A great yoga teacher should primarily be someone who inspires you to practice and to better yourself. Yoga is ultimately concerning bringing peace to yourself and the teacher's teachings should encourage this in you.
A good yoga teacher ought to be someone with a lot of enthusiasm for yoga, that is someone who enjoys not only practising and learning yoga themselves, but additionally someone who enjoys teaching yoga too.
The ultimate goal of yoga is to bring peace into oneself and to transfer this sense of peace to others. Of course yoga is a path. In our human world we can only make an effort to be peaceful. However the goal should be there. Hence a good yoga teacher should be one whose goal it is to become peaceful and also one who has an understanding of what peace or shanti actually is. The ancient Indian scriptures talk a lot with regards to 'shanti' or peace. Shanti according to the scriptures is the original nature of the soul. There are also a lot of teachings that speak about the seventh chakra as being a place where peace can be experienced. Also the teachings of 'ahimsa' or nonviolence talk about peaceful conduct. A good yoga teacher should have a good understanding of this.
A good yoga teacher should be aware of the much deeper teachings of yoga which are in the scriptures. There are scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita that talk about 'yoga' or the concept of union and also about 'atma' or the soul and philosophy. There are also books such as 'Hatha Yoga Pradipika' that mention diet, 'asana' or posture practice and so forth. A good yoga teacher should have a good understanding of all parts of yoga.
Furthermore a good yoga teacher should have a good understanding that yoga is not just asana or physical practice but is something further. The teacher should be one who always encourages you to focus your awareness on your breath in order to bring you into a condition of meditation. The good should always be aware of the ashtanga or eight limbs of yoga which include rules for interpersonal and moral conduct, meditation, breath control and so forth. The good teacher, however , should still have an understanding of asana as well as anatomy in order to correct the physical posture. The eight limbs of yoga do include asana or actual physical practice too.
The teacher should understand that yoga is about health. As yoga has developed many people have become aware of the benefits of yoga practice (including those of meditation) and the good teacher should understand and teach this. Following a sattvic or pure diet is an important step in yoga. It is useful when following a pure diet to eat organic foods which contain no pesticides and are grown in a manner designed to keep the soil fertile and the products full of nutrients. The good instructor should guide you with good diet and good health. Check out YogaBasics' guide to beginner yoga here.
The good teacher encourages you not to be competitive but to work on yourself. She or he understands that everyone is different, has different genetics and that everyone comes to yoga with their own needs. A sign of a great teacher is that he or she tells you not to look at others during the class. This helps you focus on yourself and your own advancement and this should ideally what the good teacher leads you towards.
The good teacher gives good adjustments but will not push you too much. He or she rather encourages you, helps you to see your potential and guides you towards a point associated with peace within yourself.
The good teacher has a strong desire to help you with your journey and to guide you towards peace.
The great teacher likes all aspects of yoga. This includes chanting, breathing techniques, meditation, philosophy. He or she sees all the benefits of the various branches of yoga and helps you with those that appeal to you.
Above all the good yoga teacher is someone you are able to bond with and form a relationship with. He or she should be someone who you can relate to, someone who is on the same route as you and someone who encourages you to follow your path.
The good teacher applies principles of yoga to his or her everyday life and helps you and guides you to do the same. A few years ago I studied yoga in Rishikesh in Indian and I told my philosophy teacher that I could be relaxed during my yoga class but when I was not learning I can easily be affected by the distractions of the world around and that I could easily become stressed. I asked him how I could manage this and he answered 'always focus on the breath when you feel that distractions are arising in the mind during daily activity - this will bring you back towards a point of inner stillness'. I have done this ever since and have discovered that it works. What is more is that I have realised that a good teacher of yoga is one who applies yoga in order to his or her daily life.
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