How to Hold Space

Holding space can be an ethereal concept.

What does it mean and how do you do it?

More importantly....how do you do it WELL??

As a mentor to new yoga teachers, I talk a lot about how a big part of teaching yoga is holding space for people to work through whatever it is they need to work through in the group classroom.

I've come across a lot of people who say, "Holding space is something you can't teach," and I used to agree.

However, part of my job mentoring new teachers is teaching them how to hold space, so I often inquire within about how I hold space and how do you hold space for others?

How do you teach this seemingly intangible quality to those who want to do it and do it well?

On the very practical, tangible side of things, at least when it comes to yoga, having a solid foundation of teaching skills helps.

This includes skills like:

• Clear, concise, direct cueing

• Moving confidently & intentionally around the room

• Being mindful of your body language and how it presents to the group

• Using inclusive language

• Feeling confident in your intelligent sequencing skills and knowledge of the body & shapes

• Creating verbal permission for your students to listen to their bodies

The more intangible qualities that create good space holding include:

• Feeling rooted & grounded in yourself as a person and in your teaching skills

• Managing & regulating your nervous system while you teach

• Being fully present with your students

• Being open & curious to different perspectives & beliefs

I'm sure there are more, but that's the list I have for now.

The tangibles are easy to teach. There are formulas, systems, guidelines around how to do them and what they look like.

The intangibles are more challenging because of myriad things.

First of all, the intangibles take time and are somewhat outside the scope of a 200 hour yoga teacher training. (Not fully outside the scope, but I have dedicated a good 30+ years working on the intangibles and still feel like this is a life long practice, so getting bits and pieces in a 200 hour yoga training just isn't enough.)

Secondly, the intangibles require deep self study (svadhyaya) and self awareness of your triggers, traumas, biases, etc. Again, not something often covered in a 200 hour teacher training, and even if it is, it's still not enough time.

So how do you teach these intangibles to people?

Honestly, this is still a question I'm pondering, and I suspect I'll be pondering this for the rest of my life, or as long as I'm mentoring others in how to hold space for people, and here are some thoughts I've had about how to best teach people holding space.

• Modeling Behavior

Just like how children learn to be in relationship with other people by observing

their parent's behavior, your students can also learn how to hold space well by

observing your behavior in the training room, the classroom, and in your 1:1

interactions. Humans co-regulate to each other, which means they attune to each

others' energy & behavior. When you model how to hold space for people well,

your students will subconsciously start to pick up on that behavior also. Of course,

this takes time, practice, and observation, and it is a great way for people to learn.

It goes back to the mentor/mentee, oral traditions of learning that occurred pre-

Westernization.

• Encouraging students to study more, seek outside healing modalities, & letting them know yoga is a lifelong practice

Yoga and healing are vast endeavors that are essentially never ending.

When you think you've healed something, often times something will happen to

unearth a different layer of healing of the same thing you thought you healed.

Letting your students know that anxiety is normal and okay, and that this practice

is vast and a lifelong endeavor can help take the pressure & perfectionism off of

your students. It can help them relax into their being and being human, growing

their confidence & comfortability in making mistakes.

I find more and more that people are afraid to make mistakes and they act like

some grave consequences will befall them if they "fuck up". (Which is probably

due to the hyper productive, hustle culture, punitive system we live in in the West.)

Except there's really no such thing as fucking up.

We teach yoga!

No one is going to die if we say something weird or forget a cue or a posture in a

sequence. As much as yoga is a serious spiritual endeavor, it's not life or death.

You can acknowledge you made a mistake, fix it if need be, and move on, and

there will be no dire consequences. I feel like the more mentors can impress

this upon your students, the easier it will be for your students to feel comfortable

being human.

Additionally, you being open about your own healing journey and modeling grace

and compassion for yourself (and others) when you make mistakes will help them

realize it's ok to do the same.

• Inviting students to use these concepts off their mat/teaching practice

Yoga happens everywhere. It is a system for internal liberation. Things that happen

on the mat in physical poses (asana) often mirror behaviors & reactions off the mat

in your life.

For example, if you are on your mat holding staff pose (dandasana), which can be a

challenging posture, and your mind starts to race with negative thoughts or

thoughts of "When are we going to get out of this pose?! Let's go, let's go!" and

you fidget and grunt and do whatever you need to not be present with the

uncomfortable sensations occurring in your body, notice whether or not these

same thoughts & behaviors occur when you are having an uncomfortable

conversation in your life or when you make a mistake while teaching a yoga class.

When you are on your mat, your teacher might tell you to breathe deeply and be

with the discomfort while holding dandasana. What happens if you breathe deeply

and be with the discomfort when you are in the uncomfortable conversation or

when you've forgotten a part of your sequence?

I can only speak to my personal experience and the experiences others have

shared with me, but I have found that breathing deeply helps me pause, notice my

automatic reactions, and allows me to choose my behaviors instead of reacting.

The same thing goes for when you're teaching a yoga class as well. If you forget a

posture in your sequence and notice your heart is racing and your face gets warm,

take a deep breath and pause so you can choose how to continue instead of

continuing to teach in your flustered state.

Like everything in life, practice makes progress, and the more your students can

practice yoga philosophy and tools in their everyday life, the easier it will be to

apply these tools in their teaching practice as well.

This is where I'm at in the "How to Teach People to Hold Space" conversation right now. I can almost guarantee that my position will grow, change, and evolve the more I learn, mentor, and contemplate how to teach this.

I invite you to share your thoughts on how you teach people to hold space below! 👇🏽

Let's get this conversation started! 💖

If you desire guidance in teaching yoga and holding space for others, I encourage you to email me at antisoulmatelove@gmail.com so we can chat about working together.

Edited to Add on 3/9/23: Upon deeper reflection, one of the biggest components to holding space is presence. You being fully present with your students (or other people in a non-yoga teaching situation) and being the container in which they can move through whatever they need to move through. What creates this container is the teaching skills I mentioned above because they allow you to be more present with your students. If you're not worrying about what you're saying, how you're saying it, what your sequence is, etc, you are able to be more present with your students. If you're holding space for someone outside of the classroom, the container is eye contact, active listening, acknowledgement, validation - making someone feel seen, heard, and understood.

Essentially, it's not about you. When you hold space for someone, the focus is mainly on them and their experience.