r/YogaTeachers

I managed to build a well paid career prior to the explosion of teaching online. Some of my success came by accident as I figured things out, and other skills I deliberately taught myself to be able to grow.

I'd love to hear from teachers navigating today’s teaching landscape what your biggest challenges to building a sustainable teaching career are?
What have you tried that hasn't worked?
Are you teaching in studios or renting your own space and how long have you been at it?

I'm just wondering if anyone here is a member and if it's worth the membership.

Hi everyone. I've been teaching yoga part time since 2022, currently teaching 10 classes a week (including 1-1s).

Over time I've become so much more confident in my presence, my teaching, my adjustments, my philosophy sharing. But I also started finding my own voice boring. I know this comes with the territory. You repeat the same words, the same sentences, similar themes, over and over. It would happen in any teaching job. But it's been demotivating. Sometimes I catch myself mid-sentence thinking "not this again" because I've said it so many times. I try to switch up my language but habit pulls me back to the same phrases.

I've tried finding inspiration in other teachers' classes too, but it's hard to really receive a class when the "teacher brain" won't switch off.

In the beginning I was so passionate about sharing this practice and helping people. I still care just as much. But I feel uninspired, and sometimes what I'm doing starts to feel a bit hollow simply because I've done it for so long.

So, senior teachers: has this happened to you? How did you work through it? Pls help!!

Thank you <3

Hello community,

I (33,m) recently finished my 200h Hatha/vinyasa ttc as well as a 100h continued education ttc as pranayama/meditation instructor in India.

Since then gave around 10+ free classes at informal occasions in hostels/work away places in Asia (currently traveling here) to get some teaching experience.

I noticed that the 200h course was definitely insufficient to prepare me for teaching despite the fact that I had 8 years of personal practice before. Now I am planning to add a 300h training in Asia to deepen my own practice and aquire more teaching skills.

However I am still not sure in which direction I want to go exactly and which program would make most sense for me.

Things to consider:

- I am almost 2 meters tall and naturally inflexible. It improved through my daily practice over last months but not vastly.

- I mainly taught beginners, elderly people with knee and joint issues in my previous classes which I enjoyed

- I got positive feedback for creating a relaxing and supportive atmosphere in my classes

- I am a slow guy and definitely don't aspire to teach vinyasa or ashtanga

- I am more interested in the contemplative/therapeutic side of Yoga

Ideas for a niche:

- specializing in yin/restorative yoga

- giving gentle hatha classes including meditations

- specializing in bringing Yoga to elderly people or less physically fit people

ideas for 300h training:

- 300h multistyle ttc (including a restorative style plus yoga therapy)

- 300h yin yoga ttc

What do you think of my ideas? Do you have other ideas? Can you recommend 300h programs in Asia that could fit my plans?

Every feedback is much appreciated. Thank you very much!

Had someone come in for a paid trial and after Savasana she wanted to hum. I said she’s free to do so and she told the class to join in. Some students joined others didn’t and I let her but I felt no one should be pressured to participate after the allotted class time has ended. Including myself so I didn’t. How should I deal with this if it happens again?

Hi, I’ve recently graduated (i’ve taught informally in my home country but decided to take the plunge and get formally qualified once I moved) and I’m noticing that there are zero vacancies listed where I am now based (Liverpool, UK). I don’t want to lose the confidence gained in training and doing classes prior so i’m wondering if anyone has tips on how to get going / get started as this would be very very appreciated. Nandri and thank you!

Hello!

I'm about 75% of the way through my training, and have been teaching friends from a studio which has been offering the space for free.

I've started posting on socials and have had an enquiry from a member of the public asking how to book - exciting!

But now I wondered - should continue to I offer classes for free, or at a discounted rate?

I'm also hoping to teach at another studio, which I will pay for, so I'd need to cover that.

But I want to make sure I'm fair across my classes, whilst also navigating the pricing of classes once I qualify!

It feels uncomfortable charging friends, but equally they have said to let them know when to start charging.

Thank you in advance for any input 🙏

I just took a class with zero savasana… teacher has 500 hour cyt, 10 years teaching, a diploma in yoga and was born in Rishikesh. What am I missing??

15 minutes between classes at the studio too so no time for staying. He also kept calling down dog mountain and his peak pose appear unsafe and put a lot of pressure on the CTJ, it was like a prone scorpion leg position with hips up. Do I say something or is the useless, looks like he has been at this studio for a while.

Edit: I didn't intend to sound mean, and I will phrase my message more kindly to the studio. Also does anyone know the name of that peak pose??

Edit edit: it was listed as "suitable for all practitioners." I've taken 2 ytt's and have been practicing for 20 years, the second time I accidentally took his class it was more of the same and the first one I have ever walked out of a class.

