Tag: yoga teaching

fear and loathing in the yoga world

by L. Valdez Karl

I’m just a problem girl.

It’s been said that one should never say never, but as for my teaching in any more yoga studios, for right now, in this present moment (and I actually said it all this week) I can say, never again.

In my humble opinion, when you’re a starry-eyed newbie yoga teacher there is a little part of you that longs for that perfect yoga community of like-minded holistic souls who will unconditionally love and support one other; where it does not make any difference what style one teaches, how much our yoga clothes cost, who one trained with, or whether one does adjustments or not, because in the end, it’s all good and perfect and lovely in the peace-love-dove yoga world. yoga teachers are all one big happy family when we travel to Mecca — I mean the yoga conferences — and happily chant AUM and SHANTI and celebrate the Goddess in each of us as we yoga trance dance and cry together in those ubiquitous group hugs….”farewell, Tiffani Shanti Lakshmi, see you next year at the Tantric Goddess workshop in Omaha!”

And then reality hits you in the face like a wet, stinky yoga mat rug that 100 Bikram yogis just sweated on.

I understand that people are people and human nature is what it is whether you’re a plumber or a Fortune 500 CEO. we all have our foibles and the little things that make us and the people in our lives insane. call me stupid, but somehow, somewhere deep inside one’s heart, you just don’t expect to be screwed (figuratively) by a another yoga teacher. that just ain’t supposed to happen. is it? somehow I just don’t expect to be treated like one of the huge piles of excrement that I walk around in an Indian street. I must have missed that day in my first teacher training: “What To Do When a Yoga Studio Owner Treats You Like Shit.”

Oh…I’m sorry…is that too real and honest for you? because I’ve been told that I’m too real and honest. well, fasten your seat belts, children, because you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Those of you who are regular readers might remember that I left a studio last year because the alcoholic studio owner walked in stumbling drunk to one of my workshops and into one of my classes (during savasana no less.) I wrote about it here and here. The irony is that the studio I refer to in those posts, the one where I moved to, the one I was so grateful to teach at, is the studio where I was FIRED from this week. yes, dear readers, yours truly was FIRED from a yoga studio. I was told that I was no longer welcome there.

The most surreal thing about it was that I was accused of things I did not do and instead of reasonably picking up the phone and asking whether these things were true, the studio owner fired off a screaming email — I WILL LET THAT SINK IN: I WAS FIRED IN AN EMAIL — telling me to mail my key because I was no longer welcome at the studio. but I digress. back to the alcoholic owner.

I understand addiction. believe me, I do. been there, done that, momma don’t ride dat hoss no mo’, y’all. and any of you out there who know or live with addicts know it’s hell. but when you try to help someone and you’re abused for it and you’re lied to, I walk. the thing is, I could handle the alcoholic owner, but what I could not handle was the total lack of support from every other teacher at the studio (except for one who also walked.) not one teacher called to show their support or to ask how I was. not one. ever. it was like I had died.

I was so upset about the situation that I talked to my teacher, a Theravadan Buddhist monk, who felt that those teachers talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. he thanked me for coming to him because he said if she ever walked in liked that to his dharma class “I would just….” and he moved his fingers like he was walking, “and I would not even say goodbye.” he told me that I did the right thing in confronting the owner about her addiction. and if a Buddhist monk tells me that, then that’s OK by me.

So much for the “yoga community”, a phrase that makes me regurgitate faster than eating salmonella infested potato salad. and the rage over what I felt was a betrayal stuck in my body as chronic, sometimes excrutiating, back pain for a year. talk about my aversion creating my suffering.

to be continued…..

a mile wide and an inch deep

by L. Valdez Karl

I have to give Judith Lasater a big AMEN about her comments about yoga in the latest Yoga Journal.

