I'm a Yoga Teacher, Now What?

For our first episode, we have a conversation between myself and cohost Jo Stewart. The premise - that I am starting out as a new yoga teacher, and Jo offering advice, given her many years of experience in this profession.

We discuss issues that might affect new teachers, such as the following:

Legal Requirements.
How might I get work?
How many classes should I teach?
Should I quit my day job?
How much should I be getting paid?
The pros and cons of teaching at different kinds of locations.
Social media and building a website.
Should I be running courses?
How many trainings do I need?
The importance of being on time.

We cover a lot of ground in this podcast, and a lot of topics we cover could be episodes in their own right. If you would like us to drill into a particular topic, please let us know!

Picks of the week:
Jo - Insight Timer
Rane - Anything by Andrew Holocek

Music is used with permission by Ghostsoul

Transcript

Hello,

I'm Rahn.

Welcome to the first episode of the Flow Artist podcast.

For this very special first episode,

We have a conversation between myself and Jo Stewart.

The name of this episode is I'm a yoga teacher,

Now what?

As you'll hear in our conversation,

I've recently finished my yoga teacher training,

So I'd like to know what happens next.

Jo's been teaching yoga for over 10 years,

So I decided to pick her brains.

We cover subjects such as legal requirements,

How do I go about finding work as a yoga teacher,

Do I quit my day job,

Maintaining a healthy relationship with your yoga practice and much more.

We hope you get something out of this conversation,

Especially if you're embarking on a yoga teaching career yourself,

So please enjoy.

Hey,

I'm Jo.

I've been teaching for a while and I've been pretty DIY I guess with how I've run my business along the way.

I've been doing this as my kind of only job for over 10 years.

We've got a little yoga studio in our backyard and I've just got a lot to share,

All lessons that I've learned along the way,

Things that have worked for me,

Things that haven't worked for me,

Things that I've noticed other yoga teachers doing and these are the kind of questions that like if a new yoga teacher met up with me,

They'd end up asking me.

So we just thought it'd be a good idea to put all this information in one place and hopefully you will all find it useful or at least interesting.

So firstly,

What are the legal requirements?

Surprisingly none.

Here in Australia you could just call yourself a yoga teacher and start teaching classes.

Damn.

Yeah,

But you probably won't get any work that way.

So if you're going to be teaching at a gym or at a yoga studio,

You'll need to have insurance.

To get your insurance,

You'll need to have some kind of teaching certification.

Most places also require you to have first aid certification and it's just I guess nice to have membership to a professional organisation.

Some employers require it,

Some don't but it's kind of a professional step that I think yoga teachers should take even though it's not actually a legal requirement.

And do you have a preference on other organisations?

I do.

So I'm a member of Yoga Australia and they're actually quite strict about their membership.

You have to have at least 350 hours training.

They're pretty open to you getting that training from different sources and having personal experience and personal communication with an experienced teacher as being part of that.

They have a professional development requirement each year.

You've got to do a certain amount of hours of training.

And they advocate for yoga teachers in Australia.

One thing that they did was got in touch with all of the private health insurers and clarify and spreadsheet how those different insurers would rebate consumers for their yoga classes.

Yoga Alliance,

You pretty much just pay your money and you'll remember.

So for me,

That doesn't really mean as much.

But for a gym,

I don't think they care.

It's more just what you feel good about supporting where you want to give your money and how you feel that organisation is going to serve you as a teacher.

One thing that's burning on my mind is how do I get work?

Probably the best place to start is people that already know you because they're probably already excited that you're doing yoga teacher training.

I found people have had some really good results doing teaching at their work.

There's already a venue,

There's already a demand.

They kind of know and trust you.

And it's kind of a nice place to grow as a teacher and feel like you're kind of making a difference in people's lives without the pressure of paying rent on a studio space each week.

You can start teaching your friends as well.

And that can be awesome.

I found that friends can be not quite as reliable.

Sometimes they might be excited about your class,

But it doesn't necessarily mean they'll show up.

So you know,

Just bear that in mind.

Nothing personal,

But workmates tend to be a bit more reliable than friends,

Maybe because they're all already at that place at that time.

You can definitely send out your CV to places.

If you're going to hit up a local studio,

I would recommend going to the studio before you contact them.

My studio is really tiny.

I only have three people at a time and I get people just randomly emailing me asking about teaching big workshops here.

So at least research the place that you're applying to before you get in touch.

It's just going to be much better use of your energy and theirs.

Also,

You might get some insights as you're practicing at that place whether or not you would be a good fish.

I've had really good results as well.

Just giving my CV to local gyms and saying that I'm available for covers.

There's a lot of cover websites now on Facebook.

CoverMeYoga is a big one.

There's Melbourne Yoga Teachers Unite.

These are all Melbourne groups,

But they'll probably be somewhere local.

That way you can just kind of put out your feelers,

Get in touch with people.

When you do those covers,

They can often lead to other things.

So don't be worried about whether it's going to be worth your time and energy.

If you're a new teacher,

Just to practice teaching big diverse groups of people is always going to be really useful whether or not it leads to a full time ongoing work or not.

How many classes do you think I should teach?

Depends what else you're doing.

So if you're working full time,

I reckon one or two regular classes a week on top of that at the beginning would be heaps.

When I started out,

I was just working in a market two days a week.

