What do I mean by “yoga teacher slang”? You might be asking.

I vividly remember cringing at some of the expressions yoga teachers would use, when I first started out with my yoga practice. Quick side note: I HATED yoga in the beginning. For some reason I felt a strong resistance against it, but I kept showing up anyway, because it was the only thing that was helping with my panic attacks at the time.

Some of the expressions I found to be the most embarrassing ones are: “Spread your wings” (instead of “raise your arms”), “draw rainbows with your nose” (instead of “warm up your neck by drawing half circles with your nose”) and for some reason the constant “I invite you to…”, said with that soft yoga teacher voice, made me aggressive too.

But why all this aggression??

Looking back, I think it just might have been the unfamiliarity with the whole yoga class atmosphere. And boy, am I grateful for pushing through the initial discomfort. This might sound a little bit sad, but I don’t think it’s uncommon at all: Before starting yoga, I simply wasn’t accustomed to many unconditionally nurturing environments, apart from my bed. Safe spaces I could go to to unwind and just be. Where I didn’t have to “try hard” or “give it my all”.

Before I started yoga, I had spent my teen years studying like crazy for school and taking ballet classes. I felt like I was never good enough, no matter how hard I tried. Ballet teachers usually give harsh criticism. Every posture in ballet has to look a certain way and if your body simply isn’t built that way, then that’s your problem. Even at school, always being the top of my class, I often didn’t feel like I was enough. One of my favorite teachers told me, I was “wasting my potential” by choosing art as an elective subject before Spanish. I felt like the things I was naturally into weren’t good enough, or “as good” as a lot of other things. This really got to me, because I was so young and somehow felt like I needed everyone to be happy with my choices.

So, yoga confused me. How could it be that no one was criticised? Like, ever! Sure, the teachers would walk around, giving gentle adjustments here and there, but no one was praised for how flexible or strong they are and no one was shamed for spending the entire class in child’s pose either. This felt so strange for me. I couldn’t understand why this made me feel so uncomfortable. And then, on top of all this, this whole yoga thing seemed to be “working” as well! I regained my strength and flexibility after having neglected my body for a long time. I also started to feel safe in my body again and even my panic attacks (which had caused me so much pain in the past) disappeared. Slowly, but surely, I began to actually love myself.

And today, as a yoga teacher myself, I don’t really care if my classes are corny. I just want everybody to feel safe and seen and using a soft voice and telling everyone repeatedly to listen to their body simply helps to create the desired yoga class atmosphere.

I have to admit that I’m still not the biggest fan of “corny” language for cueing. But I definitely no longer cringe at yoga teachers who cue in a more poetic way.

Sometimes, just every once in a blue moon, I myself will even make my students draw rainbows with their noses.