How to Find the Right Yoga Teacher

I was recently asked by a new client—after a few classes together—to describe the style of yoga I teach. It’s a great question. And while the best way to understand my teaching is to experience it, I want to offer some insight here, especially for those seeking clarity before committing to a new yoga practice or a different way of approaching yoga.

Finding the right yoga teacher and style isn’t just about taste, preference or proximity. It’s about trust. It’s about alignment—not just physical, but philosophical and ethical. You deserve to know what kind of experience you’re stepping into, especially if you’ve tried other classes that didn’t quite feel right, or you’re approaching yoga with physical limitations, stress, or hesitation.

When Class Titles Don’t Tell the Whole Story You’d think a “gentle yoga” or "therapeutic yoga" class would be perfect if you’re new to yoga or working with movement limitations—but that’s not always the case. Class titles are often designed to attract the most people, not reflect the teacher’s expertise or training. And unless the instructor has specific training in joint replacements or reduced mobility, even gentle and therapeutic classes can move too fast or miss the mark.

Why Training and Credentials Count Before describing the style of yoga I teach, I believe every student deserves to know their teacher’s background. A qualified teacher should be transparent about their credentials and training, and ideally align with organizations that uphold ethical standards—like Yoga Alliance. While Yoga Alliance itself has work to do in evaluating the ever-growing number of teacher training programs, being a Registered Yoga Teacher shows a commitment to excellence, ethics, and scope of practice. It means your teacher has agreed to follow professional guidelines that protect students. What I Teach: Yoga Therapeutics

Joy Zazzera is Northeastern & Central Pennsylvania's only Registered Yoga Medicine® Therapeutic Specialist

I’m a Yoga Medicine® Therapeutic Specialist—the only one in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania. I'm also a Licensed Massage Therapist and hold a highly regarded Meditation Teacher Certification.

My background includes hundreds of hours of advanced study in anatomy, physiology, orthopedics, human cadaver dissection, the brain and nervous system, pathology, performing therapeutic evaluations, and therapeutic applications of yoga, self-massage and meditation, as well as years of experience working exclusively with adults facing and recovering from joint replacements, reduced mobility, scar tissue, and chronic stress.

So before I describe the style of yoga I teach, it’s important to say this: it isn’t about trendy class names, clever marketing or over-reaching. It’s about depth of knowledge, safety, scope of practice, ethical expectations and alignment, and the ability to ask the right questions, adapt practices to people with specific limitations and the integrity to refer them out to a healthcare provider when red flags appear.

That’s why I align with teaching yoga therapeutics—because it’s not about you fitting into a class. It’s about the practice being designed to fit you from the inside-out. And it's the the style of yoga I've become highly credentialed to lead.

The Yoga Landscape Today In our highly commodified Western world, yoga—including wellness—has been reshaped into many different forms. Some yoga styles emphasize performance and aesthetics. Others promise quick fixes or spiritual highs. As someone who’s practiced yoga for more than two decades in yoga studios across the United States and now strictly online, and spent ten years of focused study under world-renowned teachers specializing in yoga therapeutics and teaching yoga and meditation to beginners, athletes and adults with chronic conditions, I’ve seen and experienced the full spectrum.

At Yoga with Joy, I’ve chosen a specialized, focused path. Which means there's many more people I don't teach yoga to, than those I do. In fact, when yoga teachers over-extend themselves and try to teach yoga to everybody, they end up teaching yoga to nobody.

Who I Work With I don’t believe yoga should be one-size-fits-all. My focus is on people who want to feel better in bodies that carry challenges—people navigating aging, stress and exhaustion, surgery and recovery, scar tissue, inflammation, chronic tension, or pain. Many of my students are fellow Generation Xers and Baby Boomers living with joint replacements or movement limitations, older athletes seeking recovery practices, and beginners looking for something safe and sensible. What they share isn’t a lifestyle—it’s a set of whole-body goals: resilience, balance, mindfulness, and self-trust.

Yoga as a Practice of Paying Attention Yoga is, at its core, a discipline of paying attention—of noticing how we move, breathe, think, and feel. It invites us to question assumptions about what we’re capable of and offers tools to rewrite that narrative. Yoga doesn’t need to be hard, fast, or mystical to be meaningful.

