The New Year is already 3 weeks old. The initial excitement of completing the teacher training has died down. The next logical step is to teach yoga. It is not as easy as it sounds. Newbie teachers like me are dime a dozen. Everyone is trying to find their niche. Yoga studios want to hire more experienced teachers. It is completely understandable considering the amount of money the studios charge their members. The members need to get their money’s worth. I also heard from a few teachers how teaching in studios is more stressful for the same reason as compared to teaching in a health club or community fitness center. Health clubs are the most suitable (in my opinion) for Newbie teachers like me to get their feet into. I also thought about teaching yoga to kids in Montessori schools in the area. I approached only one school and the first thing they asked me was if I had any special certification to teach kids. I thought teaching kids though it will be hard in terms of having patience but considerably easy as it will be mostly a play time and sort of a fun physical activity. I and my cousins were doing yoga growing up in India with my mother, my aunt and nobody thought if it was “safe”. Even in the yoga class where I learnt from my Iyengar teacher, there were lots of kids in the class having a blast. I guess I am now in a different culture where people need the seal of approval from some authority, there is fear of being sued and hence the lucrative business of insurance. Getting any kind of certification in yoga is SO expensive. I think I am going off the track here…that could be a topic for another blog.
Another hurdle is learning to market yourself. In India we say that there are 64 art forms, I guess we have to add marketing as the 65th. We live in the internet era so a web presence is of utmost importance. Creating a website, deciding on the domain name, shopping around for web hosting, there is no end to it. Even if you care about teaching yoga and nothing else, you still have to do it all and play the game.
All I have done so far is creating a flyer for yoga class. I did give my first audition the other day at the community activity center of flower mound. It was a small class with 5 ladies. I enjoyed teaching them. I am grateful to my teacher Jasmin who helped me get that audition. I don’t want to aggressively start teaching. I would rather focus on the one student I have right now and give her my best and most importantly dedicate to my own practice. I believe that existence will take care of the rest when the time is right.
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