Teaching Yoga with Intention: The Essential Guide to Skillful Hands-On Assists and Verbal Communication

Clear, effective verbal communication and judicious touch are two skills that are essential for every yoga teacher. Drawing from her fifty years of yoga experience and her training in Nonviolent Communication and physical therapy, Judith Hanson Lasater has created the definitive guide to effective and appropriate communication between yoga teachers and their students. She focuses not just on how to explain technique but also on the more subtle lessons of respect, empathy, and compassion.

Lasater shines an unflinching light on physical contact in yoga. Teachers often use touch to create understanding and awareness in the poses. But this is a nuanced art, and Lasater gives clear guidance on how, where, and when it is appropriate to further a student’s development.

Lasater also empowers students by encouraging them to take ownership of and responsibility for their practice: learning how and when to say no to an adjustment, keeping boundaries, knowing when to leave a class, how to communicate your needs to your yoga teacher, and if and when to report a teacher’s behavior. The skills that Lasater offers in this clear, practical book will help create a safe and optimal learning environment for all students and teachers.