Category: Training, Education & Business

Being a yoga teacher is hard. It’s time to think beyond the class to class grind and create a business strategy that helps you not just survive – but thrive financially. While creating a signature educational program can be a keystone of a successful business strategy, not everyone feels the call the be an educator in this way.

So if you want to make a change in how you’re running your business, you need to ask: Should I create a teacher training program?

There are so many great ways to be a yoga teacher and leader that don’t include a teacher training, such as:

• creating community through classes,
• creating a vibrant outreach program,
• running a retreat centre or specialized yoga travel,
• offering corporate yoga,
• offering specialized yoga,
• yoga privates,
• offering amazing workshops.

OR, you may wish to be an educator, but you feel your niche will be specializing in continuing education programs, online classes, or online mentorship.

So now’s the time to pause and honestly reflect: what is your mission – as a yoga teacher and as an entrepreneur? Once you have clarified your true purpose, we can consider, how do you get above the daily grind and create a business model that really works.

Check out this great worksheet to clarify your mission as a yoga teacher. Jump in!

• My Mission as a Yoga Teacher.pdf

If the answer is YES, then it’s time to stop waiting and start doing. Check out how I can help you make it happen.

Is anyone else tired of seeing, “I made 7K in my online course!” on every social media feed?

These days, education is big business.

Earn 7K in two weeks!

Increase your passive income!

Make a blockbuster course in three easy steps!

Most of these people who are selling these courses aren’t educators. They’re playing on our desire (old as time and the snake oil salesmen) to get rich quick. They’re riding the gravy train of the latest hot ticket. Who wouldn’t want to sit back and watch 7K roll in without lifting a finger?

But crappy education is still crappy education. And here’s the truth: if you create a lousy course, it will undermine your brand and your reputation.

Most of these “three-step-processes to create your course” are focused on how you get your information out; but very little about how the students get the information in. As a result, there are a lot of really, really bad courses out there, all creating this white noise called “education” when they’re really not. See why this is a problem.

There is an art to education. And it’s not in a three-step process.

I am passionate about education and see it as a pathway to human evolution, tolerance, and kindness. That’s one of the reasons that I spent three years earning my Masters in Instructional Design while I was working a full-time job. I’m a huge fan of the modern proliferation of modern education. We can now disseminate knowledge quickly and globally. Mobile phones make it possible for those without a computer to participate (amazing!). We have access to almost any information we need at our fingertips.

But there is an art to education.It’s not just what you teach, it’s how you teach it. And the art of instructional design has a deep and rich history that has been studied, explored and refined for hundreds of years. If you really want to support your students’ growth (and improve your own reputation as an expert), you want to create a course that is fundamentally sound. Not one that sounds like a sales pitch.

Don’t add to the white noise.

Add to the orchestra.

Don’t create a crappy get-rich-quick course.

Create a smart, transformational, and get-more-rich-over-time course.

Over time, an excellent course will provide an additional source of revenue, bolster your leadership and most importantly, support the growth and knowledge of your community.

That is something worth sharing.

Every training has a few students who love to talk. These students will be the first to raise their hands to answer questions, dominate discussion groups, and talk at length about their experiences.

Students can be big talkers for different reasons:

• They process information by verbalizing it
• They like the validation of being in the spotlight
• They want to be good students and contribute
• They hate to leave the class in silence

While having some good conversation starters is useful, it can sometimes be frustrating to manage a classroom environment when you want to hear everyone’s voice and the same students continue to hold the floor. Introverts want to think longer before offering a response, while extroverts tend to speak on the fly. If the discussion space isn’t moderated, your fast talking extroverts will almost always leap in to fill the silence first.

However, a yoga teacher will need to speak audibly and clearly when they are teaching their own class. Practicing speaking out during the training can help your students become more comfortable with holding the spotlight after they graduate.

Here are some of my favourite discussion tactics to help everyone be heard.