So I had lots of free time through the week.

And that made it a pretty easy transition for me to kind of go into full time teaching.

I think it only took me about like six months before I could quit my market work and teach yoga full time.

Everyone's got their own right number of classes for them.

And beyond that,

You just find yourself exhausted and burnt out and you don't love it as much and it does kind of show in your teaching.

And it often depends on what else is going on in your life.

So it might take you a while to find that right balance for you.

So I think maybe when those opportunities come your way,

Feel it out.

But don't kind of put a whole lot of pressure on yourself to feel like you've got to be teaching a certain amount of classes,

It's better to have another job to take the pressure off until you kind of find that right balance for your teaching and your life.

Another thing that can make a difference is when you're teaching your classes.

When I was teaching early morning classes and late night classes,

Like eating my dinner when I got home at 930 and then waking up at 6 the next day to teach class,

That got pretty exhausting pretty quickly.

So now I only teach one early morning class a week,

But I teach a lot of later evening classes because that timeframe just works better for my own rhythms.

Another thing that can really make a difference is your travel time.

So if you're saying yes to a class that takes you an hour to get to and an hour to get home,

You know,

Maybe if those classes were closer,

You could teach two in that time and it would kind of be about the same amount of energy.

That leads us to the question of like,

When should you say yes or no to a teaching opportunity?

I think if you're really excited about it,

Say yes.

I think if right away you get a bad feeling about the person you're going to be working with,

Your new boss,

Listen to that and say no.

If it's a class that feels like is going to be rewarding emotionally,

Like maybe it's a community class or you're just really excited about what you'll be teaching there,

But it's not going to be that rewarding financially,

Then it's still worthwhile saying yes to.

If it feels like it's going to lead to other things,

Like say teaching at a festival,

You probably won't get paid for that gig.

You might get your festival ticket for free,

But a lot of people will get to experience your teaching.

And so that can be fun and exciting at the time and then kind of helpful in building your profile long term.

So I balance it out by like saying that class is either going to be rewarding financially,

Rewarding professionally and rewarding on an emotional,

Spiritual level.

And if you're getting two out of that three,

Then that's probably pretty good.

If you're doing three out of the three,

That's a definite yes.

But if it's only hitting one of those marks,

Then maybe that's a no.

Maybe have a think about it.

You did mention financially,

How much should I be getting paid?

Well,

As a new teacher,

That is probably going to be,

Probably not going to have as much negotiating power as if you've already got your own following.

If you're teaching a class at a gym in Melbourne,

You're probably going to get about $60,

Maybe more if it's I've seen classes offered for $45 and I wouldn't do it for that.

But you know,

If it's hitting a couple of those other things for you,

If you feel like it's going to be a really good experience,

Then you might say yes to less money.

If it's going to be a venue hire kind of situation,

Say you're just renting a space,

It would be really worth your while to do a bit of promotion beforehand to see if you're actually going to get the numbers to pay for that venue so you don't end up paying to teach.

If it's a corporate class,

Then you should definitely be getting more than $60.

I would say about $80 as a starting point and definitely more maybe $100,

$120 if the organisation is paying.

I do teach some corporate classes where the participants pay,

Like say one at a high school and I don't demand that much money from those guys because they're teachers.

I'm happy to give them yoga to start their day job.

The amount of energy that you put into the class and you get back from teaching that class is also a factor.

Should I quit my day job?

Well,

Maybe have a look at your budget.

You don't want to put a whole lot of pressure on yourself and your teaching if you've got a mortgage to pay and a family to support.

But at the same time,

If this is what you love,

You know,

You have to make a bit of space for that as well.

If going part time is an option,

Then that would be a great way to do it.

I know quite a few teachers have gone down to four days a week at their full time job and that's been a good transition into teaching yoga and a lot of those people don't end up teaching yoga full time.

They kind of get more out of it and enjoy it more if it is just something that they do a few times a week.

Could be worth doing a budget,

Seeing how much money you actually need to live comfortably each week and then working out how many classes you'd need to teach to cover that and then decide whether or not you're going to quit your day job.

Sounds like a good idea.

So I guess what are the different types of options when it comes to teaching classes?

Yeah,

Good question,

Ryan.

So most people actually get a first teaching job at a gym and some people kind of turn up their noses at gym teaching jobs,

But they're actually some of the best places to build your experience as a teacher.

You're going to get a whole diverse range of people every class.

When I first started teaching at gyms,

I was surprised how many retired people came to my classes and there's a lot of people who just later in life just check out a yoga class at a gym because they're already a member and fall in love with it.

So I think some people have this perception that gym classes are going to be real like high energy strength classes,

But you've actually got to cater for a whole different range of needs and you don't know who those people are going to be before they come in.

So it teaches you to be really adaptable and to teach in a way that no one feels kind of less than.

It's kind of good to teach a multi-level class so everyone feels like they have something that they can be working on in that pose.

Most gyms as well have got different rules about what you can and can't teach.

I've never been to a gym that's given me any limitations,

But I've heard of other people not being allowed to teach things like headstand or handstand and to be honest,

Those are poses that I'd avoid at a gym anyway with that diverse group of people.

You've got to really hold space as well.

If there's like a weights class going on upstairs and like clanking sounds and stinky carpet and kettle bells and aerobic steps all over the place,

It's really on you as a teacher to create a yogic experience.