On the last page (and it seems that YJ always puts the “old” yogis on the last page…hmmmmmm….), when asked the question, “what do you think of yoga’s evolution in the United States?”, Judith said:

“It seems a mile wide and an inch deep. I mourn the fact that many people in the United States know about asana just as a way of working out. To me, that’s not what yoga is. It can lead to deeper personal transformation.”

Thanks, Judith. I’ve been saying that for the three years I’ve been writing this blog, just click on the tag “Americanized yoga.”

When she was asked, “what lessons can you share about what you’ve learned?”, Judith said, among other things:

“Follow your nature. The practice is really about uncovering your own pose; we have great respect for our teachers, but unless we can uncover our own pose in the moment, it’s not practice — it’s mimicry…”.

Kudos to you, Judith. when I used the word “mimic” in this post, a commenter wrote me to say how dare I say that yoga students merely mimic their teachers. uh, yeah you do, each time your mind is out there instead of in your body…each time you are disembodied and not embodied…and each time you are not “in the moment” as Judith said. I’ve told my students many times, don’t look up here, look within.

Maybe Judith Lasater and I aren’t so far apart after all….maybe Yoga Journal should interview moi. or maybe I should write for Yoga Journal….how ’bout it, editors? I need another job because the yoga studio where I teach is closing at the end of the year.

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yoga healing, yoga journey

by L. Valdez Karl

When one goes through a transformative experience, whatever it is, I believe that the shadows of our lives come forward like hungry children staring through a restaurant window, waiting to be acknowledged and given sustenance. I believe these hidden but never forgotten experiences are what cook us, and we can choose to allow them to either teach us or kill us. I will not say yet which yoga therapy training I did (maybe some of you can figure it out) because it is still cooking me, but in all my years of yoga, it was by far the most potent, profound, and transformative experience I’ve had, even compared to my India training, and this was only Level 1.

It confirmed and validated for me what I already knew, but maybe don’t listen to as much as I should: that I am not “just a yoga teacher”, but am a teacher of the dharma and holistic science. I feel like I’ve been energized, that my intuition and energy (my kundalini) has risen exponentially. all day yesterday it felt like there was a little energy engine inside me that was going full blast — I had a vision of a cartoon engine held together with spit and baling wire, pumping pumping pumping almost to the point of exploding, the pistons almost popping out of the top.

the training also confirmed what my personal life Path (other than yoga) should be.

For four days we partnered up and worked on each other, learning certain postures, where to place our hands, etc. and the last session on the last day was the icing on the cake for me. my partner sat back and said “you have a true gift.” he told me how when I placed my hands on his heartspace, front and back, my energy felt like an “electric wire” going through him. he said “you’ve probably heard this all before.” I must say that when I’ve heard talk like that before it always made me deny myself, that maybe I did not deserve to hear things like that.

I will never again deny my truth.

I told him yes, that I’ve heard it all before, but that usually with most people it translates to my just being “weird”, not “healing”. for most of my life many people actually can not handle being in close proximity to me (and it’s not because I don’t take a shower! :)) I’ve been told that my energy enters a room first and it takes a secure, strong person not to be intimidated. after she did my natal chart, my own astrologer told me that 10 years ago she would not have been able to have me as a client, my energy would have overwhelmed her, but her own spiritual path has cooked her to her essence. this is why I stopped doing thai yoga massage. the images that the energy in my hands brought to my mind’s eye were too frightening for me, and I had enough of my own demons — but not any more.

This training again confirmed for me that asana is such a small part of yoga, yet here in this culture yoga has become purely asana based. as yoga teachers we come to our classes with a “fixer” mentality, some teachers enjoying how many adjustments they can give their students instead of allowing them to just “be” and to go inward and feel what is going on (I’m referring to the style of yoga I teach, vinyasa.) in this training, we had to let go of the fixer mentality in order to allow the student/client to heal themselves.

The training also reinforced what I already knew: that a meditation practice is an essential component of an asana practice. speaking only for myself, yoga is not yoga without a meditation practice. the teachings in this training were firmly grounded in Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness. if we can not master our own minds, how can we master anything?

we don’t do yoga — yoga does us.

