More Yoga Teachers

There’s been an explosion in the number of certified yoga teachers  — 70,000 at last count  (NAMASTA, 2005), plus the many newly minted teachers since then. The pressures of a sustained economic downturn are causing many to seek alternative careers.

Some of the newcomers want a more rewarding second career, a means to give back to their community. Some are recent college grads who’ve struggled to land a job that they find meaningful, people who see value in the yoga lifestyle. Others are people who have faced a major life passage or health crisis, been transformed thanks to yoga, and now want to share the joy of their practice.

Whatever their motivation, yoga’s increasing popularity has led to an explosion in teacher certifications, but this is not without risk for both newcomers and existing studios.

More Challenges for Yoga Teachers

If there are too many teachers within easy driving distance, it’s hard for new teachers to make an adequate living until you succeed in attracting a loyal set of students who attend your classes on a regular basis… Studio owners manage a limited inventory of available class times and space, so they prefer popular teachers who can fill the classes.

This is the classic “Catch 22″ situation for the the teacher.  It takes time to earn a good reputation as a valued teacher, time to build recognition for your contributions, time for word-of-mouth to generate referrals from your students to their friends.

The question is, how can new teachers speed that up? The answer is, by standing out, being different in ways that matter to students and the studio owner. (In the business world, this is referred to as “personal branding.”)

The challenge boils down to figuring out the authentic path that will enable you to attract the right students — people who will benefit from your particular teaching and interaction skills; people who will enthusiastically recommend you and your studio to their friends and family.

In a crowded urban market you need to stand out, be recognized for what is distinctive and meaningful about your services, your studio and its location, the caliber of your teachers and the vibrancy of your studio’s community.

Be Different — But in Ways That Are Meaningful

Start by spending some time looking around to understand what the other studios are offering in your area. Talk to other studio owners to see what’s working for them. Talk to yoga students about what’s missing from their current class experiences. Ask them how they would describe their “dream classes.” When and where would those classes take place. What would be different about the student-teacher interaction from what they’ve experienced today.

Then invest some quality time thinking about how you can make your offering more distinctive — more directly relevant to prospective students within driving distance of your studio. What’s special about the people who live in your area?

If you’re in a highly competitive area (like Los Angeles, New York or the Bay Area), think about ways to position your studio or some of your classes to appeal more narrowly to a specific set of students who share common needs or interests. For example,

• Classes for boomer women, or mother-daughter classes
• Classes for people struggling with specific health or mobility challenges: such as chronic arthritis, back/spine issues, or cancer
• Classes for people who need help restoring their self-esteem (or even their youthful appearance), as a result of being laid off or other painful life passages
• Classes for bikers, skiers and runners who need help relaxing those overly tight leg muscles, or to build upper body strength
• Classes for tennis players, or skiers, or golfers — you get the idea

What about classes that target specific pain zones — the kinds of anatomical or bio-mechanical problems that many people in your area are likely to experience? How about team-teaching with a like-minded physical therapist?

• Classes for people with tight shoulders, disk issues or neck problems — the kinds of issues faced by people who spend too many hours at the computer
• Classes for people with lower back weakness, or balance challenges
• Combined nutrition and yoga classes for people who want to manage (and maintain) weight loss in a non-faddish way

Increase Your Reach

Have you explored whether people who work for the larger employers in your area might be interested in classes offered at their workplace (after hours, before the workday begins, or during lunch hours)?

Classes at over-55 communities, senior centers, churches, etc.?

In addition to your private tutorials, have you developed classes or other services to help your students get more benefit out of their home-based asanas?

Do you offer asana guidance via podcasts that your students can download and listen to at home or when they’re traveling? If you get good at this, you might be able to offer a subscription service for a series of weekly or monthly podcasts that you market over the Internet.

If you have a friend with a digital camcorder, why not post some videos of your teaching style and philosophy on YouTube?

Have you thought about ways you might provide some online instruction (yoga sequences, guided meditation, etc.) that students could use to guide their practice, at the student’s convenience, on days when she can’t get to a studio for a scheduled class?

Some Examples from a Seattle Studio

The studio where I practice is quite sophisticated; their classes are overflowing. Here are some of the things my teachers do to keep themselves in front of their students when we’re not in their class:

• Create and sell an annual yoga calendar that features real students in a series of poses (including women over 80!)
• Send monthly newsletters by email to students who choose to receive them. The emails contain poems or stories written by the teachers, often with photos that inspire meditation — and reminders about upcoming classes, retreats, and special events.
• Host several special events each quarter (like weekend retreats in lovely settings within a few hours’ drive of their studio) or classes on special topics.
• And of course, they have a web site with information about the teachers, the classes, the events calendar, etc.

