substitutions? Also, decide which equipment you will supply as a yoga teacher. Students will then bring all the other equipment themselves.
Expect props to get a little dirty since the class is outdoors. This is why bringing slightly used equipment is a good idea. You don’t want to ruin brand new equipment that’s more suited for the studio.
7. Come up with a class routine and be open to changes
As a yoga teacher, you should know what your students’ favorite poses are. Include popular poses in your sequence as well as some new ones if you can.
Also, be ready to change things up because of environmental factors. For example, some poses might not be suitable at the park because of a muddy ground or the weather. You can swap these out for other poses. You can also implement modifications. For example, instead of lying down, perhaps a pose can be done standing up.
8. Embrace the weather and set your limits
Since you’re teaching outdoors, expect all kinds of weather on the day of the event. You just never know. However, you also need to decide at what point you should cancel the session. For example, a slight drizzle might be okay, but a thunderstorm might be too much.
You need to quickly communicate with your students when you do need to cancel. Plan this out beforehand. For example, a group text message might be better than email since some people don’t have email access when they’re on the road.
9. Be flexible with yoga session duration
A longer yoga session is not a problem when the weather is nice. It’s a different story when the temperature is below freezing.
A shorter session in this case is understandable and probably preferred by your students.