40. The business of teaching Yoga Nidra

This episode is essentially the epitome of this whole podcast: When we boil it down, it’s teaching what you love and making a fair living from that. Teaching yoga should pay your rent, it should put food on the table, it should pay all the bills and leave a little left over for a buffer or a rainy day or savings…  This episode breaks down the ways that you can bring Yoga Nidra in to your offerings and your teachings to benefit you and your yogis.

We’ll be looking at different ways to share and charge for Yoga Nidra, how much to charge for Yoga Nidra and some general inspiration too.

Enjoy!

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See the show notes, and grab your handy worksheet, to determine the best way for you to share your Yoga Nidra with your yogis

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📚 Training for yoga teachers

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Teaching yoga for anxiety & stress, June 26

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Yoga and The Neurobiology of Stress, July 26

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to for yoga teachers. This podcast has been designed to help yoga teachers teach with passion, avoid burnout, and earn a fair living. 

This episode is basically the epitome of why this podcast exists in the first place. When we boil it down. It's about teaching what you love and making a fair living from that. I always say that teaching yoga might not, well, probably won't, make you a millionaire. But it should pay your rent. It should pay your mortgage. It should put food on the table. It should pay all of the bills and leave maybe a little bit left over. 

Our yoga nidra and yoga wisdom training is 400 pounds. Do I believe that you can earn that back teaching yoga nidra? Yes, I whole heartedly [00:01:00] do. In fact, I believe that you can earn back multiples of that. The usual disclaimers here around earnings. There's no promises, you have to do the work and so on. And while we're talking around this sort of theme in the interest of full disclosure, I really do think that you should only teach yoga nidra when you've got a decent certificate, from a training that really explains the power of the practice, how to practice and teach safely, and how to be trauma sensitive. 

So everything that follows assumes that you have done, or that you will do, a decent qualification. But that aside. This episode breaks down the ways that you can bring yoga nidra into your offerings and into your teachings to benefit you and your yogis. We'll be looking at different ways to share and charge for yoga nidra. How much to charge for yoga nidra and some [00:02:00] general inspiration too. If you do fancy joining our yoga nidra and yoga wisdom training, it's at Yoga Hero in Leeds and it's 400 pounds and it's really good. And it's really relaxing. Okay, here we go.

Ways to share yoga nidra. 

Weekly yoga nidra classes. Let's start with the obvious and like we've said approximately 7,000 times on this podcast. You should consider taking on any additional weekly classes very, very carefully, indeed. Including factoring in planning time, travel time, admin time and so on. 

Adding yoga nidra onto your existing classes. This can be a really, really lovely way to share yoga nidra. Rather than having to set up a whole new offering, you either [00:03:00] officially or unofficially include yoga nidra in your classes. Officially would be changing, for example, a slow flow class to be slow flow and yoga nidra. 

Adding yoga nidra unofficially into your classes, shouldn't be done in a stealth way. Yoga nidra is exceptionally powerful and if you don't include the name, yoga nidra and the explanation, in your class information, people aren't going to know that it's going to be happening and you shouldn't spring it on them unannounced, you need everyone's go ahead before bringing it into class. So just bear that in mind. But this approach; adding yoga nidra into your existing classes means people can at least get a taster, without investing in something new. And you can share yoga nidra without taking the risk of adding another offering onto your services. In terms of pricing for [00:04:00] this, you could pitch it as a free taster. Mm, this doesn't really work if they've already paid for the class, but if you're adding on an optional 15 minutes for free, then it is a free taster. And this would work really great, if you have another offering like a workshop coming up and you can encourage bookings after class. 

Yoga nidra workshops. Workshops could be exclusively yoga nidra, or you could add yoga nidra onto something else. Yin and restorative work really, really well or you could do something way more yin and yang. Like a full service workshop, like power flow and yoga nidra, rocket and yoga nidra. 

Wow. I would definitely come to that. 

For workshops like that, you could even pair it with another yoga teacher and give your best chance; pool your yogis and get the workshop up to capacity. 

If you have a space or a studio already, you will probably find that yoga [00:05:00] nidra workshops sell out or fill up without too much work on your behalf. Quick side note here. If you don't already have a space, listen to episode eight, renting a space for yoga. To help you find the right space for your needs. 

In terms of charging for your workshops, usually yoga teachers have a set price for workshops that's pretty much double the price of a class; based on the preparation work, the rarity of the offering and if there's anything added on like coffee or cake or networking, or what have you. You could always price an early bird ticket to encourage early signups too, which gives you a bit of an idea of how popular the workshop is going to be. 

Courses. 

Again, a course could be exclusively yoga nidra. There's some real value in getting people to commit to practicing yoga nidra, like every Tuesday evening for [00:06:00] four weeks. 