Scored my first gig! I’m so excited!

I will be teaching the “functional zone” of a commercial gym. It will be a 1 hour class and I’ll only get to continue if I get more than 4 pax in the class.

I personally find the gym environment not the best for practicing yoga. Looking for advice on how I can design my sequence for such an environment. What’d be suitable and what might be more popular for this crowd (people who’d attend a yoga class in the gym open space).

Or any other advice, really! I’m just so excited and all over the place. I have 2 weeks to prepare!

The gym have average quality mats and two yoga block for each participant. I’m considering if I could get massage ball to incorporate my facial release.

THEN put you on 1099 (from employee) and asked you do the same 2hrs, same tasks?

I thought it might be interesting and informative for us to discuss, compare and contrast how we teach savasana, given how it may be the one pose that has transcended basically all modern lineages and styles of yoga and is something found, in one way or another, in basically every modern yoga class or experience.

Some questions that come up when thinking about all the different ways I've experienced the pose as a student:

How much, if any, historical or yogic context or explanation do you give when guiding students into the pose?  ie: this is what savasana is and/or this is why we're doing this, etc

Do you frame / contextualize it as a "goal-oriented" practice or let students find their own meaning and experience with it?

Do you give alignment cues or corrections or take more of a hands-off approach by encouraging students to find their own version of ease in the pose?

Do you talk / verbally guide students through the entire length of practicing the pose or prefer to remain mostly silent?

Do you touch students during the pose?

Do you use music or other noise during the pose or practice in silence?

How long do you tend to offer it in a class format (and maybe include how long the class itself is as well)?

It may be useful / interesting context to include what style or lineage class(es) you teach as well.

---

I know I have developed my own preferences around teaching savasana that have been informed from practicing as a student as well as teaching it over time, but I'm curious how others choose to teach it, why and whatever discussion may come from that.  Maybe I will include my own answer in a separate reply below.

As per usual, I'm just trying to stimulate interesting and real conversation and discussion here on the sub. Feel free to answer any of the questions I asked above and/or disregard and give your own answer that may or may not have anything to do with my questions.

I have a student today who tap her fingernails on the ground while in savasana. I can see that other students were irritated with their eyebrows scrunched together. It was during silent moment too and I felt awkward to say anything. This was after I did the whole body scan, guiding them into stillness. How would you handle something like this?

I’m a yoga teacher, and I paid $9,000 to an online coach whose niche is helping yoga teachers build online businesses.

I had followed her content for months. Her message resonated because she spoke directly to a problem many yoga teachers know well: teaching $20 classes at multiple studios, driving all over town and exhausting your body just to scrape together a living.

I’ve taught yoga for 20 years. Early on, I did exactly that. I took every class I could get until I was burned out, injured and in constant pain. Today, I teach only one or two classes a week and support myself with a full-time job in another field.

Her proposed solution was simple: take your yoga business online and reach more people. She frequently referenced making $358,000 in her first year online, creating the impression that her system could help other yoga teachers achieve substantial success.

I didn’t book a call immediately because the price was not disclosed, and I assumed it would be expensive. Instead, I consumed everything she published: YouTube videos, podcast episodes and Instagram reels. I began applying her content advice and developing a niche.

As a gay man in recovery, I wanted to use yoga to help LGBTQ people struggling with addiction, shame and emotional pain. Yoga had played a major role in my own recovery, and I believed an online business could make that work sustainable.

Eventually, I saw an ad for a “free training” on her framework. It was essentially a video sales presentation designed to lead viewers toward booking a call. Shortly after watching it, I received a flood of emails and texts. She followed me on Instagram and began messaging me, praising my content and telling me she knew how to help me take it to the next level.

I booked the call.

The call included heavy sales pressure. She praised what I had already created while also telling me she could see the gaps and knew how to fix them. She referenced earning more than $300,000 in her first year online, “making sales in her sleep” and gaining freedom from a traditional job.

Then she quoted the price: $9,000.

I hesitated. She responded with spiritual language about abundance, telling me she believed I had found her for a reason and suggesting that sometimes you need to free up money for abundance to flow back to you. She also emphasized that spaces were limited and that few people were accepted because her time was so valuable.

Eventually, I handed over my credit card.

Almost immediately, the experience stopped resembling what I believed I had purchased.

I thought I was paying for hands-on, individualized help from her to refine my offer, build my course, review my sales funnel and develop my marketing. Her personal expertise and limited availability had been central to the sales pitch.

But during the entire 90-day program, I never had a single private coaching call with her.

