Where Do Yoga Teachers Go When They're Not Teaching?

Where do yoga teachers go when they're not teaching yoga? It's a real question. I can tell you where I go, but I know there aren't many other yoga teachers there.

In the past, I've been so busy that I was usually running from class to class and in the middle, I'd be at home, taking care of things at home. I only encountered other yoga teachers by appointment.

Lately it's been bugging me though that I don't have access to other yoga teachers or students for that matter, outside of a traditional yoga class and I'd like to see if that could change.

When I was down at Kripalu again recently, I bumped into some of my old yoga people in the halls and in the cafe and had a chance to informally chat. I saw that some of them would use that cafe space as a place to get work done. It seemed like the distractions were not unwelcome and the surroundings were certainly supportive.

On the same trip in April, I revisited a coworking space in New Haven, CT, which has grown for a third time in four years and has a wonderful, creative vibe to it.

Could these things be blended? Could a coworking space for yoga teachers be created? Would anyone use it besides me?

If you're not familiar with the concept of coworking, you can just google it for way more, but in short, it's a space for people who may normally be working out of their homes or coffee shops in the area, but who would like to be with other people, maybe of a similar ilk, to work near and possibly with, if the projects warrant.

It's like an office for the office-less.

I've worked from home for a decade. It's been great. I've accomplished a lot. But I would like to see other people. I would like to make myself available to other yoga teachers and have other creative people around to help me, too.

Ottawa does have a couple of coworking spaces and they're great, but they're not specifically for yoga teachers - there's no space to do yoga R & D. I have felt out of place at the Hub and paying to park and getting on a slow elevator cut down my time there. Plus, as a yoga teacher, getting in and out of a space quickly matters to me as I do have to get to other classes.

It also occurs to me that most of the people who are yoga teachers in the city are women. Of course there are male teachers but the majority of people teaching and practising yoga are women. The spaces I've seen for coworking aren't unwelcome to women, they just seem to be populated with men. I'd like to walk into a place where I'm not unusual, but the targeted clientele.

I'm sort of rambling here, but I'm trying to express a feeling or an idea that's inside of me and I would like to be able to walk into it outside of me.

I've started looking at various spaces, trying to get a sense of how much space I'd need to do this. I've started meeting with people who can help see if there's community funding available (in fact, I'll be at City Hall later this morning). I've spoken to a few yoga teachers to see if this idea would be of interest. I've even checked in with a yoga studio owner to see if she would find this valuable. Everybody has said they like it. Now will they become members and actually support it...?

I love asking myself the question "if money weren't an obstacle, what would you do?" And I would definitely do this project. That being said, there's this money thing that's required to pay landlords, which would be the bulk of the cost. How small a space could I start with? How big would it need to be to be able to accommodate the right blend of spaces inside the space so there could be a focused work area, a space where you can chat, plus a space to practise in?

Which other communities of people would find this attractive? Would artists want to come out of their homes and work around other people? Would massage therapists need a place to land? Again, I'm just asking some questions to see if I'm alone or if there are other people out there...

Training Yoga Teachers

One of the best things I get to do is help people go where they want to go. In the advanced courses I teach with Kat Mills, there's a Mentorship unit where we meet monthly to work on being yoga teachers in a group, as well as having phone calls one-on-one and even a visit to our students' real classes to give feedback and input in a live setting.

The first set of graduates has come through the course and are all just finishing. We didn't want it to end, so we're having it continue informally until Kat gets back from India, when we'll resume it formally.

In the meantime we have 3 classes set up - today it's David Robbins, an old student of mine from way back who's leading us in some digital marketing poses. Next month Ian Fraser returns to deal with advanced postures and how to get our students into them even if we can't do them ourselves. I say he returns because he already paid a visit during our regular curriculum. In December, Catriona Leger, a yoga practitioner and theatre director is coming to help yoga teachers unfold their stories using their bodies somehow. I'm taking that class, not teaching it so I'm not really sure what we're doing, but I think it's going to be great. Each of those workshops is $50 for the 2 hours or $25 if you're enrolled in our Mentorship course.

I'm expecting that today's workshop with David will inspire me to pick up my blog again and continue to share my stories. I've gone rather quiet on the outside, but I'm really here and have lots more to share.

Yoga at the Y

Earlier today I was reading some other blogs and came across this recent post about Yoga at the Y and how great it is. And it got me to thinking!