So that makes you be a better teacher.

I imagine it must be quite rewarding as well.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And it leads to a lot of other things.

I've pretty much got all of my private classes and my corporate classes just through people who've come to my class at the gym and asked me where else do I teach or if I could come and teach at their work or their home.

So what about corporate?

Oh,

So corporate classes are also some of the most rewarding classes to teach.

I've found that people really,

Really appreciate bringing yoga to their office and there's this perception as well that people in corporate classes will only want a really physical practice and I haven't found that to be true at all.

I've found they've really appreciated meditation and relaxation and even bringing in a bit of subtle philosophy into the classes.

These classes are also generally a bit smaller.

Sometimes you'll be in their meeting room so you've got to move a table and chairs and things but at a gym class you could easily have 35 to 40 people that you're managing and different every week.

In a corporate class you're probably going to have about 12 to 15 and they're going to know each other so there's going to be this nice community vibe and they're pretty much going to be coming back every week so you can really build on what you teach there.

Excellent,

I've been a participant in a few corporate classes and I must say it's a pretty good feeling to have that sort of yogic break in the middle of your afternoon or just after lunch or something like that.

So what about studios?

I think these are probably,

Unless you've done that studio's teacher training,

You're probably not going to get these opportunities until you're a more experienced teacher.

If there is a studio that you do really want to teach at I would go there regularly.

A lot of studios have energy exchange programs so if you were that person who cleaned the studio,

Who were at the front desk and was just reliable and good energy then that's definitely going to put you in good stead when they're looking for a new teacher or when they need a cover for a class.

What about private classes?

So this is an interesting one.

Different people charge different rates for private classes and I think it really depends on who you're teaching.

I've had my most rewarding teaching experiences in a private class.

One client in particular has MS and his wife went to my group yoga class and wanted me to come and teach at their home and it's been a pretty amazing journey.

One thing that really helps is he is a very diligent yogi.

He will practice every day but to be able to see how much yoga has helped him in his life and to be the person who's been able to introduce it to him has been really awesome.

Plus they make us dinner every week and send me home with some delicious dal so that's a big plus.

Something I learned in that private session,

When you're teaching say in a gym you want to create this yogic environment.

When you're teaching in someone's home sometimes it's a bit more helpful to just be a bit more low key and chatty and you know if he wants to have a conversation with me about something I'll kind of steer him back to yoga but you want it to be an enjoyable experience for your client as well so it's finding that balance.

This may be more suitable for more clement weather but how about park yoga?

So that's a good one to do with your friends or with anyone so you don't have to worry about paying rent on a space.

I really love teaching outside it's just kind of a fun chilled out vibe.

What I would be pretty on point with is not changing your arrangements too often.

If you've set a time,

Keep to that time.

If you've set a place to meet,

Keep to that place to meet.

Have a policy if it rains so that people will either message you to check in or you'll post on your Facebook or your Instagram or whatever that the class will be on or not on.

It's pretty loose anyway when you teach at the park and the more that you kind of make changes and shuffle things around and cancel things just like the less likely people are to make it to that class.

I'd set an end date on your park sessions as well.

Maybe try it for four weeks and see how it goes.

I know that you also do a park class that is paid for by the local city council which is a very good one.

Yeah that one's awesome.

Yeah because that's for the whole community.

I don't have to put any energy into promoting that class.

The council will do that for me.

Lots of people who otherwise wouldn't get to do yoga or that's a pilates class they wouldn't get to do pilates get to come along and I've been teaching that one probably for about four or five years so it's a really bonded community of people who get to get out and about and meet each other like that's a really rewarding class to teach.

So maybe you could even approach your own local council if that's something that you're into.

There's plenty of venues that are happy to offer their space if it is a community donation based class so that's another good avenue to go down.

How about barter or swaps?

So swaps is great.

I did quite a few yoga for massage swaps which is my favourite.

I've also done a really rewarding swap with my good friend Kelly who's done my graphic design and that's a long term swap.

There was quite a few yoga classes to pay back the design dollars.

I think she has life membership here.

She does yeah yeah thanks Kelly.

But that could be an interesting one to look at for you.

The good thing about bartering is it means that you can offer your teaching to people who may not have money to pay for a private yoga class that might want to give back in another way.

I think often people feel a little bit uncomfortable perhaps if you just want to give them a class even though you do genuinely want to but they feel a lot better about it if they can give you something back so maybe it's even making you dinner or you know something like that.

It's also a great option if you are teaching a workshop or attending another workshop for another teacher.

I've done like workshop workshops with other teachers as well and we just want to go to each other's classes.

It's probably one that you want to approach diplomatically.

If you're the one asking for something and offering something in return then you definitely want to I guess think about how you phrase that.

And I guess barter sort of ties in with teaching friends doesn't it and we sort of spoke about this earlier but perhaps you'd like to go into that a little bit deeper.

Yeah yeah definitely.

So teaching friends can be great.

It's definitely fun when it works out.

When you are teaching your friends it can actually be one of the more challenging stepping into your yoga teacher role situation.

It can end up just being a chat session which you know is fun and sometimes I actually invite friends to a class at my studio especially if it's a birthday or something just when I want to catch up with them and I'm too busy to make another time.

But yeah I think with friends it's probably good to be clear about what expectations are.