The program included six one-on-one calls. Every one was conducted by members of her team, and most lasted no more than about 15 minutes. They were generally check-ins on assignments from prerecorded lessons: create a link in bio, define a customer avatar, outline a course, write sales pages and so on.

I built two complete sales pages. She never reviewed either one.

That remains one of the most shocking parts of the experience. The sales page is where the offer is explained and where a customer decides whether to buy. Yet the person I had paid $9,000 to help me build and sell an online yoga program never looked at either of mine.

My direct contact with her consisted mostly of Instagram DMs telling me my content was amazing or that she was excited about what I was creating. It felt encouraging, but it was not substantive business guidance. Before I paid, she said she could see exactly what was missing. After I paid, I received little concrete feedback from her.

There were group calls, but much of what I remember was listening to her discuss her success, lifestyle and freedom. The dream was constantly reinforced. The close practical oversight I thought I was buying was largely absent.

The core strategy taught in the prerecorded material was to create an inexpensive digital product and sell it to consumers through social media and advertising. Mine was initially priced at $47 and later discounted to $27.

Over time, I noticed a major contradiction.

Her extraordinary income was repeatedly used as proof that her method worked. But her own financial success appeared to come primarily from selling expensive business coaching to yoga teachers, not from selling low-cost yoga programs to consumers.

Those are very different business models.

I was being taught to sell a $47 yoga product while she was charging aspiring yoga entrepreneurs thousands of dollars. The income claims that established her credibility did not appear to come from the same model I had paid her to teach.

The most obvious way to replicate her success, therefore, would not be to teach yoga online. It would be to sell high-ticket business coaching to other yoga teachers.

A few weeks after I paid her, she posted a reel saying: “POV: You learned how easy it is to teach yoga online, so you went to Bali spontaneously.”

That reel crystallized the entire experience for me.

There was nothing easy about what I was trying to build. I was creating content, developing a course, learning funnels, writing copy, running ads and trying to earn an audience’s trust while working full time. I had paid her more than the combined cost of my two main yoga certifications, and she had not even looked at my sales pages.

During the Bali trip, she also sent me voice messages about the retreat, including highly personal details about cult-like dynamics, its sexual nature and other attendees making her uncomfortable. I found it strange and inappropriate that I, a paying coaching client rather than a personal friend, was receiving this information.

The Bali reel made the underlying dynamic impossible for me to ignore: the fantasy of effortless online yoga income was funding a very real and lucrative coaching business, while the yoga teachers buying into that fantasy assumed the financial risk.

I want to be fair about what I received. There were prerecorded materials. I had access to her team. I attended calls and completed the assignments. She did not simply take my payment and disappear.

But access to videos and brief calls with assistants was not what persuaded me to spend $9,000. I purchased because of her personal brand, income claims, the implication of individualized attention and the belief that her success demonstrated what was possible through the model she promoted.

In my opinion, what I received did not justify the price or the expectations created during the sales process. I later found other yoga business consultants offering comparable foundational material at dramatically lower prices.

The use of yoga philosophy makes this especially disturbing to me. As someone who tries to live by ahimsa, non-harming, and asteya, non-stealing, I struggle with seeing spiritual language used to pressure underpaid yoga teachers into costly financial decisions.

I also take responsibility for ignoring the warning signs.

I should have questioned the undisclosed price. I should have recognized the “free training” as a sales presentation. I should have slowed down when the texts, emails and Instagram messages began. I should have been more skeptical when abundance, destiny and “no accidents” were introduced into a high-pressure financial decision.

But those tactics worked because they were wrapped around a genuine pain.

Yoga teachers are routinely underpaid. Many teach because they believe deeply in the practice but struggle to survive financially. They drive between studios, teach exhausting schedules and watch others profit from an industry built on their labor. The promise of finally earning a living without destroying your body is extremely powerful.

I was also motivated by a purpose that mattered to me. I wanted to help LGBTQ people dealing with addiction, shame and emotional pain. I was not simply chasing passive income or a trip to Bali. I believed I was investing in a way to make meaningful work sustainable.

That hope made me vulnerable.

I’m embarrassed that I trusted her and angry that I allowed myself to be pressured into such a large purchase. But embarrassment is also why stories like this remain hidden. People do not want to admit that persuasive marketing, personal attention and promises of abundance worked on them.

As someone who lives my yoga, especially Ahimsa, non-harming, and Asteya, non-stealing, it absolutely disgusts me that someone could dress up their scheme to fleece vulnerable yoga teachers with spiritual language.

I’m sharing this because the online coaching industry deserves greater scrutiny, especially when coaches use spiritual language, aspirational lifestyle marketing and exceptional revenue claims to sell expensive programs to underpaid professionals.

I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me. I made the decision and handed over my card.