I truly feel called to continue with this training, but timing is everything. I don’t think I can do Level 2 in early 2009 so I am planning for June….and Shiva/Buddha/Kali willing I will live for two months in an ashram in South India one year from now studying yoga therapy with a swami. I think that also will be icing on the energy cake for me and will add to my yoga therapy toolbox. half of this training class said they were jumping right in to finish their training as soon as possible, but I will wait to let it all digest, because in March-April 2010 I will return to India for the Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering in the Universe. there is much to be said for the power of place and Ma India is my healer.

It is said that the only difference between us and the ancient sages and yogi rishis is that we have forgotten we are divine, they did not.

I will never again disavow myself.

“In ancient Egyptian mythology and in myths derived from it, the Phoenix is a female mythical sacred firebird with beautiful gold and red plumage. Said to live for 500 or 1461 years (depending on the source), at the end of its life-cycle the phoenix builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The new phoenix embalms the ashes of the old phoenix in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in Heliopolis (“the city of the sun” in Greek), located in Egypt. The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible – a symbol of fire and divinity.”

____________________________________________________________________

UPDATE:


The Keys to Your Life


Anything good in your life comes from boldly confronting the darkness.
Illusions are dangerous, and you benefit from seeing the world as it truly is.

Anything bad in your life comes from not being true to yourself.
Trust your instincts and follow them. Only you know what’s best.


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"The Yoga Teacher"

by L. Valdez Karl


I’ve just finished The Yoga Teacher by Alexandra Gray and loved it.

Plot synopsis: Grace is dissatisfied with her job as a pharmaceutical rep and struggles with the decline of her long-term relationship. while pitching her company’s latest antidepressant to Dr. James, she is inspired by his plan to study acupuncture in Vietnam and decides to quit her job to become a yoga teacher.

Grace decides to study at the Bodhi Tree in California, which is the very loosely disguised White Lotus Foundation where Alexandra Gray studied. Grace returns to London but nothing prepared her for the students she amasses — from the octogenarian industrialist desperate for distraction, the supermodel who indulges yogic aspirations when she tires of kabbalah, the American movie star, and the students with all types of maladies referred to her by a doctor. Grace soon finds herself relying on her correspondence and text messages with Dr. James for solace and inspiration.

Gray’s descriptions of Grace’s teacher training (and the people in it) and her students are right-on. she hits all the marks when she describes students’ personalities and conditions and what they are looking to get from yoga. there is just enough “yoga talk” to keep the practitioner and teacher interested, but not so much that someone who has never done yoga wouldn’t get what’s going on. as a yoga teacher, Gray has an eye for the sometime absurdity of teaching and the delicate balance of the dharma and the dough, i.e., making money in a profession that pays very poorly.

I thought The Yoga Teacher was one of the more realistic fictional portrayals of the yoga teaching world and I found myself both laughing and nodding in full agreement at Gray’s words.

Get the book, you won’t be disappointed. and no, Alexandra Gray is not paying me for this good review, although she should!

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bhakti required

by L. Valdez Karl

I find that the longer I practice, the longer I teach, and the more I meditate, the more I am drawn to bhakti yoga. maybe I should say that because of all of the above, my own bhakti has grown exponentially. I call myself Kali’s girl and when I was at a Krishna Das kirtan, he chanted the word “Kali” in a Durga mantra and at that moment it literally felt like I was hit right between my eyebrows and the tears started to flow. that’s bhakti. mantra chanting and kirtan are forms of bhakti yoga. I know a devout American Murugan bhakta who has never done one asana in his life, but he is a bhakti yogi.

I believe that bhakti, for the most part, is missing in Americanized yoga, at least in most of the classes I attend. I know that even chanting the single sound of OM can scare some people away from yoga — I’ve seen students leave classes if the teacher chants. I always open and close my classes with meditation and at the end recite the Four Immeasurables and chant OM MANI PEDME HUM. I would not be true to my heart if I did not teach this way.