Sometimes it actually works better in a one on one session than just inviting a bunch of friends around to do yoga.

So yeah like when you step into a class at a gym or in an office and people just see you as the yoga teacher they'll behave in a different way to when you're their mate.

And sometimes people kind of think that them coming to your class is like them doing you a favour so you know just bear that in mind as well.

I've experienced this myself it can get a little bit chatty and you really have to come back to that sort of holding space type of attitude as well sort of you know kindly move it back towards the practice sometimes.

Yeah and sometimes it helps if you just do like a more vigorous practice.

Yeah absolutely.

What's your opinion on renting venues?

Oh like I say there's a lot of venues like community halls that you can rent to teach your classes.

I've definitely been in the situation where I've been paying to rent a venue that hasn't been paying me back in terms of the amount of people coming to my classes.

So I've found what works well is to do it with a time limit.

Run a course maybe four to six weeks,

Rent your venue for that amount of time and see how it goes.

You'll know by then whether it's going to be worthwhile pursuing or whether you just need another time or another location or another approach.

Finally I guess in term of class options I guess this is requiring a bit more technical knowledge and maybe even a bit more further on development in your yoga teacher training experience but what about online options,

Teaching online?

Oh I think that's actually a really good practice option especially if you don't have a ready mode space or class to step into.

I know plenty of people who film short things for Instagram,

On their phones or for YouTube.

I think there's a couple of different ways you can approach it.

If it's about you practicing your teaching then there's a much lower production value required.

You're going to learn so much just watching yourself back when you're teaching and I've heard from people who have been shy about teaching in front of a group how it's just helped them so much to have the virtual community and you just get through that phase of fumbling over your words or kind of getting your sequences to flow.

It's really crazy like I've known a sequence,

Gone to film it and then tripped up over it lots of times but that journey of like refining it to film has really helped me you know when I've gone to teach it later.

Probably good to have a look at other online videos as well to see what you like,

See what you don't like.

YouTube comments can be a pretty brutal place and it can be a little bit soul destroying as well when you put a lot of time and energy into something and no one sees it.

So I think I'd approach online teaching as more something that you're doing for your own professional development as a teacher rather than something you feel like is going to pay off for you in superstardom or money.

Absolutely I guess that brings us on to social media and building a website and then I guess further along building your brand.

So this is something I have a little bit to speak about because I do actually work professionally as a web developer.

Hiring a web developer and a designer can be a pretty expensive proposition but there are options out there like Wix and Squarespace or WordPress if you just want to build a blog.

My preference would be to build something that looks really good and has good user experience so people can sort of see that you have a good online presence.

I've just got to say something.

I've got to say like building a website that looks really beautiful especially if it's just beautiful pictures of you doing really advanced postures is actually often not very appealing to people.

Definitely it's got to be really like functional design,

Easy to navigate and like beautiful but I'd really try and find something that reflects you as a teacher more than just your epic handstand on the beach at sunset and maybe something that's gonna be welcoming rather than intimidating to someone who's never tried yoga before especially if it's hmm how do I put this if you like the majority of new yoga teachers are a fit affluent young white woman that's a pretty fulfilled niche in the yoga world and if that's who you are then how do you appeal to a diversity of different ages different cultural backgrounds like not make this practice seem elitist and intimidating and I think your website is a really good place to start just being welcoming with what you teach and what you put out there in the world.

Sorry Ron.

No that's alright I'm just thinking I'm gonna have to cancel my sunset handstand beach photography session.

Yeah you're not a white lady.

Oh well.

Yeah so one other thing when you are starting out with a more basic website it's not that much more money but I think about what URL you choose and register that domain name and so that can come with you when you update your website so people are going to be able to find you later I think that's pretty important.

So social media do we do we all have to get on the Instagram?

I mean if you want to and it's fun for sure it's almost like online visibility versus local visibility are two different things if you want to sell online content then definitely yes if you even want to give a lot of content away for free online then it really pays to put energy into your online presence if you want to teach a little class at your local community hall like who cares how many people in France or America follow you on Instagram you might be better doing a bit more local marketing and it's definitely something that I feel like I'm still getting a handle on as to what you want to put your energy and your money into in terms of promotion I haven't had a lot of payback from paper flyers I think that that's kind of you know that ship has saved.

That paper ship has floated away.

But like if you're putting a lot of money into like sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram I don't know if that necessarily pays you back either.

There is a point where we actually have to start teaching I mean as I mentioned I went from straight from doing one yoga teacher training and straight into another one which was hard work quite frankly but I guess you can sort of go into this training paralysis and how do you sort of make the jump into just like okay I know what I want to teach I want to take it into the world.

Yeah like am I ever actually going to feel ready to do this?

Exactly exactly well I still remember when I started my yoga teacher training I felt yoga is this huge deep world and so many aspects to it there's anatomy and philosophy and meditation and communicating that with people.

When will I be ready to sort of bring this all together and do it in a way that makes sense?

Yeah yeah and the way to get better at teaching is to start teaching and I still don't feel like I have a handle on all of those things and especially like say anatomy.

Anatomy guidelines and knowledge have changed so much since I started teaching and what was best practice when I started is kind of known to be like not so great now like and there's just different points of view on all of those things.