But people deserve to know what happened after the sales call ended.

New-ish yoga teacher here, I still have major imposter syndrome! Anyways, planning for a studio demo and my peak pose is dancer. I’ll be doing a lot of quad stretching and shoulder opening, and my last arc in class is high crescent > one legged Tadasana > dancer > warrior 3 > shiva squat > warrior 3.

I was thinking on the second side, of taking the shiva squat down to cow face pose, but open to other ideas and how I can full cool down my students.

Hi!

Curious if anyone else has gone through this.

I’m a super new yoga teacher (like 5 classes in), and I just started teaching at a studio where I used to practice all the time. I loved it as a student! It was kind of my happy place.

But now that I’m teaching there, I feel like I’m seeing behind the scenes more, and it’s… changing things a little?

Like:

• I can’t fully turn my brain off in class anymore
• I’m more aware of how things are run / how feedback is given
• It’s taken a bit of the “escape” feeling away

Also, I’m so new that everything already feels a little vulnerable, so I think that’s part of it too.

I’m kind of having this weird thought of like… do I actually like teaching? Or is this just early-stage awkwardness + environment?

Would love to hear:

• Did this happen to you when you started teaching somewhere you used to love?
• Did it get better?
• Or do you keep a separate place just for being a student?

I still want to enjoy yoga and not overthink everything 😅 just figuring it out as I go.

Thanks in advance 🤍

I'm currently teaching adolescent children (male and female groups) one evening during the week. The classes are 50 minutes.

The children are being treated for psychiatric and substance use disorder-related issues.

The class takes place in a gymnasium.

The female group has really enjoyed "inhale a good thing," "exhale something you want to get rid of" -- whereas the male adolescents wanted to talk about farting and pooping.

Last week, I had the male adolescents walk around the gym for walking meditation as a last resort. I was out of ideas for the first time in a long time.

The groups change weekly. I will have new students this week who might love the class. I have to be prepared to think on the fly.

[We cannot do any running/jogging because they are wearing socks. The patients are not allowed to wear shoelaces for suicide prevention.]

What type of creative yoga activities have you tried? What has worked?

I am beyond grateful for this opportunity and am enjoying this experience. It's helping me to become a better teacher and student. I'm hoping you all might have some ideas for creativity. (:

thank you

Hi all, just recently completed my course. I am a full time tech person but now want to quietly start with yoga teaching on a weekly basis with a hope to completely start doing it full time in a year’s span of time.

If anyone here is teaching online, help me understand, how do you get clients? What typical rates do you charge? And most importantly, what time of the day do you mostly put your classes for?

So my studio is canceling my classes for the summer due to low attendance. Has anyone else had this happen. I just started teaching back in late March early April. I’ve slowly have started to get some returning students. This was my only permanent class. I’ll be a sub now. What can I do in the meantime

The studio i just quit is a bit casual, I guess?

Still, the drama is the couple who own the shala go on vacation a lot.

a few mos ago they told us we were all bad employees and put us on 1099. Then they hired actual desk staff for what were were "bad" at- computer intake, cleaning etc. Yes mistakes were made, but they told me they needed to save money and wanted a desk staff anyway.

the ppl they hired were 1/2 volunteers & some dad bud of the owner who just started going on vacay, then quit.

I got a promo at my day job around when we became 1099 and had to get to my 9-5 on time vs waiting till students left after class & doing laundry. I made it to my job on time for the few mos we had that dad bud on staff to do intake & ck clients in & out.

THEN the owners told us we had to plan to go back to covering desk/cleaning cuz their friend was moving to the mainland, thus we never knew when we had to arrive early/stay later than class. The desk volunteers were unpredictable, even tho they got class for free

I told the couple (owners) i can't stay late randomly or ever- i needed to stick to the "arrive &leave" as per the 1099 agreement (we signed it too). My job needed me & i committed.

So i was not "renewed" for my contract because i can't cover the old employee tasks for later hours.

What happened? I'm casual too, but was this right of them to let me go because i can't cover the desk and cleaning staff (who dissappeared)

*before you ask if i'm AI, i'm not. YES i asked this before because I feel helpless. I loved that casual place but it got weird and trying to understand if it was ME who is "inflexible"

Hi! I'm a yoga instructor and I sometimes encountered cases where when my class is not full, my students tend to pick the last row spots even though there's no one in front of them. I've told them subtly like "hey you can move to the front row. As the class's about to begin, so I assume no one else will be joining us" but they still persisted at the back. I was just wondering, is it only me finding it a bit awkward and if you do too, what you usually do?

P.S not trying to make a big deal out of this, but I just want to make myself look approachable and make sure my members can sense the comfortable space