If you’re struggling to keep your yoga studio vibrant and full of students, I hope one or more of these ideas will lead to increased business success for you.

Society as a whole benefits when yoga values infuse people’s daily lives and activities. But for the struggling yoga studio or newly certified teacher, explosive growth in teacher certifications leads to increased competition in the local market. To thrive and grow in a crowded market requires a thoughtful strategy, one that’s put into practice via a focused and disciplined set of tactics.

Namaste.

Cultivating community can be as simple as a friendly yoga class, a shared meal or an inspiring workshop. This can sow seeds towards creating a soul-centered kinship of yogis who take their community “off the mat” and beyond the studio walls.

Community Begins with the Teacher

For almost a year, I attended a yoga studio in the heart of Sydney, Australia. It was a busy school, packed with workers from nearby buildings, and had a “buzz” of the town outside. I attended several classes a week and was often taught by a particular teacher who, time and again, asked for my name. The first dozen times, I didn’t mind.

Another evening after class, I heard a teacher invite several students to the pub for a drink after class. I wasn’t offended by a yoga teacher having a drink with his students (Who knows? They may even have been drinking soda water.), it was the inclusive/exclusive inference that left me feeling on the outside.

My present yoga teacher cultivates community in each and every class he teaches. Not only does he have a gift for remembering names and the physical limitations of each student, he gently uses our names to verbally adjust students, which also works to introduce us to each other.

Creating Community — One Class at a Time

Each class is made up of a collection of individuals who bring with them the emotions and preoccupations of their particular day. I’ve witnessed yoga teachers change students’ differing energies, uniting the class towards common goals such as mindfulness.

Rather than create challenges for the more experienced yogis in the room, try to teach each class as if all your students are beginners — make your instructions accessible, your tone welcoming, and your spirit encouraging. A sense of fun and joyfulness is a powerful teaching tool and helps students lighten up and smile at their neighbors. Ask students to introduce themselves to the people next to them in small classes. And lead students in a Namaste to each other at the end of class.

Humor is most effective at helping students get out of their heads and onto their mats. Crack a joke and see people relax — most effective after a core strength session. One of my favorite teachers has a gift for cracking jokes at opportune moments. Although these jokes can be a bit off-colour at times, they are accompanied by a charming, open smile; my teacher easily disarms new students of their concerns that all yoga teachers are serious and holier-than-thou.

Taking the Classroom Outside

Encouraging students to linger longer can start with a cup of tea, extend to a meal, and end up with people volunteering in their community — it’s all in the spirit of inclusion.

One successful Sydney studio does this with grace as the yoga teacher boils a kettle in the reception room and offers students who linger after class a cup of tea. A meal at a local restaurant after a yoga workshop or the completion of a course also encourages students to relax and get to know one another outside of class. Depending on your locale and the students’ means, either bundle the meal into the price of the workshop or let everyone know it’s “Dutch treat.” Some studios sponsor annual or seasonal group meals, and ask students who want to participate to contribute something, such as a favorite home-cooked dish, to share with their teachers and fellow yogis.

For students who are frequent visitors to your yoga studio, offering a volunteer program can help build a sense of community, and not only among the volunteers. One yoga city studio I have attended has a “karma yoga” program offering free yoga classes in exchange for cleaning duties. I began volunteering at another studio giving adjustments and corrections during Saturday classes. I was already an experienced yoga student at that time and much appreciative of the personal instructions given to me by the yoga teacher. The studio also benefited from having an extra set of eyes and hands during busy classes.

Widening Your Community

Groups tend to be judged by their actions before people listen to their words. Perhaps the single most powerful thing yogis can do to encourage new people to experience the benefits of yoga is to become more involved in community services. This also allows students to experience karma yoga, the yoga of action.

Samadhi Yoga in Sydney has a formal “Yoga in the Community” program, and offers 16 heavily-discounted classes per week to anyone who wishes to attend. This organization also runs programs in conjunction with drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, at-risk child care services, clinics for patients with AID and juvenile justice units. While this type of commitment may be some years off for a fledgling studio, a “clean the park” picnic day, a free weekly class after school to local teenagers, or a visit to an aged care home is more easily manageable.

Each yoga studio has the potential to become a hub of activity for the community beyond its walls. When we gather together with the hope of reaching self-realization, we are working toward recognizing the universality of all beings, and achieving peace and freedom not only for ourselves, but also our worldwide community. Taking our yoga practice “off the mat” and into the world.

— Brook McCarthy, YogaReach, Sydney, Australia