They're probably going to feel amazing. But you could also weave it into courses that have a wider focus, for example: a four week introduction to yoga beyond the poses week one could be the eight limbs of yoga. Week two could be what stress is and how to manage stress with yoga. Week three, the importance of meditation, and then week four, rest and yoga nidra. To set pricing for your courses you can almost price it like each session is a workshop and go from there. Or another approach would be to have a set price for the course. Say 60 pounds for four weeks. But offer a slightly increased per session price. So 60 pounds for four weeks would work out 15 pounds per session. If you were to increase each session a bit, that would be something like 1750 or 20 pounds a session. You might just make a little bit of extra income and reach a couple of extra people [00:07:00] by offering those individual sessions. 

Retreats. Oh! I feel relaxed, just even thinking about an exclusively yoga nidra retreat! 

A retreat is such a wonderful time and place to offer yoga nidra. A quick side note here, which is totally subjective and personal. The second retreat that I ever led. I had a really wonderful experience teaching yoga nidra, the retreat was just Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. And on the Saturday afternoon, I mentioned to everyone I'd be teaching an optional yoga nidra after dinner that night. I'd said to everyone, you might want to, you know, take your make-up off, brush your teeth, get in to your PJs, grab your pillow and you duvet, come into the yoga hall and I'll guide you through yoga nidra. And then after you just grab your duvet and your pillow. You're already ready for bed. So you can just waddle back [00:08:00] to bed and hopefully go straight to sleep. And there was one lady on the retreat who had said; "thanks, but no, thanks. There's no way I'm going to relax. I'm really tired. So I'm just going to try and get an early night because a lot of the time have really struggled with sleep and I really struggle getting to sleep." We sort of talked it through a little bit more and I explained, and in the end she decided to come. She did the yoga nidra, waddled back to bed and slept 14 hours straight, nearly missing the class the next morning. 

So, you know, that's not data that I would use with other people, but it's just a nod to how profound yoga nidra can be. 

Especially in that environment where people have already started to relax around you. Anyway. Whether your retreat is a half day or a full week. Bringing yoga nidra to the retreat can add a very impactful layer of rest and release and acceptance and insight. And it [00:09:00] doesn't have to be in the evenings, a very strong argument for practicing yoga nidra in the morning as well. 

Online. Your classes, workshops and or courses could be hosted online. There's just some interesting thinking to do here around duty of care. For example, if someone falls asleep and you struggling to rouse them. Or if your internet drops off and you're not able to bring people out of the nidra and so on. 

So just have a think about those instances and what you might need to do. But if you don't have a studio, if you don't have a lovely, warm, clean, quiet ish space with lots of props, online might be a very, very feasible option for you. 

In the workplace. 

I think offering yoga nidra in the workplace would really solve many [00:10:00] of the problems that so, so, so many people experience at the moment. The need to go faster and faster and faster to do more and achieve more. 

I think if workplaces offered yoga nidra, then one, they would be facilitating their employees to practice yoga nidra, which would be great. 

But two; through this offering, They're telling their employees that their health and their rest is really vital. And so I think that this is something that's really worth exploring. 

So thinking about charging for yoga nidra, thinking about paying your investment back. Let's look at it this way. If your training is 400 pounds, and you host a yoga nidra workshop that costs 20 pounds per ticket. You only need 20 people to come to breakeven. That might be 20 people at one workshop or 10 people [00:11:00] twice. Now. Yes, you might have to pay room rental. 

You might need to invest in some blankets. You need to factor in your travel to you workshop and your planning time. But there's some basic maths there, that really, even with two workshops attended by 10 people each you could maybe start to get towards breaking even. So investing in yourself like this might not be as huge a decision as you think, or is hard a decision as you think 

and just some general inspiration that I promised to go through. 

In my humble view, there's one thing, and only one thing that's useful for gaining inspiration for yoga nidra. And that is practicing yoga nidra. Yoga teacher, there's no substitute. When you practice regularly and consistently you will teach with heart with impact and with [00:12:00] authenticity. Remember, it doesn't need to be hours and hours and hours. 

It doesn't need to be every day, but the consistency will benefit you. And will benefit your yogis. 

Okay. Yoga teacher. I hope that's helped provide some food for thought around the business of teaching yoga nidra. What I've found with our yoga nidra trainees, is that training as a yoga nidra teacher has really helped to solidify a consistent and regular practice, and in many cases that obviously helps with sleep and overall wellbeing, which is really lovely. 

It's exactly why I do what I do. So if you're yoga nidra teacher or you're planning to be, let your cogs start turning about the ways that you can offer this service and let us know how you get on, I would absolutely love to hear. And as always happy, happy [00:13:00] teaching.