43. Should yoga teachers care about money?

One of the things that frustrates me endlessly about teaching yoga is:

"Yoga is so beneficial, it should be accessible to absolutely everyone!"

Vs

"Don’t teach for free! You’ll undervalue yoga!"

This episode  explores the question:
 Should yoga teachers care about money? 

We cover:

• Why yoga teachers often feel guilty about charging for classes
• Why there’s commonly an issue with yoga teachers valuing their time, knowledge and efforts
• The morality of earning money from yoga
• Teaching yoga for free
• What about times when people genuinely can’t afford your classes 
• And much more

Wowza.

Let's do this!

--

See the show notes here

Learn about Convertkit Tips here 

--
🤝 The Base
A community for yoga teachers Take a look

📚 Training for yoga teachers
300 hour yoga teacher training, starts March 25
Myofascial Release, Energetic Anatomy and Yoga, Mar 25
Yoga and The Neurobiology of Stress, June 25
Yoga Nidra with Yoga Wisdom, Sept 25
Restorative Yoga and Polyvagal Theory, Jan 26
Yoga for resilience, March 26
Teaching yoga for anxiety & stress, June 26

--

Follow @foryogateachers

Struggle with low confidence and self-doubt? Try the free Shatter Imposter Syndro...

Transcript

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

One of the things that frustrates me endlessly about teaching yoga is 'yoga is so beneficial, it should be accessible to absolutely everyone' versus 'don't teach for free, you'll undervalue yoga.' 

I've really struggled to think of another industry or another career where one person will come across the same conflict of 'charge more' and 'charge less' time and time again. 

Speaking of conflict, I may as well say that I'm in a huge conflict here when it comes to talking about yoga teachers earnings, because I'm a huge passionate [00:01:00] advocate for yoga teachers, but I'm also a studio owner. 

As an advocate for healthy, thriving, yoga teachers, I'd love to say that yoga teachers should be paid 50 pounds a class at an absolute minimum. But as a yoga studio owner, I know that would close the doors of my studio within a month. And then the yoga teachers would get no pounds. They would get nothing. They'd get zilch. 

Anyway. Let me properly introduce this episode. 

This episode is exploring the question. Should yoga teachers care about money? It's also exploring why yoga teachers often feel guilty about charging for yoga. Why there's commonly an issue with yoga teachers valuing their time, knowledge and efforts. The morality of earning money from yoga. Teaching yoga for free. What about when people genuinely can't afford your [00:02:00] classes, and much more?

It's a huge topic. 

And I think I'm probably just scratching the surface. So it's probably one that we'll come back to. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on what is an important and quite controversial topic. Let's go.

Feeling guilty about earning money from yoga. I'm not sure where this comes from. But it seems to be really common. When yoga teachers set their prices for classes, workshops, one to ones and corporates, they will more often than not go on the low side. Maybe this is tied up in self-worth and who knows maybe one day we can do a study about that. Maybe it's also tied up in ideas around renunciation and aparigraha, non-hoarding no grasping, that by being a yoga teacher, we're [00:03:00] moving down a path towards not wanting or needing material things. Maybe it's because we want to prove that we're yoga teachers to help people first and foremost, or maybe it's a combination of all of these things. Anyway. 

Let's acknowledge that feeling guilty about earning a living through yoga is common. But that doesn't mean that it's right. In order for you to pay your mortgage, your rent, put food on the table, pay for all your other things that are necessary as a human in this period of time. Plus of course, registration with an Alliance. 

If you want that, and you have that insurance continuing education to ensure that you're the best possible yoga teacher, you can be, and so much more. In order to pay for all of these things, you have to earn a living. It really is as simple as that. 

What about teaching [00:04:00] for free? Hm. Yeah. Teaching for free. I don't know. I'm not sure I'm a fan. Not really. On our teacher training course we encourage teachers to teach what we call pay as you feel classes. These classes go on the timetable. And people the general public can book on. Now, the reason I'm mentioning this here is because the teachers don't get paid financially for these classes. The tiny amount that does come in, goes to paying studio bills. But the teacher is getting valuable experience. They get to see how people move in response to their instructions. They get to teach their class, knowing that people haven't paid full price for it so the pressure is really off. Often an experienced teacher will attend and give feedback. And so the exchange is the yoga teacher or the trainee teachers time, in exchange for feedback and experience. [00:05:00] You might also teach a class for free, but suggest that attendees donate to a chosen charity. And another time that's really common to teach for free is effectively like an introduction session or a taster session where you'll encourage the attendees to sign up or to book on something bigger, like a course for example. 

Do have concerns about teaching totally for free ,one concern is that it implies that yoga is free or can be free, and then customers might start wondering why they have to pay when they have to pay, 'because it's always been free' and that's really tricky to navigate.

But also we are yoga teachers because yoga has had probably an immeasurable, positive impact on your life, and we're yoga teachers, because we want to share that benefit with others. When something is free, it holds literally no value. [00:06:00] When we put free stuff on at the studio people book on, but then they don't turn up. About 90% of the people who book onto free things do not come because they don't see a value in it. 

So by not coming, they're not practicing yoga, because they don't see a value in it, and so we're not even satisfying our aim of sharing yoga.

But what about when people genuinely can't afford your classes? 

Well, I've already mentioned this, but how about a pay as you feel option. People throw cash in a bucket or they donate via convert kit tip or something. If you want to know more about convert kit tips, take a look at our show notes. 

Another option is a pay it forward scheme, where those who have more liquid money can pay for two yoga classes, and you keep one in the bank for someone who needs it. This can all be done anonymously and it can work really well. 