I am a teacher at Rama Lotus and have been for 6 or 7 years. I go in, I teach, I leave. People come, people go, prices go up, stuff happens, and I'm still in there teaching. I used to wonder why people would go to a yoga class at all seeing as how yoga is free and people can do it at home by themselves and before I lived in an ashram I'd signed up for a series of classes and this drop-in model wasn't in my world. So yoga's free and people can do it on their own but studios have to charge because landlords don't donate their space for yoga classes. (I've asked on occasion, but they won't go for it - they charge a lot.) So then yoga costs something. The Y can charge a little because they're a big business and a charity and have lots of cash flow and it's way different than a little yoga place, which even Rama Lotus is by business standards. Buying in bulk reduces the cost and I know classes can cost below 10 bucks if you've put enough on the card.

And then there's the teachers. I've written before about what people think yoga teachers are supposed to be and I guess charitable should definitely be on that list. Which I think most teachers are as most teachers don't make that much for what they do. So most yoga teachers also have other jobs. Some yoga teachers can get by teaching open classes, but most really can't. There are some very big classes at Rama Lotus, and the person teaching that particular class will be well paid for that class, but most of the classes are small and you could make more teaching at the Y than teaching a daytime class to a few people at Rama Lotus. So teachers generally don't do it for the money.


The length of time for a yoga class has always varied. And it varies on various things. I'm not sure why Bikram began doing 90-minute classes, but he did and Rama Lotus got Bikram classes happening thanks to Luc probably 10 years ago, and then other classes would be scheduled in a similar way to suit the space, I suppose. At Kripalu our classes were 1 hour and 15 minutes for some auspicious reason. Some people get an hour for lunch so a lot of classes are that length, which is what the Y does. They're running on an hourly schedule. Most of the classes I teach outside of Rama Lotus are an hour too, it's enough most of the time. At Omega, the staff classes are 2 hours, so it just depends.

What to wear to yoga has changed over the years (I talk about that on my web site, capitalyoga.com.) I don't think it matters what you wear to yoga but some people do and it can be like a fashion show in some classes. Those great clothes are also very comfortable usually, which is why Chip started lululemon, at least that's what he told me. Doing Bikram in cotton is totally allowed, but usually uncomfortable. I used to wear my bathing suit with shorts on top. Doing non-hot room yoga in cotton works great and that's what most of us wear. (Ashtanga would be an exception as it gets just as hot as a Bikram class in Ashtanga if you're working and there are people in the room!)

When yoga becomes a fitness class it loses something for me. If I want to work out, I go to the gym. If I want to do yoga, I do yoga. It helps me connect to myself and stretch and have quiet time with myself and it feels good. And then it's worth the money, unless I'm doing it on my own!

One of my teachers wrote about offering yoga for free and what happened to him. In our culture if we don't pay for something we don't value it. That's a generalization, but it fits here. And even if there were free yoga classes, they'd need to be outside because indoor space costs something. I've had really cheap classes at people's works and people don't show up. Charge a little more and people come because it's a bigger investment. It's like marketing anything - you have to find the right price, which may be more rather than less. I'm not saying yoga's over priced, but to be honest, I don't know, because I'm not trying to run a yoga centre.

Doing yoga in a dedicated yoga space is also a nice thing to do. I teach a lot of yoga in gyms and dirty floors and places that aren't dedicated to yoga. It's great to be able to teach yoga in a yoga studio. The lighting, the sound system, the props, the whole space has considered yoga. Doing yoga in a gym works, but it's not the same.

Teaching yoga and holding the space for 1 or 50 students, is a privilege and it takes something to do that. It takes a lot of mental energy to do it and it's also something that can be rewarding to the teacher once they get over being drained by it! But it's not something that you can do 8 hours a day. Not leading big classes up at the front. It's something you do for short periods and then you have to do something else. And if you're working all day and then teach yoga at night or stop and do it at lunch, chances are you're not doing it everyday or it will eat up your free time.

Yoga's great and it's awesome that there are affordable classes and classes in dedicated yoga spaces, and private classes. There's a kind of yoga for everybody. And there are good teachers at all levels. One's not better than the other. Yoga's not a competition! Not even the classes or spaces. There's room for free yoga and $15 yoga and $100 yoga classes. Context is the key.

(I grabbed the pictures from my website. I scanned them from the book, Yoga for Americans.)