So I give you the website Bhakti Collective. The Bhakti Collective is “composed of persons of various backgrounds with a common interest in bhakti, India’s tradition of devotional yoga. It is a non-profit organization based in New York, which serves as a medium for the exploration and sharing of the culture, philosophy and practice of bhakti.”

The Bhakti Collective has many interesting articles including this one, a critique on a Yoga Journal article about bhakti. in it, Kaustubha Das quotes Dr. Robert Svoboda’s feelings about bhakti in western yoga:

“Some Western yogis dabble in bhakti yoga through an occasional prayer or kirtan. But if you’re a serious practitioner looking to find union with the Divine, a more rigorous practice is in order.” Svoboda says the path of devotion involves total dedication and surrender.

Svoboda agrees that it’s good to sing bhajana (Sanskirt hymns) to get into a new space. But he cautions against thinking you can really engage in bhakti yoga by occasionally joining in a kirtan. “That in itself won’t be sufficient to have a transformative effect that will penetrate into the deepest and darkest parts of your being”, he says.

“I don’t think most people in the yoga community have a concept of the degree of emotional depth and intensity and texture that is necessary for bhakti yoga really to flower”.

Get out of your yoga body and get into some bhakti.

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yoga economics: a student’s perspective

by L. Valdez Karl


This post is an email I received from a devoted reader. his thoughts, his opinion, your food for thought…

“I was interested in, and moved by, your posts on teaching. I hesitated to respond on the site ’cause as you know I’m a student, not a yoga teacher. But even though I am an off-the-charts creative artist type I have labored in the upper echelons of the corporate world long enough to have picked up plenty of business smarts by osmosis, and so I often wonder how it is that yoga in America has become such a lose/lose proposition – economically.

Teachers, unless they own the studio they teach in, make a meager income. And as you say, elite teachers usually do stop teaching led classes at some point if they can (Tias LIttle is a recent high profile example; the great Richard Freeman still does, but he does own the studio and certainly makes most of his income from TT’s and DVD/CD sales). On the student end, to take Boulder, where we lived until just recently, as an example, it is very expensive to be a serious student: $150 a month for an “unlimited” membership, on average, at a good studio, or you might get your per class cost down to $11-12 if you buy the costliest punch card. So for us as a couple taking 3 classes a week $66 a week or $264 a month for steady instruction – plus workshops or trainings several times a year.

The most expensive of the many, many health clubs in Boulder costs $60-80 a month for a couple’s membership and while there are lots of issues with “health club yoga” the fact of the matter is that nearly all of the top teachers in Boulder do teach in those clubs – it is a necessity to make ends meet and offers the kind of predictable income that teaching at the yoga studios does not.

It is just heartbreaking as sincere students to show up at a class in, say, summer when studios in Boulder are slowest and be 2 of 3-4 people at a class to be taught by a teacher with 30 years of experience and many trips to India under her belt, knowing she will net $18-24 for nearly two hours of her time. We offer dana on top (invariably refused), profuse thanks…..and meanwhile Bikrams and Core Power across town are jammed. And this is in one of the meccas of meccas. Yoga Workshop (Richard’s place) would probably be more popular, but with him lecturing on impermanence and death, on how the body is only a vehicle, on confronting our kleshas through the knots in our body-minds – in short, ’cause he and the others there are guilty of teaching and praticing actual yoga, many come once and then go where there’s music and a “real” workout.

I don’t know the solution. For us as people who chose to live cheaply in order to have more time for yoga and meditation practice it has come down to spending our limited funds on periodic private classes with a teacher well-schooled in the later teachings of Krishnamacharya plus periodic weekend and longer immersions. Led classes are now an occasional but much-appreciated luxury for us; we have had to develop a personal practice. That maturing is good, but I’d be lying if we said we didn’t miss the group energy and sangha that comes with more times together. But as you (and Desikachar and others) point out yoga was traditionally taught with a single student, or small handful, sitting at the feet of one teacher, with students and teacher both giving totally of themselves. Maybe that’s the only model that’s meant to endure.”