And remember someone who's really struggling to [00:07:00] pay for a class can rent a yoga book from their library for free, or they could follow along with a YouTube class, if they've got access to the internet. You could even film something yourself and offer that for free for those that are struggling financially, if this is something that you're keen to do, but you also want to eat, and have a roof over your head, and pay bills. 

Know your value. 

I've talked about this a few times across different episodes. So, sorry, not sorry for any repetition. When I was leaving my, in inverted commas, proper job. The accountant at that job gave me one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received, which was to put a rate on my time ASAP. This is basically determining how much you earn and how many hours you work, dividing the earnings by the hours. And that is your rate. 

So let's [00:08:00] say that between studio classes, gym classes and online. You earn 400 pounds a week. As well as the physical teaching hours, working also includes travel time, prep time, admin time . And that say that that all adds up to 40 hours a week. 400 pounds, weekly income divided by 40 hours, weekly hours is 10 pounds an hour. Just want to stress that this example is 100% hypothetical and not indicative at all of how much. I think yoga teachers should earn. I just want to keep the m Once you have your rate and make a note to review this at least yearly, you'll want to estimate how much time an offering takes you. 

For example, you might have been offered a new class at a studio. It's one class, which is one hour a week. But you have to do your own promo. You think that will take you an hour as well. It's 20 [00:09:00] minutes drive to get there. Plus time to open up the studio, check people in, wave them off after the class and lock up the studio. 

So you think all in all, it will be about four hours of your time per week. Using the maths we just did, as a reminder, the totally hypothetical rate that we worked out was 10 pounds an hour. So this class should pay you 40 pounds or more. Otherwise you're effectively making a loss. 

Now in some ways, making a loss is okay. I've talked many, many times about a class in a gym that I taught for quite a few months after I qualified. 

It took me about 45 minutes to walk there, it was a 45 minute class, obviously 45 minutes to get home. And so it was about two and a half hours of my time each week. And it paid 1250 for effectively um, two and a half hours work, which is basically nothing. Um, but I kept the class for nearly a year because I got eight long term one-to-one clients [00:10:00] from it. So knowing your rate, knowing your value, is a guide. 

It helps to give you the information that you need for an informed decision, as to whether your work and your worth, are aligned. 

This is something that I'm working on with quite a few yoga teachers on a mentoring basis at the moment. And it is always really interesting in the end, which classes the teacher drops and which they keep, it's not a hard and fast rule at all. But a balance of working through, 'well, I love teaching that class' or 'people from that gym always book onto my offerings' or 'I pop in and see my mum after that class' and it basically pays for my fuel, et cetera. 

If you feel like you benefit from a bit of a guiding hand navigating this, just give me a shout 

and book yourself a mentoring session in. 

[00:11:00] The chakra system and money. There's a really interesting idea here from Eastern body Western mind by Anodea Judith, which is that it is important to feel safe and secure, in order to then work on self-esteem. I've boiled this way down and extracted it from its full meaning. But the principle is there, and it's really interesting that in order to be a confident teacher, With self-belief in your knowledge and your ability, you have to feel safe. And feeling safe, and secure is having a roof over your head. Having food in the fridge, having money in the bank amongst other things, of course. Polyvagal theory says the same thing. So earning an income or should I say caring about money, can make you an even better yoga teacher.

[00:12:00] Confidence and money. 

Throughout the episode and throughout mentoring sessions. This has come up time and time again. That not charging enough or not charging at all can be linked with low self worth and imposter syndrome. Well, good news for you we've just updated and improved the super popular three day shatter imposter syndrome challenge. If you haven't done it before, or you haven't done it for a little while, go and sign up today because in just three days, you'll have an understanding of what imposter syndrome is, how it affects you and how to shatter it. And it's completely free. And it's linked to in the show notes. 

Remember the benefits of yoga.. 

Yoga is pretty unique in that it is a tonic [00:13:00] for the body, the mind and the spirit all at the same time. By sharing yoga, you're probably helping people manage their stress. You might be helping people strengthen their body awareness, helping to prevent future injury. You might be sprinkling philosophical nuggets that encourage people to slow down and so they don't drive home like Lewis Hamilton risking an accident. You might encourage your yogis to be more mindful, so they take a beat before responding to their boss or their friend or their life partner, and so an argument is avoided. You might give someone the tools to breathe more effectively helping them regulate their blood pressure, and therefore avoiding medication. I know there's so many cans and maybes and possibly is in there, but really how many other things could we say if we all gathered together and shared the testimonials that we've received and the text messages and WhatsApp [00:14:00] messages that we've received, and the thank you cards. I have cards in my drawer that say that my classes have saved lives. Plural. These are huge things that yoga teachers are doing. Yes, it would be wonderful if this could be made freely available to everyone. But, like I said before, it is!, Books. YouTube your free filmed class, if you want. 

But you turning up to teach, welcoming people in, teaching a class that you probably paid out a lot to learn how to teach in the first place, offering modifications and variations and physical adjustments and advice. All so that the people in front of you can feel better than they did at the beginning of the class. This should be compensated it's as simple as that. 



[00:15:00] Soon we'll look at ways to boost your yoga teacher earnings. So if you have thoughts around this emotive topic, please do get in touch. Like I said, at the beginning, we're only just scratching the surface here. 

But yoga teacher I hope I have made my case that yes, you should care about earning money because your security, your confidence, your teaching, and your yogis will all benefit immeasurably. Don't forget to join the shatter imposter syndrome challenge. 

It really is fab, it does wonders for improving self worth. It really does. 

If you'd be so kind to share this episode with another yoga teacher, we'd be really grateful. And as always happy teaching.