Is there any kind of benchmark of what to expect from a yoga teacher? Obviously there are multiple different styles of yoga and styles/personalities of teachers, I’m just wondering what the average yoga class attendee should expect from their teacher, or what the general belief is amongst yoga practitioners of how their teacher should be. Any thoughts? 
Namaste mama:
At the end of the day, teachers are merely individuals who are challenged by their own personal strengths and weaknesses, just like everyone else is. Preconceived, value judgement expectations of teachers are thus likely to end in disappointment and disenchantment as their imperfections are revealed.
As a result, although not unreasonable to look for the expression of personal integrity and personal achievement in a teacher, it is better on the whole to focus on the qualitative message of the teaching rather than on the personal perfection of the messenger, IMO.
Hari Om!
Adityananda
There are many different “benchmarks” for teachers however they are not inherently tied to the expectation of the student. Therefore this question is actually two questions.
I personally believe that the bar is and should be raised for one choosing to teach yoga. And reaching that bar requires the teacher to live that which they are teaching. To be clear, this isn’t a requirement of perfection. It is merely a requirement of integrity which should be transmitted to the teacher during their training - if they have taken it seriously AND if the training is of quality.
Each teacher should find their own personality (or Self) within their teaching WITHOUT performing or behaving in ways that aggrandize the ego (since the subject is Yoga). It is clear however that this is not the case in all quarters. Additionally, a teacher of yoga should be aware of a respectful to appropriate boundaries between teacher and student. But the main quality I believe is necessary is an understanding that the teaching of yoga is for the student, not the teacher and therefore what helps the student should be in the forebrain of the teacher.
Thank you both for your thoughts. I agree that you shouldn’t put anybody on a pedestal, generally in life not just in the yoga studio. I guess what the student can expect is integrity in whatever personal package of teacher that comes in! I like that idea 
I once sat in a beginners class with a teacher who kept her eyes closed during the class. The three of us sat there at one point, doing nothing, for almost five minutes before she opened her eyes and saw that she had lost us. She also ended the class ten minutes early. It felt a little like we were intruding on her own private practice.
My absolute favourite yoga teacher was a lovely lady whose name I can’t recall, who taught on a yoga holiday in Crete some years ago. She taught Vanda Scaravelli’s method and she was amazing, so enthusiastic and passionate and totally about the student, wanting everyone in the room to experience the full beauty of her style of yoga. It was her passion and complete lack of ego that got me hooked on yoga.
I have difficulty with teachers who show off, however good the rest of their class may have been the showing-off segment ruins it for me. It makes you feel inferior which doesn’t seem approriate in a yoga setting. It’s not exactly a major crime but it does cause me to move on to another class.
It’s interesting how many people expect yoga teachers to be perfect, perfect at every posture, perfectly enlightened. living the perfect yogic life. I quite like it when a teacher talks through a pose and says, I won’t demonstrate this as I have an issue with my knee…or maybe seeing a yoga teacher going into a butcher’s shop or a bottle shop 
The boundaries issue interests me. Students need to respect those too.
Boundaries are part of the yoga teaching. Most students walk into class without a clue. Unfortunately, due to poor teacher training and the money to be made in hosting them, many walk out the same way - student and teacher alike.