Do you find your teaching confidence gets shaken like the ground beneath you? You are teaching a client, and suddenly you question your thoughts, your cues, and your exercise choices. Doesn’t matter if you have just started teaching or have been teaching for years, you suddenly feel unsure of what you are doing or why and your heart is racing and palms are sweating. All your teaching confidence left your body. Below are some my tips you can follow that will give you your teaching confidence back!
Teachers can struggle with this as they enter the world of teaching. There are so many first-time experiences such as a client with a knee issue, herniated disc, pregnancy, older clients, hip replacements, and difficult personalities just to name a few. And then, what about when you get the client who has been doing Pilates longer than you have been teaching? It is enough to shake that confidence daily!
What about those teachers who have been teaching for years? Is their confidence just something that develops over time and then one day it is like the Pilates universe lifts that teacher up and they are in Superhero mode! Confident, all-knowing and ready to conquer anything that walks into the studio? No, of course not!
As you fast forward in your teaching career, there will be moments where your confidence gets tested. The ground suddenly shakes beneath you out of nowhere. It can be the argumentative client that pushes you in ways that you question yourself in terms of what you know or don’t know. You see other teachers come in and wonder, “Do I need to be giving that much information?” Or, “Is my cueing sounding as strong as that teacher’s? Should I be doing that with my client?”
Teaching for over 25 years now, I can tell you that I have had many moments of that confidence getting tested. I remember being a new teacher with less than a year of experience teaching and the studio owner called me to tell me she was giving me a new client that had a knee issue. She hadn’t even said what it was yet and I immediately was saying “oh no! I have never had a client with a knee issue”. I could feel my palms sweating and my mind started racing with thoughts of “oh my goodness, I am going to break them! “. She calmly told me that I knew what to do, do my homework and I would be fine. So I was going through all my books and manuals and everything I had learned (this was back in the day of no cell phone, no computers for every house, etc.). Let’s just say I survived and so did the client!
Here are the tips that I give to not only new teachers but to those that have been teaching for years and years. When you feel the earthquake of that confidence going, you can always come back to these tips!
• Continuing the studies- Workshops, books, lectures, discussions, forums on social media. Do them! Don’t just do a workshop for the CEC’s, try to do something every other month or 4 times a year to really be the student again or continue if you are new to teaching. New teachers pick those that will help you understand more of what you are feeling is lost and experienced teachers find something that will enhance your Pilates teachings such as more knowledge of anatomy or movement, even communication or teaching.
• Finding a Mentor- This is something that will be a constant in your teaching career and journey. New Teachers, you have the gift of the Mentor who taught you in your Teacher Training to keep going back to and continuing your learning as you have things come up that you need help with. The more experienced you are, then your Mentor or guide will change in terms of what you are wanting or needing in your Pilates teaching or practice. It is important to always have someone that can give you that support, direction, and that confidence in yourself.
• Finding your Teaching Strength- As a new teacher, you may feel that you are really feeling good with your verbal or just even the knowledge of the exercises. Take that and really dig deep into it. Nurture that strength in your teaching and it will get that confidence up for you. After you have been teaching a while, that strength will change and grow, so keep nurturing it. Use tips 1 and 2 to help even more with your teaching strengths as you go forward in your Pilates career and teaching.
The teacher who seems confident all the time is not, I promise. Confidence comes from continued work and practice. That ground shaking will come back at times and continuing to get information from those around you, and those who can help guide you where you are wanting to go will give you confidence throughout your entire Pilates teaching career and your own practice. That ground will stay firmly under you and solid!
Hilary Opheim
Pilates Mentor/Teacher Training
https://www.hilaryopheim.com/