Set expectations from the start

I set expectations for discussion participation from the beginning of training by encouraging students to self-reflect on their habitual participation. I’ll usually say, “Teacher training is a place to learn to share your voice as well as hold silence. Both are important skills for a yoga teacher. Notice your habits. If you’re always jumping in to speak, consider holding space and silence. If you are not speaking to the group, then consider stepping in sooner.”

Setting expectations early can also help you avoid wounding egos if you ask certain members to practice holding back. After all, holding space for silence is also an incredibly important skill for a yoga teacher to cultivate.

Choose students to speak

To avoid having your fast talkers jump in first, you can call on certain students to share. However, I will only call students out to share when I know there’s no danger of them not knowing the answer to a question. For example, I’ll ask them to share their reaction to a sutra or give a personal response so they don’t feel they are being ambushed.

Put them in partners/ small groups with timers

If you put people in partners or small groups and give each person a certain amount of time to talk, everyone will have a designated space to participate free from interruption.

Assign them to speak…tomorrow

One great tactic is to assign students to share on a topic the following day. For example, you could give each student a sutra to share or a homework assignment to present. By giving the topic in advance, you make sure that your students have time to prepare and feel ready.

The classic, “Let’s hear from someone who hasn’t shared yet.”

When facilitating a discussion, it’s perfectly fine to ask to hear from students who have been quiet. Be willing to hold the space and silence until someone is ready to speak.

Have students raise hands to speak

While it’s common in many trainings to let students “popcorn participate” in group discussions (where they pop in their voices into the discussion without raising their hands), it can be useful to have a more formal discussion structure where students ask to speak. You can then choose to call on students who may have not been as forthcoming, and spread the verbal sharing around.

One last note:

For your students, taking a yoga teacher training provides an opportunity to address and overcome a fear of public speaking. Even students who are taking the course for self-development (and not to teach professionally) have the chance to hold space to be heard. Helping your students learn to share their voice in a public space can help the build confidence and develop life skills that extend far beyond the yoga classroom.

I love teaching anatomy in yoga teacher trainings. LOVE IT. Sharing the mystery and miracle of the human body is incredibly inspiring and satisfying. However, teaching anatomy in a yoga teacher training course can be difficult, and it’s easy to fall into traps that can turn anatomy into a drag!

Top mistakes I see?

• Cramming in too much information
• Failing to teach the application to the yoga asana practice
• Teaching names, not function

And I know, my dears, that we are not always set up for success. Often the anatomy portion of a 200 or 300 hour training is shoved into one weekend (who can remember their femur from their fibula after six hours of lecture??), which leads to brain overload for the students and a lack of relevance to the rest of the program.

So step number one for success:

Whenever possible, teach anatomy in bite-sized chunks.

Ideally, an anatomy session should be two hours max, and should directly relate to the other content (asana) that is being taught. Do your best to fight for a sane schedule. What good is including anatomy in a program if the students can’t remember it?

Teach relevance, not details.

What’s more important: remembering the names of the knee ligaments, or understanding why pigeon pose is hard on your meniscus?

Avoid bogging your students down in seductive (and irrelevant) details. Do they really need to know the word, “talus?” Focus on the big picture, and apply the anatomy that you teach immediately to the practice and teaching of yoga asana. For example, you would want to consider:

• Why is understanding the labrum of the hip important for warrior two?
• Why is understanding shoulder impingement relevant to chaturanga?
• What is happening to a woman’s body in third trimester that may affect asana modification?
• How does blood pressure relate to inversions?

Applied anatomy is the only kind that counts. For every module you teach, ask and answer, “how is this information relevant to a general yoga practice?”

Focus on the Scope of Practice

Dr. McCoy from Star Trek used to say, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a Klingon navigator!” Well, in this case, we are yoga teachers, dammit, not chiropractors or physiotherapists. Relieve students of the pressure to know everything. New teachers are afraid of hurting their students (for most of us, this is one of our greatest fears). However, you can’t possibly learn enough about anatomy in twenty five hours to have more than a layman’s understanding of the human body. While I am a firm believer in studying anatomy (yes, yes, more please!), we have to encourage our students to be realistic about their expectations. Help your trainees understand that their scope of practice as yoga teachers is to teach a healthy population a safe and effective yoga practice, and to offer students common sense modifications when appropriate. That’s it.