So I think that there doesn't have to be this distinction between starting teaching and stopping learning like I think you're going to get more out of your future studies if you are already teaching and those are the times when you actually get to ask those questions that have come up in your classes and that's how you stay inspired in your teaching by doing like more workshop and more study but I think you're never going to feel like you really know enough and it's actually kind of a red flag if you do feel like you know enough because that means you've just like shut the door on any more knowledge and yeah yeah so I think if you don't feel ready to start teaching a 35 person class at a gym that's when the like filming yourself doing the online stuff can be good teaching one friend teaching in a low-key kind of office environment like start probably like small but just that little bit more than what you feel like you're ready for because you do want to be kind of stepping into something new with this and if you are perhaps not super self-confident you don't want to hold yourself back with your own expectations where you could be this amazing teacher and you don't want to build it up into such a massive thing that it's really scary when you start like I think it's good to de-escalate that and just start and not put this massive pressure on yourself to be a perfect teacher yeah which is not possible anyway I think I've been lucky in my teacher trainers as well as having you sort of mentoring me I've also had the lovely Jen Lowe as a mentor and I felt that she actually sort of knew when I was ready to do something before I thought I was and it was actually really good to have someone give me that yeah yeah when someone offers you that opportunity like you get ready but you do plan that sequence and teach that class actually that's another good thing that you could do if you are feeling like you're not quite ready to teach like keeping up a teacher that you know and trust and respect and seeing how they feel about you assisting in their class or even observing another teacher's class can be really powerful much more so than doing the class you'll notice a whole lot of other things especially about the mechanics of how they teach that class when they demonstrate when they just talk verbally when they assist assisting in postures is another thing that a lot of people are intimidated by and I am yeah you're probably not going to get more comfortable with it until you start doing it but if you don't feel ready that is one where I think it's really worth doing a bit more mentoring or a bit more further training rather than just pushing through and possibly like pushing someone into an injury or don't do that no no don't do that and some styles really emphasize physical adjustments but there's also verbal adjustments or a physical adjustment which is a tiny light touch or even just placing your hand near the area that you'd like someone to pay more attention to so I think your teaching will change and develop over time and if you've had one of those teachers who can teach the whole class verbally walk around the room do physical adjustments those are kind of quite nuanced teaching skills you might start out demonstrating every pose and that's fine like if people can follow your class and get something out of it when you do that as opposed to you just confusing everyone and yourself by trying to do one thing with your voice do another thing with your hands and keep your sequence flowing remember what left and right is and all of those things that's setting your own teaching bar pretty high so I think it's just going to it with that knowledge that you are going to grow and develop and you're by no means a failure if how you start doing things isn't how the teachers you most respect do them I guess there's a reason to developing your own style and that's something you just have to find in yourself yeah yeah and some like some styles of yoga will give you a very set sequence that you'll just teach and even within that even if you are teaching that same sequence of poses you'll have your own flavor to it in your own energy that you'll bring to it I think something that a lot of new teachers aim for a really kind of intricate complex sequences because as an advanced practitioner that's what's fun to do and that can be a really creative part of the practice but also if you're starting out as a new teacher you're probably going to be teaching beginners and they're not going to appreciate that complex sequence of six poses standing on one leg like I think you want to more look at who's in your class and what they need rather than kind of have this expectation about what makes a good yoga teacher and I think that could also be a good time to do those sequences in your own practice and filming yourself can be good for that kind of keeping notes can be good for that and you know if you kind of have that creativity in your own flow that will flow out into your simpler classes just in the way that you put things together we touched on this earlier but I'm just curious how do we get these sweet covers so those covers are a pretty tough gig like if you're showing up to teach a well-loved teachers class and you're the cover teacher people are really excited to see you so you've got to come in there with that knowledge that people are going to want their regular teacher and sometimes it's helpful even just to be upfront at the start of the class and say you know I'm not whoever but I'm really happy to be here teaching this class and like to ask for their feedback another thing with teaching cover classes is you'll probably have an easier time of it if you've been to at least one of those teachers regular classes before so say someone's going on maternity leave make the effort to come to one of their classes before they go so you can just get the idea of their style and who's there and then kind of you aren't going to try to be them but it can be a smoother transition for your classes I would always try and bring a lot of positive energy to teach your covers so think of it as to all your classes oh yeah totally but extra for the covers because you're going to have to like compensate for the disappointment that the regular teacher isn't there and you know it's always a good time to practice your teaching I've got lots of regular classes from teaching covers and you've got to be a little bit discreet about how you do this because gyms aren't going to appreciate you promoting your own classes but if people come up to you after the class and ask where else you teach that's a great time to have your business cards with them with you or refer them to your Instagram or your YouTube if that's where most of your teaching is done at the moment probably got to be pretty discreet if you've got an email sign up sheet but you could like tell them about your website and it's always good if someone kind of comes up and says oh so what else do you do like where else do you teach and the answer is nowhere right now like that's a bit of a dead end but if you've got a bit of an online presence that's somewhere where you could direct that person to which isn't going to be a conflict of interest with the place that you're teaching at and you know you can kind of stay in touch with them that way absolutely no that sounds sensible I've got another thing to say about covers as well give yourself plenty of time because if you have to find this place and then find the room and then work out how the stereo works and all of those things you don't want to be flustered when your class starts you want to be like cool and calm and collected and but some place you've never been to but before maybe even like check it out beforehand hence how good you are at navigating yeah we touched on mailing lists we talked about websites earlier I get if you do have your own website you do want somewhere that people can sign up to your mailing list there for example MailChimp has a free tier that you can use and there may be some other services out there that are good and free but I guess it would also be good to have your own little sign up sheet that people can fill out and as you said you probably don't want that to be with you at a studio somewhere here I know I mean a great place to have your sign up sheet is if you're teaching at a festival because and also sometimes it's good if you write down people's email addresses or you have an iPad or something they can type them in because I've had many an illegible address that I've tried to copy out over the years I think something with mail outs as well that's just good to be aware of is you don't want to be spam in someone's inbox so it's good to be upfront about how often you send out mail outs and what they are like if you're a thought of the day type of person you don't want a whole lot of people unsubscribing from your list but if you ask someone who does communicate a lot online and especially if you kind of want to work online then you know it can be a really good way to communicate with people all over the world I guess like it's important that if you are going to be doing that you want to actually be sort of adding value to someone's lives rather than just say hey come to this thing I'm doing or maybe you know give out a little pose of the day or you know a little tip or something that might be able to help them as well yeah I'm kind of the opposite of that I'm like just tell me what you're doing I don't really care about your thought of the day just email me every month when you've got something new to tell me so I think it's finding your own voice and yeah what works for you what works for the people on your list workshops and courses if I'm just beginning as a teacher should I be teaching people a workshop or a course is that appropriate what do you think well if it's a beginners course absolutely if it's something that you've got personal experience in like say you're a runner I think you'd be totally qualified to teach a yoga for runners course after your teacher training I would be wary with something like a prenatal course unless it's something you've been through yourself and have a lot of personal experience with or something you've done further training in courses are really good because it's got a start date and an end date so it's not this ongoing every week thing like you know it's quite focused energy workshops I think are also at the very least a great professional development opportunity because if you are teaching a workshop on something a lot of it a lot of it planning and preparation goes into it so if you're researching something to teach your workshop on then you're going to grow from that whether or not it's a massive financial success I don't think that you necessarily need to have done a course or a workshop on the thing that you're teaching as long as you feel comfortable in your knowledge of it and that can be like your own research that you've done as well or your life knowledge probably comes down to what you feel like you can offer with this workshop so if you think it's just going to make you a heap of money it really does but I think it is a really good chance to grow and develop as a teacher and it will be rewarding on some level maybe it's good as well to kind of have a minimum number for the workshop to go ahead and just like put a good lead time into promoting it How do I stand out as a new teacher?