What My Classes Feel Like Slow, simple movement with light load is powerful. It helps rewire neuromuscular patterns, improve posture and balance, and reconnect us to inner experience. This creates space for reflection, sensation, and presence.

In class, we aren’t here to “perform” or collect poses—we’re here to explore a different kind of attention. This shift changes how you relate to your body, your aging, and your capacity. It often begins by simply pausing long enough to challenge your internal narrative.

We don’t force the body into shapes. Instead, we invite the nervous system to soften, creating safety to explore something new. Transformation begins with mindset: not striving to “get it right,” but noticing how it feels. This shift—from proving to experiencing—is how confidence grows.

I teach from a therapeutic, anatomy-informed approach rooted in the Yoga Medicine® model and a decade of evidence-informed training in movement, meditation, and bodywork. My classes aren’t flashy or fast. They’re deceptively challenging, deeply nourishing, and intentionally slow. Using props, variations, and purposeful sequencing, I support your nervous system, your breath, and your tissues. This isn’t “easy yoga.” It’s yoga therapeutics—intelligently designed to help you connect the dots between sensation and safety, strength and softness, structure and self-awareness.

I teach from a therapeutic, anatomy-informed approach. It’s rooted in the Yoga Medicine® model and influenced by a decade of evidence-informed training in movement, mindfulness, meditation, and bodywork.

Who This Approach Attracts Over the years, I’ve worked with students who aren’t seeking a cardio workout or advanced-looking poses. They want a way to come home to themselves. They want to be seen, heard, and supported. My role isn’t to perform or impress—it’s to teach you how to listen to your body with more clarity and curiosity. Most of the students I work with are women in their 50s, 60s, and beyond—women whose bodies, energy, and priorities have shifted with age. Many are navigating joint replacements, surgery recovery, or the daily reality of stiffness, scar tissue, or fatigue and exhaustion. Others are simply tired of classes that move too fast, feel intimidating, or don’t take into account what real midlife and beyond bodies need. They’re also weary of signing up for so-called “gentle” or “therapeutic” classes, only to find they’re really just the same advanced yoga—slowed down—which still misses the mark when what’s needed is a practice that truly adapts to them.

My students often share:

• A desire to move more easily, with less pain or stiffness.

• The need for joint-friendly practices that support long-term mobility.

• A wish to rebuild confidence after surgery, injury, or years of putting others first.

• Curiosity about meditation and mindfulness as tools for stress relief.

• The longing for practices that feel safe, supportive, and deeply nourishing—not performative.

While most are women 50+, I also occasionally work with younger women (often in their late 40s) who are already noticing changes in their bodies and want to be proactive about their health. What brings them together isn’t age alone, but a common goal: to feel more resilient, balanced, and at home in their bodies.

My Influences and Approach My work reflects my own healing, my background in teaching methodology, my years supporting collegiate athletes, and my continued study with world-class teacher-trainers in yoga therapeutics and meditation. The styles I draw from—Hatha, Restorative, Yin, Vinyasa, Myofascial Release, Yoga Nidra, and Meditation—are blended with intention: to help you move with more confidence, inside and out.

Is This the Right Fit? If you’re looking for a teacher who’s unafraid to do things differently, to question trends, to take time to educate beyond class experiences, and to hold space where you can slow down and feel more, you might find a good fit with me. My goal isn’t to teach everyone. It’s to teach adults like me—those who are ready to be present with their changing bodies, not push through them.

Yoga Therapeutics, practiced with intention, can be a profound intervention for both body and mind—but only if we allow it. If you’ve been unsure about yoga because of past experiences, or if you’re not sure where to begin, I invite you to try something slower, more mindful, and more empowering.

Yoga with Joy is yoga beyond the poses—it’s subtle, not showy. We don’t practice to achieve poses or for external validation. We practice to restore presence. That presence, alongside a supportive teacher, is what builds true confidence. Your body is not a problem to fix. It’s a place to live. Let’s make it a safer, more supportive home—together. You’ll know if this style is right for you by how you feel during and after my practices: more grounded, more aware, more connected. That’s the kind of yoga I teach. And maybe, someday, you’ll describe it to someone else in a way that brings them into practice too.

Practice along at home: Three simple solutions to infuse health, freedom and mobility into your spine. Ritualize these simple to perform practices daily to create new movement habits that will result in easier twisting and reaching, lengthened posture, and reduced tightness and pain.