Inspire

The human body is amazing! As anatomy teacher trainers, we have the privilege of helping students understand the magnificence of the human body. What astonishing work! Have you seen a human tendon? Exquisitely beautiful. Have you considered the relentless and steadfast beating of the human heart (85,000 beats a day for your entire life)? How awe-inspiring. How about the mysterious electrical machinations of the nervous system? Sorcery!

If you are excited about sharing this mystery, your students will get excited too. Share your passion and enthusiasm. Not only will your energy make teaching anatomy fun, it will inspire your students to connect more deeply and respectfully with their work as asana teachers. After all, as hatha yoga teachers, we use the physical body as a vehicle for divine expression and transformation. How marvellous to appreciate the mysterious depths that lie within us  – right at our fingertips.

Teach well.

Plan your lessons carefully. Be clear why this information is relevant and important. Use photos and videos (respecting copyright of course) to make the anatomy visually exciting and understandable. Incorporate group exercises and fun activities that will bring the anatomy to life.

To get some inspiration and see how I do it, check out one of my free anatomy lesson plans. Plan in advance how you will get students out of their heads (memorizing details and words) and into their bodies (applying anatomy to the practice). Experiential learning is where the anatomy will best stick.

Happy teaching!

The Force Awakens cost $245 million dollars to make. And it cost between $100-150 million dollars to advertise.

More than one-third of their total expenditure on that movie was in advertising.

Surprised?

Even though The Force Awakens seems like a no-brainer for success, Disney invested more than $100 million in promotion. And this percentage is typical of major motion pictures, who routinely spend 1/3 of their production costs again to market their films. In the case of The Force Awakens, the investment was well worth it: Disney has raked in more than $2 billion dollars in global sales. Now while we don’t all need to go out there and make $2 billion dollars, the lesson from this blockbuster is applicable to all of us: it’s not enough to be awesome; to be successful, you must significantly invest in advertising your awesomeness.

You cannot take success (and word of mouth) for granted. Disney didn’t sit back and say, “Well, heck, everyone in the world has been waiting for this movie since those terrible prequels; we’ll be fine!” It’s no longer enough to create a great product and hope people hear about it. In a noisy world, only the loudest and most persistent voice gets heard. Marketing – for better or worse – is an essential component of doing business. Here are four tips to get you started.

Rule of Thirds

If you are an entrepreneur and doing a lot of your work yourself, then it’s important to allocate some substantial work time to growing your business and online presence.  Spending time and resources on marketing can feel counterintuitive; after all, I’d much rather spend three hours developing and editing curriculum than figuring out how to promote my Facebook page!

Do the “rule of thirds” reframe to shift your perspective.

You may have heard of the rule of thirds in photography: divide your frame into thirds and place your object of interest along an intersection. Now you can think of the rule of thirds for your marketing strategy. One third of your resources needs to go into marketing. Not only your money, but your time. If you’re working a nine-hour day, spend three of it on your marketing strategy. For the agile, DIY entrepreneur, this may mean that you spend a couple hours each day engaging with social media. Plan on spending a third of your budget on advertising and promotion.

Cross-promote

The big blockbuster movies don’t pay out of pocket for their advertising: they cross-promote. By partnering up with other vendors and products, they help to defray their own marketing costs with a little win-win. Take a lesson from the big boys: find similar vendors who would find an alliance with you advantageous and create partnerships that help you both.

Delegate

As entrepreneurs, we often feel that we need to do everything to get our small business to run. But once you accept that marketing is a high priority, you may realize that creating a team of helpers can save you time, money, and effort. Hiring a marketing strategist can help you to make sure that you are putting your precious time and effort in the right place. There’s nothing worse than spending a lot of time on marketing, only to have your strategy fail. Consider how much your own time is worth. If you can hire someone to do some legwork for you at the right price, having some marketing hands in you corner may help you to focus on what you do best. Use automated services like Planoly and Hootsuite to batch your advertising tasks and save you time.