I guess for me that's not too difficult because I'm part moldy and I don't have a stomach that's fairly unique how would you advise people to stand out and develop their own identity?

Yeah I think if you're addressing a genuine need that really helps so if it's some way that yoga has touched you in your life that's automatically something that you have knowledge of and something that you can share who you are as a teacher can be it can be a subtle thing like not everyone is going to be this rock star stand out teacher and if you're not that then it's probably not going to work for you trying to promote yeah yeah so be you and that's what's going to serve you.

I guess it comes back to finding your own identity and I know in one of the courses I did Chimmy the teacher said that you'll basically attract you.

Yeah and if you're teaching what you love then that's definitely going to come through say you've come from an office background and you've found yoga's really helped you deal with the stress that comes from that like that would be a great place to start classes in corporate environments maybe a little extra focus on dealing with stress meditation relaxation if that's part of your practice so thinking about what you can offer often comes back to like what yoga is given you and kind of sharing that with other people being being a yoga teacher and working a lot in the world I guess it is going to change your relationship with your practice so how how do you manage that yeah so if you were say that person who turned to yoga when you were stressed and then you're trying to launch your fledging yoga business and now yoga is kind of tied up in your stress how are you going to navigate that and what's worked for me is to have another hobby that's not yoga so all hoping is great for me because it's really fun and sparkly and it's still something physical in my body and something that is like movement meditation but it's not tied up with my teaching I think all new yoga teachers have had this experience where you've been in this amazing class and this dumb part of your brain is just like oh that's a really good sequence I should remember that or I really like the way they phrased that and so like already you're not present in the moment like you're in your teaching brain or in your student brain so that's a challenge for all yoga teachers and there are some teachers who yoga is their everything and I think if that's you the aspects of the practice that you teach and the aspects of the practice that you do yourself will perhaps not be exactly the same so maybe your home practice will be more about meditation or more about yoga nidra if you've had a really full on teaching day and taught like five vigorous vinyasa classes which is a possibility if you're a full time teacher I think it's always really powerful to go to classes and maybe go to a class in a style that you don't necessarily teach I think if you're teaching a repetitive sequence and you demonstrated a lot it's going to be pretty wearing on your body if you also have a very intense physical practice which is that same sequence and you could find that you're getting a lot of soreness or injury or just exhaustion so I would explore another hobby that's not yoga or an aspect of yoga that you don't teach and really powerful as well is taking yourself on retreats doing workshops doing things that will like inspire and reinvigorate your practice I think every yoga teacher feels a little bit guilty about not doing quite enough personal practice and that's probably not super helpful like maybe you know listen to that and arrange your life so that you do have time and space for your own practice but just feeling guilty about it's not going to achieve anything.