Thanks, K, for being such a loyal reader of this blog and for sharing your thoughts. much metta to you….peace, love, and hugs.

I know through my site meter that many of you have read my latest posts on yoga teacher pay and gratitude. a few of you have commented and I would be interested to read more of your thoughts on those topics and on this post, from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives.

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dana, gratitude, and love offerings accepted

by L. Valdez Karl


As a practicing Buddhist, I’m all about dana (pronounced “donna”) — “unattached and unconditional generosity, giving and letting go.” that is how I make payment at Spirit Rock Meditation Center for my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation training.

in my last post, bindifry made some very pithy comments about students showing gratitude to their teachers, and I agree 150% with her:

“part of the yoga path is gratitude. it is very important to express that to your teacher.

something most yoga students do not understand. often we are left quite empty. many students never even say “thank you” after a class. it’s sad, really.

I study with an amazing Aussie teacher. part of her teaching is a gratitude circle at the end of the cycle. everyone sits in a circle and must show gratitude to the teacher.

and when you receive shakti from your guru, the respectable thing to do is kneel before him and touch his feet. it’s dharma.”

“I just find it quite alarming how many students, rather than saying “thank you” instead say things like “why didn’t i get more adjustments? i paid my money just like everyone else”

sorry, but yoga teachers are also human beings…people need to be educated about etiquette. other cultures do not have this issue at all, as teachers are considered the highest form of professions.”

“yoga teachers are people like the students and that for students to say “thanks” goes a long way, even though i have learned to live without the gratitude. students don’t tell their teachers thanks or even acknowledge them as their teachers far too often. they do not know that gratitude, like santosha, is part of yoga.“

“everyone sits in a circle and must show gratitude to the teacher” — how many of you can honestly say you would feel comfortable doing that? I know that many Americans have a hard time wrapping their mind around the idea of their yoga teacher being their “guru”, but that’s Ego, pure and simple. and fear. “guru” is Sanskrit for teacher, someone who has “great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a certain area, and uses it to guide others.” nothing more, nothing less.

I believe that lack of gratitude or lack of acknowledgment is definitely an American/Western thing. it’s not that way in India. this American yoga teacher has no problem whatsoever touching the feet of my teacher, an Indian from Chennai who was an original trustee of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, when he comes to teach in Chicago. I wrote about my own feelings about being a good student here.

so it gets my thong in a knot when I write about pay for yoga teachers and I’m told to “be content” or have “santosha”, just accept what is given or not given to you. I DO have santosha, in fact, I feel I am blessed to be able to teach yoga. but like bindifry says, yoga teachers are also human. think about that.

I am blessed to be teaching now at a studio where if two students show up, they thank me for being there, for driving 45 minutes and spending my time with them. this is in stark contrast to the studio where I used to teach where the upper middle-class women had a huge sense of entitlement.

support your local yoga teacher and show her or him some love. that’s all I’m saying.

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why do you want to teach yoga?

by L. Valdez Karl


I’m just throwing the question out there.  I know why I teach, but why do YOU want to teach yoga?

I suppose this goes back to the “how much is a yoga teacher worth?” question, and for those of us who don’t want to return to the corporate life, yoga teaching is my vocation, my avocation, and my personal dharma.  I know more than a few teachers who also do massage or another holistic practice or their yoga teaching is a “sideline” and they rely on another’s income (and health insurance.)