Be consistent

Marketing can be exhausting. However, it’s not just the loudest horn that gets heard; it’s the most consistent horn. Set yourself up for success (and avoid burn out) by creating a slow and steady marketing strategy that allows you to stay in for the long haul. Cultivate patience. Be the consistent horn.

Regardless of whether you have a $100 or $1 million dollar marketing budget, the lesson is the same: marketing oomph is essential if you want to be successful.

Take it slow, have a plan, delegate when possible, and shine your light!

Are you a yoga educator? To hear more on marketing your educational courses, check out Marketing For Success.

When you’re learning to teach yoga and you begin to understand the principles of alignment, a whole new world opens up. All of a sudden, the hidden actions of the yoga practice are exposed like Illuminati secrets in a Dan Brown novel. The code is suddenly everywhere!

When this happens, it can be very tempting (especially for A-type students) to dive in – eagle-eyed – and start “fixing” student. But before you zero in with well-intentioned zeal, take a mental “whoa, Nelly!” and consider these five guidelines.

1. See the whole student.

Before you fixate your beady eyes on your student’s misaligned knee in warrior two, step back and see the whole picture. See the whole human.

• What’s your student’s energy?
• What’s their facial expression and emotional aspect?
• How’s their muscle tone and tension?

Remember that this student has a life outside of the yoga class (job, family, stresses, love, loss). When you take time to see the whole student, you will be less likely to treat him or her like an object and more likely to approach them with good intent. At the very least, you’ll have the opportunity to take a breath and think, “Is this assist really going to elevate my student’s experience?” If the answer is no, then move on.

2. Speak to the foundation first.

We usually become fixated on what seems most obviously out of whack. While it’s normal to see the most blatant misalignment, pause and look to the student’s foundation. It’s amazing how much compensation can happen in the hips and upper body when the foundation is off-kilter. Look at the feet first (or hands, if they are weight-bearing), and work upwards from there. A well-adjusted foundation can shift the entire expression of a pose.

3. See the good.

Before you jump in to correct, notice what your student is doing well. Although I’m not shy about assisting students, it’s nice to give a positive note first: “Marjorie, good work with the straightness of your back thigh. Now, roll that right hip down a bit. Awesome!” Seeing the good first trains us to mentally affirm and celebrate our students’ progress and share that positivity with them. Students grow best when they are confident; by training yourself to see their good efforts, you will support them to celebrate their own.

4. They’re doing the best they can.

Remember: your students are doing the best they can. Sure, they may benefit from your intervention and loving support, but they have come to yoga class, gotten on their mat, and started to move. Some days, just getting to class is a triumph. As teachers, it’s important to remember that their presence in class is a testament of their dedication to their self care and the practice.

5. Be patient.

They’re not going to get it all today. Don’t fuss over the fine details. Your students’ practice will evolve at just the right pace for them. And sometimes, that may feel really slow. (My teachers are still giving me the same assists I was getting fifteen years ago. Learning to change our bodies is a slow, organic process.) Remember, aiding your students’ progress is your privilege, but ultimately their practice is their responsibility. Support and affirm their work, but give ownership of their practice back to them.

Happy teaching!

For what to do next, see, “Three steps to give a verbal assist.”

Wouldn’t you love to know the magic formula for advertising?

I’d love someone to take me aside and say, “Psssst….put in $500 worth of Facebook Ads, three blogs posts, eight Instagram stories and you’re golden!” Yay! Mystery solved!

No such luck. Marketing is a fickle beast and every campaign is different. But while there may not be definitive recipe for maxing out attendance in your programs, these three must-follow rules will set a solid foundation to help you on your way. They seem simple, but you’d be amazed at how easy it is to miss these three basic principles!

Check it out.

Rule #1: go to where your people are.

Find out where you connect with your community and go find them there. By “your people,” I mean your ideal student. Not everyone. Your very specific, quirky, and unique ideal student.