Being a full time yoga teacher and I guess one thing to remember about yoga teaching that in Australia at least generally you're a contractor so how do we manage for injury illness or pregnancy in that case?

Yeah so pregnancy takes a lot of planning.

Sometimes not so much.

Well at least you have like the three months before anyone notices you're pregnant so all the teachers who I've spoken to who have had children have said that their pregnancy has made them better teachers they get much more adept at using their voice and managing their energy when they get to the stage where they can't demonstrate the poses that they're teaching.

I've definitely heard about discrimination if you are pregnant and looking for yoga teaching work it's very hard to find work.

A lot of teachers while they're pregnant will have a more experienced student who they'll use more and more to demonstrate and you know usually people have got someone to kind of take over the class while they're away and that's someone who will go to the class pretty regularly financially I guess it's just taking a lot of planning and maybe having another source of income for the time when they're not teaching.

With illness and injury that's a tough one because there's no sick pay if you're a yoga teacher and I know of teachers who've broken their legs and taught on crutches and again you know got to like get really good at the non-demonstrating aspects of teaching.

I know of teachers who've had long-term like back injuries and things that aren't that visible that they've really had to manage in their teaching and often ended up teaching different types of classes teaching less like you definitely want to take care of your body always but if it's your livelihood then there's an extra level to that and I think yoga teachers can be a little bit sometimes a bit in denial if they are working with a niggling injury often they'll just like stretch it out a lot and sometimes that can be really unhelpful so I found that getting really regular massages is super powerful and super helpful I'm pretty lucky like I haven't really had any serious injuries while I've been teaching.

I think something that's helped me is I teach yoga and Pilates and aerial yoga so I'm not doing the same movements in every single class that I teach and I think Pilates in particular really balances out a lot of the movements that I do in yoga.

I would get professional help especially if it's like a back or a neck or one of those areas of your body that's super sensitive if you are getting pain they're like get it checked out and also stop doing the things that make it hurt.

Yeah that should be just a common practice.

Yeah it's something you tell your students.

I guess it's kind of selfish but say you needed to work on developing something like shoulder stability or core strength in your own body that's a great time to really research that and bring it into your teaching because if the practice that you're doing has caused this issue that's the practice that you're teaching as well so if you're learning about your body you want to like share what you're learning and develop your teaching accordingly.

You know sometimes we need to factor in time for holidays and maybe times that aren't so busy in the yoga world.

How do we manage that?

Yeah it's tricky because there's going to be time over summer where you just don't get paid.

So yeah so I guess you need to budget for that.

Yeah yeah and also when you get back from your holiday you're probably going to have a whole month of teaching before you invoice and then another two weeks after that till those invoices get paid.

So you don't want to come back with zero money you want to have something put aside for when you do get back.

I guess that brings us on to invoicing in general I'm curious what you have to say about that.

Yeah so I'm pretty low-tech with this.

What works to me is every time I send my invoice I put it in my invoice spreadsheet.

I write the date,

I write who I'm invoicing,

How much it is and when it gets paid and in theory I go back every month and see who's paid me.

In practice I get to know money and then I go back and see who hasn't paid me.

At least it's all mapped out.

Invoice number,

When it was sent,

How much it was and if you do get behind it can get really confusing really quickly.

Sometimes places will pay you like more than one invoice at once.

I've found that I can't do my invoicing when I'm tired or when I'm flustered because I'll make all types of stuff up like say send last month's invoice this month or just.

.

.

And if you make a mistake on your invoice they won't always tell you,

They just won't pay it.

So you've got to go there and go so about last month's invoice.

I guess it's good to know the people out there that there are a couple of good online apps like Xero or Wave app which are pretty useful for invoicing though I know in your case there are a couple of places that have specific templates that you need to use for invoicing.

Yeah and there are a couple of key things that you always need to have on there.

An invoice number,

Your address,

Obviously the amount and your ABN.

Oh yeah good one.

So if you're starting a new place and you're new to this feel free just to ask the person,

I guess the group fitness coordinator at a gym or the studio manager if they have an invoice template.

When I was first starting out like running my own business I kind of felt like an idiot asking people things but it's better just to ask than to kind of muddle through and get it wrong and not get paid and people are usually pretty helpful to help you out.

Excellent.

Well it's the yoga world everyone.

Yeah,

We're all a piece of love here.

This brings us on to what to do in case of late payments or someone doesn't pay you.

What do you do?

Well it's good if you're onto it and so you notice that you haven't been paid before it's like five months ago.

So yep be meticulous in your bookkeeping.

It's a tricky situation if you don't get paid and it's happened to me a few times and both times it's because the business has just like not had the money.

So I haven't put a whole lot of energy into chasing it up.

One studio didn't pay me and they're still open and hiring new teachers and just like burning them.

So that was a bit of a tricky one.

What I ended up doing was I sent them a few kind of notices of demand and it wasn't enough money to take legal action but I didn't want other teachers to go through that and that was an anti-gravity class.

So I posted all of the anti-gravity teachers boards and got in touch with the organisation in Australia just to kind of like red flag this particular place.

But I also didn't feel like it served me to kind of go all over the internet and say that they were ripping off their teachers.

That kind of looked bad for me professionally.

The earlier you catch it the less money you're going to lose if it is one of those situations where they just don't care about paying you.