I know very few yoga teachers who totally support themselves by only teaching yoga. because of a life-changing decision I have made, I may have to get a part-time job.  but I know I will never stop teaching yoga and Buddha/Kali/Shiva willing, I will do this the rest of my life, either in the US or in India.  I still need to finish my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation training at Spirit Rock, and in October I start Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training. in late 2009 I plan on living two months in an ashram in South India studying yoga therapy with a swami.  this will require me to give up two steady yoga gigs, or at least get subs for them. as I mentioned in another post, for those of us who do these lengthy trainings, there is no guarantee we will have yoga jobs when we get back. this is the reality of the yoga biz. but this is my commitment to myself, to immerse myself as much as I can — at my age I have a lot less time on this earth than if I would have started this path 30 or even 20 years ago.

everything I earn gets plowed right back into my yoga biz (I’m incorporated.) I am over 50 and this is my life plan and nothing will keep me from it. I know this is my path and I have given it up to the Universe to follow this path for the rest of my life.

what will you give up to be a yoga teacher?

I live in the Chicago area where there is a plethora of yoga teacher training programs all costing beaucoup bucks. this is where the yoga money is made, in teacher trainings and offering workshops.  a well-known American yoga teacher who was on the same retreat that I was told me that she rarely teaches group classes anymore, that she makes her money on her branded teacher trainings and traveling the world doing workshops.

when I was certified in 2002 there were only four training programs in Chicago that I knew of.  now almost every major studio both in the city and suburbs, and some not-so-major, have teacher training programs that train you in “their” brand of yoga.  and of course there are the weekend programs (become a yoga teacher in 16 hours!) and the online yoga teacher training courses where voila!…anyone with a computer can become a yoga teacher.  of course, not everyone who does a training wants to be a teacher, some do it to deepen their yoga knowledge.

for a while I thought of starting my own teacher training program, which would actually be unique in my area because I would incorporate yoga therapy and Buddhism, no other local training offers that. but I decided I don’t want to be tied down with that right now…my next two years are going to be for my own yoga sadhana culminating in the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, India in 2010.

so where are y’all going to teach?  after spending thousands of dollars on your training will you be happy making $4 or $5 or $6 when one student shows up to the studio?  I made $12 again last night. I used to teach at a studio where students paid $5 for their first class and the owner did not pay the teachers for those students because she would “lose money.”  some months I had so many first-timers in my classes I lost over $100 in monthly income. I’m not crying about this, this is the reality of the yoga biz.

people want yoga for the same fees that they are paying with their gym memberships. and everybody — every spa, chiropractic center, gym, and physical therapy office — wants in on what they view as big bucks to be made in yoga. the yoga biz in America — a gazillion dollar business according to Yoga Journal.

but who’s making the dough and where’s the dharma?

I have a friend who’s convinced that everyone doing teacher trainings nowadays are delusional, that they’ve all drunk the Yoga Journal kool-aid about becoming a yoga teacher.

have you?

the price we pay, part 2: how much is a yoga teacher worth?

by L. Valdez Karl


This is another topic that Yoga Journal won’t touch: how much is a yoga teacher worth in this American consumerist society? forget for a minute what our emotional or spiritual value is to our students (actually priceless), but what is our monetary value? in a culture where fitness instructors never have to step foot inside a yoga studio and can get “certified” online as yoga teachers, are yoga teachers now a dime a dozen?

My post “the price we pay” gave rise to some interesting comments:

“have had several conversations with other yoga teachers recently about how they want to earn x amount per class or they won’t teach. Got me to thinking: if I can pay my bills on less than that, and I am maybe helping some people, sharing my knowledge of yoga a bit, isn’t that enough? We aren’t supermodels, we are social workers…”

*******

“i thought going to india for 11 months, teaching in japan and thailand, australia, bali…i thought all of that would make a difference. it actually hurt me. i make less money than ever. no one is impressed with my resume. it means nothing to anyone.

except for me and the handful of students that i am actually reaching. that’s all we can hope for. that’s just how the world is. anyone can teach yoga. we’re indespensable. you are fooling yourself if you actually think you are anything more.

still, i would do it all the same. for me at least.”