In the virtual world, check out:

• Where they hang on social media: Facebook? Instagram? Snapchat? Pinterest?
• Do they hang out in online forums or Facebook Pages?
• Are they reading blogs or online periodicals?
• Are they participating in conversations in sister industries like naturopathy?
• (Also find out where your competitors are making an online splash; chances are, there’s a strong community of students there!)

IRL:

• Which studios are they at?
• Where do they live?
• Are they at neighborhood coffee shops, restaurant, juiceries?
• Are they reading periodicals, listings?
• Are they working with other service providers (chiros, naturopaths, retail vendors)?

And once you know where the majority of your people are: go there. Presto, this is where you should focus your energy.

Rule #2: build community before sales.

In social media, the number one mistake that people make is advertising to a cold audience. Social media is not a sales platform; it is a community platform. As my Instagram mentor said, “Compel, connect, convert.” This means that you put your party online, invite people to your party, and then you eventually tell them that – hey! – you’ve got something for sale that they might like.

Like Captain Picard says, “Engage!”

To create community on social media, it has to be a two-way street.  If you’re just posting your own stuff without connecting to what’s going on with other people, they are going to feel the lack of love. Engage with your community through discussions, commenting, and showing that you care about their lives and their photo of that really cute kitten.

Rule #3: Tell people what you’re doing.

Sometimes half the battle with marketing is just opening your mouth!

People won’t know about your offerings unless you tell them. It can be super uncomfortable at first to tell people what you’re doing if it feels like you’re just making a sales pitch. Reconnect to your greater purpose for creating your course (for a free course that helps you with this, check this out), and your mission as a yoga teacher. Feel the power of your mission in your bones. Think about your experiences as a student and how transformational it has been for you to work with your favorite teacher! Now, imagine that you are providing that same amazing experience for your students.

When you remember why your work is so darn important, you’ll realize that sharing it is just another way to deepen your connection with your peeps, and help make the world a better place.

Now go be successful!

For more how to’s on marketing, check out “Market For Success.”

Registering for Yoga Alliance is a pain in the ass.

And the bottom line: registration does not mean that a program is any good. Yoga Alliance lacks the manpower to enforce or monitor the standards of its schools, so being approved is unfortunately not an indicator of quality. However, if you’re running a teacher training, I usually suggest that you pay up and register. (If you’re registering as a teacher, however, it’s a toss up whether or not it’s worth it.)

Here’s why:

• most students recognize and look for the affiliation
• it’s currently the most widely recognized affiliation, at least in North America
• it forces you to do some legwork that can be darn useful

If you’re new to creating education, the registration process can seem overwhelming. Here’s how to keep it simple and make the process work for you.

1. Brainstorm Your What

Step one: do a giant brainstorm. Think about your ideal student and what they will be able to DO and KNOW at the end of your training. Imagine your perfect graduate: how are they showing you that they understand your material? (Bonus: How to Avoid The Great Mistake.) Think about their actual teaching performance (cuing, voice, teaching skills) as well as what they need to be able to draw up on in knowledge (anatomy, philosophy, ethics, business, sequencing).

Then, group your brainstorm content into the Yoga Alliance buckets:

• Techniques, Training & Practice – this includes all asana work, cuing, teaching skills, in class practice and asana labs
• Teaching Methodology – this is a smaller bucket and includes “how to teach,” sequencing, and the business of yoga
• Anatomy/ Physiology – includes both physical and subtle body
• Philosophy – includes philosophy and ethics
• Practicum – includes practice teaching, evaluation, class observation and class assisting time

I highly recommend that you use a spreadsheet for this (excel, Google Sheets, Numbers) and use one line for each primary learning requirement. We’ll call each of these a “topic.”

2. Brainstorm Your How

For each learning requirement, write a brief description of how the students will learn. Examples:

• “Though discussion and lecture, students will learn to apply Ayurvedic principles to their class plan and create a targeted sequence for each dosha”
• “Through discussion and practice teaching, students will learn strategies for teaching a multi-level class in a group class setting.”

