Convincing People to Let You Teach Them
After I finished teacher training I was given this piece of
paper that says I can now go out and teach yoga to others. When I was ready, I
took this paper, I hopped on my bike and I stopped at various studios around
town. I waved my paper in a few people's faces, introduced myself, dropped my
resume, and followed up with a repetitive e-mail.
No one called back.
Hhmm, I wondered, what am I doing wrong?
“Fool,” a voice, that of the great westernized yoga
professional god, sounded from the clouds, “You are disrupting the yoga teacher
train of events.”
This country has no shortage of new vinyasa yoga teachers,
and studio owners want the best yoga program they can provide, so they don't
hire just anyone who walks in from the street. They are much MUCH more likely
to hire someone they already know, someone who participates in their classes, who
fits into the studio culture and who follows a similar yoga practice. After
all, studio and program directors get loads of resumes and they need some way
to find the best suited individual for their space. I love this about yoga. It
makes it more about community. But it also makes it a LOT harder to find a job.
For my teaching experiment, I set the goal of 10 classes per
week. I've been following the yoga teacher train of events diligently at my
home studio where I have practiced for the past 2 years. I've been there as a
teacher-in-training since January and last month I finally got a class on the
schedule.
Yahh!
But…I still need 9 more classes!
How do I get them?
Compromise and Patience
Compromise
Yoga teaching gigs exist outside of the traditional studio
setting: gyms, recreation centers, friends and family. The compromise is that they don't pay as well
(rather, even worse) than studios, and because it's not an established yoga
program, fewer students show up. The benefit though, greatly outweighing the
negative, is that I get to teach a lot of beginners in a small class setting—an
opportunity for me to really hone my teaching skills and share my love of yoga
with someone who hasn't been exposed to it before. Awesome, right?
So I have 5 classes like that.
(I have 1 more studio class because rules are never 100
percent accurate and sometimes the yoga teacher train of events can be surpassed.)
That puts me up to 7. How to get the other 3?
Patience
I can't afford to drop into classes regularly enough to make
my face recognizable at new studios all over town, but I can afford to drop
e-mails every couple months, checking in to see if the sub list has an opening
on it, or to make a point of saying hello if I run into yogi directors at
workshops or around the valley.
This is a small town, eventually someone will recognize my
name, and say yes, “We would love to have you here.”
Meanwhile, I just have more time to become a better teacher
and student myself. Ah...relaxing in the process.
Hugs and Namastes!