And I guess you just got to know when to cut them off and just say oh sorry you haven't paid my last two invoices until I get paid I'm not teaching any more classes.

It's also good to have terms on your invoice whether it's 30 day payment or I know some people will have their terms and then they will start charging interest on that payment and I haven't gone down that route but I know especially if you're talking about more money then that is something that people do.

Apparently as well Yoga Australia can help you in those situations.

Like they can advocate on your behalf so that could also be an avenue to look into if you haven't been paid and you don't know what to do about it.

What a tech for Yoga Australia.

I think this kind of leads us as well just to the importance of being on time.

Being on time when you send your invoices,

Being up to date with your own financial situation if you are running a self business but also just the importance of being on time as a Yoga teacher.

I actually never used to worry about particularly being on time for things but since I've been a teacher I'm really aware of it.

Like if you're late and you're teaching the class that's a big deal.

People are waiting for you and if you're regularly late you'll probably lose that class.

People will complain.

Yeah,

Rightly so.

Yeah totally.

They've made the effort to get there on time.

If you're teaching a class and you run overtime that's a problem as well.

You might think that you're being generous but if someone's car gets a ticket because your class went overtime they're not going to see it that way and the next teacher who's teaching a class is not going to be impressed if your class just continually runs overtime.

When you are teaching your class if you are just aware of how much time you've got left you can kind of bring that class to a much better conclusion whether you finish with a meditation or a relaxation or even just a gradual wind down of the sequence that you're teaching or whether you're building to a peak pose.

It's just part of I guess teaching the best class possible and if you're not someone who's that used to keeping track of time it can be a challenge.

I've actually found that having a really good playlist can be super helpful if your pace of your music is kind of driving your class and you know that you've got some gradual lead in warm up music and then some music that suits the kind of you know middle section of your class and then when you hear that kind of winding down music you'll know to start winding down your teaching.

If you don't want to be looking at the clock having music that will kind of guide what you're doing is really helpful.

Of course that leads us to the pressure to be a perfect yogi and a perfect yoga teacher versus just being a human being which we all are and I think that that pressure that we might put in ourselves to be perfect is something that really holds us back as teachers and just creates all of this undue pressure and it kind of doesn't leave any space for flow and creativity and fun in our teaching.

Like if we are really down on ourselves over some like little like maybe you've got the left hand and the right hand mixed up at the start of the class and you can't let that go it's always at the back of your mind as that class goes on.

That one little mistake has just like shaded the rest of that class but if you just like let that go and move on everyone else will forget about it they probably already have.

I guess that brings us to the end of this and I hope people out there got something out of it and found it informative and interesting.

We'll move on to our pick of the week.

Oh yeah.

Yeah so this is a just a section where we both pick something from the yoga world or anywhere really.

The everyday world yeah.

Yeah that we want to talk about.

My pick of the week is basically everything by Andrew Holotek.

Andrew Holotek wrote a great book that I love called Dream Yoga which is a book that delves into the world of lucid dreaming and Tibetan dream yoga and it just starts off with some lucid dreaming techniques from the Western world then delves more into Tibetan yoga techniques which become more and more esoteric and then it ends up being something which is about life and being awakened in life as well as in the dream world.

So it's a really good book and I really encourage people to read it but he's also recently released a audio book course which you can get to on his website and I'll put a link to that in the show notes on our website so check that out.

And what have you got for us today Jo?

Oh I've got my favorite yoga teaching app Insight Timer.

I use this app all the time.

I use it in my Yin classes because it means I can time out the pose with beautiful gongs and chimes and like set a chime to go every two minutes or every one minute.

I use it in my Hula Hoop practice so like Insight Timer chimes to like mark out my drills for that.

There's a lot of guided meditations on there that you can listen to yourself.

Tara Brack is my favorite teacher on there.

I've got a couple of my own meditations on there as well.

I'm Jo,

Garden of Yoga and it's actually been a super rewarding experience sharing my meditations on there.

It's just kind of really mind-blowing when you have a look at your screen you're like oh there's like eight people meditating to my meditation all around the world right now and people have written really beautiful comments.

So especially if meditation is something that you're really interested in exploring there's just so many different styles,

Different teachers,

Different approaches on there and it will kind of,

I don't follow this so much but I know Ron's into it.

It tracks how many days you've gone,

Doing your practice,

How many hours of meditation you've done.

You can see who's meditating with you all over the world right now at that moment and say hello to them if you like.

You can log entries about your meditation as well if you're so inclined.

Yeah,

Yeah and it's free or you can get the paid version as well but it's like such a useful helpful app.

Excellent,

Thanks Jo and I guess thanks for all that useful information and again we hope people like this podcast and you'll be hearing from us in the future.

And if there's anything else that you would like us to talk about,

Any questions you might have,

Any feedback for us,

Absolutely let us know we're really excited to kind of build this community and to share all the things that we love and hopefully you'll find it helpful as well.

So thanks for listening.

Well I hope you enjoyed our conversation.

We obviously only just touched on some of these topics so if you've got any questions or suggestions feel free to reach out to us at podcast.

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Big big love.

We love to do a tree of which we were not to partake.

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Reviews

Talk only, not a meditation , some useful business information, especially if you are a yoga teacher

What a great resource and share. Worth a listen for more experienced teachers, would be super useful for newbis!