Your “how” might include activities like lecture, group discussion, practice teaching, partner work, practice, powerpoint, or worksheets.

3. Estimate The Time

For each topic, take a guess at how many class hours you will allocate to this topic. You may have several lessons that fall under one topic, so you may allocate five hours to learning about Ayurveda, even if it’s broken up in your course into five one-hour sessions. You can designated these hours as “contact hours” with your Lead Trainer (registered with Yoga Alliance), contact hours with a non-lead Trainer (doesn’t have to be registered with Yoga Alliance) and non-contact hours (time they spend on the topic in the form of homework or outside the classroom).

Register!

Your sweet little spreadsheet now includes – in a wonderfully organized way – all the information that you need to get registered for Yoga Alliance. And you’ve also managed to take a good first draft at organizing all your course material.

Expert Tip: Register early

Don’t wait to complete writing your course before your register. Register early in your creation process so that you can start marketing your course as “Yoga Alliance Registered”as soon as possible! You’ll want to market your course at least six months in advance, so get registered first, start your marketing, then take your sweet time to build your awesome program while the buzz increases.

For more information on how to register for Yoga Alliance, check out this course that takes you step by step through the whole process (and includes sweet templates to make life easy! Yay!).

So how much do you need to really know to offer a teacher training?

This is a great question – and one that is not to be taken lightly, especially when teacher trainings seem to be cropping up almost everywhere!

Here are five questions you should take to heart before you jump in.

What’s my intention?

Why do you want to create a teacher training?

Which of the following resonate:

• It’s my dream to share my passion for yoga with everyone
• I love teaching teachers
• It’s a great additional stream of revenue
• My students are asking for it
• I want to be on a beautiful retreat island for a month
• Everyone else is doing it, so shouldn’t I be, too?

While it’s not a problem if the idea of revenue or having a destination program is part of your “why,” unless teacher training and education is a core value in your heart, you won’t have enough gas in the tank to make it through. Have a heart to heart with yourself to get to the root of your intention. If you feel it in your heart that creating a teacher training is part of your mission as a teacher, then that’s a sign you’re headed in the right direction. (To go in-depth through this process, take my free online course, which includes everything you need to think about before you decide to create a training.)

How’s my energy?

Creating a teacher training – if you want to do it well – will take a lot of time, effort, and love. Is your “why” strong enough to see you through the the hard parts? Can you commit to taking the time that will be necessary to create a quality training (about 8-10 hours a week for four months to create a 200-hour). Do you have the bandwidth to commit, and are you willing to create space in your life to make this happen?

Is there a need?

Is there a need in your community for a teacher training?

Are students asking you, “when are you going to do this program?” Before you commit to creating a program, find out if it will serve your community. There may be other offerings (retreats, workshops, immersions) that are a better fit. Ask your students, put out a poll on social media, and get some feedback. Do some research in advance to see if there will be an audience. Now, we can never know for sure, a bit of due diligence can save your a lot of time and effort.

Am I ready?

Being a trainer doesn’t only require that you have expertise to share; trainers must also be role models for their students emotionally and professionally. Stepping into the seat of the teacher trainer requires that we look at our own habits (being late, procrastination, emotional reactivity), and be willing to do the work to elevate ourselves. While this is an enormously exciting opportunity for personal growth, it is not for the faint of heart. Said frankly, your own crap is going to come up. Are you ready to do the self-work to be a leader?

What’s in my way?

One of my teachers said, “if you’re asked to teach, then teach.”

We often don’t feel ready to take the leap to leadership. However, feeling ready and being ready are two different things. Fear is often a sign that we’re engaging in a process of self-discovery and growth. Drill down.

What’s really in your way to making the leap? If it’s fear and self-doubt, then it’s time to cast those aside and take a  jump forward. We never “feel ready.” Leap and you will create your own net. After all, you’re here on the planet to grow, not just be comfortable!

Happy creating!

You can also check out my companion article, “What you need to think about before you create a teacher training.”