*******

“I think yoga teachers are a “dime a dozen” now.

Point – Teacher Training programs. This has become a cyclical conundrum perhaps? An organization decided yoga teachers should be ‘certified’. Studio’s/gyms/fitness centers decided this was a good idea. So, in order to teach you have to be certified and there are a whole slew of students needing those inital hours to become certified because the studios require it…see where it goes?…”

*******

bindifry said this about yoga teaching in her blog: “…and i reached another person. i turned them on to yoga. they turned me on to them. and for that moment i had a purpose.” to which I responded: “yup….that’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? it’s not about the money, it’s not about some sick inversion to impress or intimidate people, it’s not about lululemon pants….it’s just about the yoga.” and bindi said: “well said….yoga is for everyone to enjoy. yoga teachers should spread it around to who wants and needs it regardless of their economic situation. it’s our duty. if we all did that, we could alleviate much suffering in the world. teaching yoga is the ultimate “green” action. how many yoga teachers teach without the thought of dollar signs? i do not know many.”

Nadine believes that yoga teachers are social workers. bindifry said that teaching yoga is the ultimate green action. I say that teaching yoga is a pure expression of the bodhisattva path. and with my private students, I’m also a psychologist. like bindifry, I’m still going to India to study even though it does not make me one dime extra as a yoga teacher.

I truly believe all of the above. however, I still need to pay the bills and buy food and gas. and I pay the same for food and gas as the person does who makes $200,000 a year. last year I made about $10,000 teaching yoga. I’m not crying about it, it’s merely a statement of fact. it was my choice 10 years ago to stop working for lawyers after 20 years (and making damn good money) and become a yoga teacher. our lives are determined by our choices, not by our circumstances.

I’ve been struggling a lot with this money question as I am in the midst of a life-changing decision that will literally affect how and where I can afford to live. as Nadine said, I know more than a few teachers who won’t teach if they make below X dollar amount — and I am one of them. over the years I’ve invested over $10,000 (probably closer to $15,000) in my training — this does not include travel to India to study. I also know some yoga teachers who’ve been teaching 20+ years who won’t teach a workshop for under $500 even if only three students sign up — they have their minimum show-up price. I believe that to teach a class under a certain dollar amount devalues yoga and puts it on the same level as an aerobics class.

one of the places I teach is a yoga studio where I get paid by the person…so one day I make $12, another day I make $60 per class. I also teach privately, one-on-one, and my prices in my area may range from $75 to $100 per session. what a teacher charges for private yoga in the United States is dependent upon the geographic area, what the market will bear. I feel that prices for private yoga are comparable to getting a massage or a physical therapy or chiropractic or acupuncture session — it’s all about holistic health modalities. unfortunately, most people don’t understand this. I’ve found that people (at least in my area) don’t “get” what private yoga/yoga therapy is all about, not when they only know health club yoga (and I’m not dissing teachers who teach at gyms or health clubs, so don’t get your yoga shorts in a knot.) there IS a difference between yoga one-on-one and yoga in a group class. yoga one-on-one is the the traditional way — Krishnamacharya did not teach Iyengar or Jois or his son Desikachar in a group class.

however, my favorite class to teach is one where I don’t get paid at all — I teach yoga and meditation at a domestic violence shelter. I’ve been teaching there for five years and it’s my hope to start a yoga therapy program there funded by grant money. some day.

I know of yoga studios where the owners have yet to pay themselves, the studios literally don’t make money, they just break even. from a sound business standpoint — and let’s get real, yoga is definitely big business in America– that situation can’t continue forever. my yogini friend in Oakland, California tells me I should move to northern California, that I’d be turning people away, that people can’t get enough yoga out there. in the suburbs of Chicago, yoga studios struggle to survive.

The Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram where I study in India has no qualms whatsoever about charging westerners much more money than it does its Indian students. teachers such as Gary Kraftsow and David Life and Sharon Gannon charge at least $8,000 for their teacher trainings here. so why, as not-famous-no-Yoga Journal-cover everyday yoga teachers, are we not supposed to make a livable wage?

what’s a yoga teacher to do? this is not India where I can go live in a cave and spend my days meditating, living off the kindness of my devotees. while I’m Kali’s girl, I’m still waiting for that Goddess-in-Residence yoga gig somewhere that my gal pal in Nepal told me I need to find. this is America where it currently costs $35-$40 to fill my gas tank to get to the studio to make $12 for a 90 minute class.

so it is a fine balance between the bhakti and the bucks, between the dharma and the dough. I don’t want to make what a supermodel makes — I just want to be able to afford to live and do what I love to do.

support your local yoga teacher.

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the price we pay

by L. Valdez Karl

(KYM, 2005)

Yoga teachers need to continuously fill their cups with yoga knowledge in order to teach, at least I believe so. in this way we feed our students, and you can not feed others unless you feed yourself. you can not nourish others unless you nourish yourself.

So yoga teachers go to workshops, other teachers’ classes, more teacher trainings, or to India. there is so much out there to support our practice and our teaching is fed by our personal practice. how can we teach effectively if we are not continually learning and going deeper into the ancient teachings? again, just my opinion. I’m not saying we all have to go to India, some yoga teachers never do, but at least do one training or workshop a year to feed yourself. I can not imagine teaching without taking classes or workshops to rejuvenate me, my teaching would get as stale as day old bread. my teacher Srivatsa Ramaswami studied with Krishnamacharya for over 30 years, so there ya go.

As for me, I need to go to India, that’s my nourishment, that’s what informs my practice. I’ve studied three times at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram and I am currently investigating an ashram in south India where I can get personalized training in yoga therapy. I would be gone at least two months, which means my private students won’t have me and I’ll have to find subs for my classes or cancel them entirely. the next time I go to India for two or three months, I have no idea whether I will have any teaching job anywhere when I return — I teach at a studio and at two community colleges. teaching yoga is all I do to pay my bills.

My private students always feel sad when I am gone so long (I stay in India at least for one month), but I tell them that I am also doing this for them because I will become a better teacher (at least I hope so!) however, studio owners and operators of other venues sometimes don’t see it this way.

a case in point is Cara Jepsen, a yoga teacher who I know slightly from the Chicago Yoga Center. she is an astangi and is in India right now studying in Mysore. I’ve read her blog a lot and used it to prep for my first trip to India in 2005.

Cara writes: “This time, one of the venues where I teach cannot guarantee I will have classes when I return from India. I don’t blame them, but this could affect up to 1/2 of my income. Ouch!”

That’s a sad thing. a yoga studio is a business just like any other business but there’s a way to conduct business that is more mindful and holistic, shall we say. and frankly, some yoga studio owners shouldn’t be in the yoga business.

If I had a teacher who studies as much as Cara or I do, or is so committed and passionate about yoga, it would never cross my mind to not welcome them back home to teach. why would I not want such a knowledgeable teacher to return to my studio to teach? why would I not want her students to benefit from that knowledge?

Are yoga teachers just a dime a dozen? does a studio owner think one teacher is as good as another so if one leaves, another can’t be too far behind? that one teacher of a certain skill set is easily replaceable by another?

If a yoga teacher is on “sabbatical” to further their path which makes them a better teacher, get a substitute teacher just like in a school system. there are so many yoga teacher training programs in the Chicagoland area I have no idea where all these newbie teachers are going to teach — that’s your sub market right there. I have a friend who is a substitute school teacher and she works every day — public school teachers take LOTS of time off and no one tells them they won’t have a job if they take too much time off. yoga teachers should be given the same respect.

So for a studio owner or the operator of any other venue to tell a yoga teacher that they might not have a job when the get back…that attitude boggles my mind. talk about putting some bad energy out into the universe.

On the other hand, if a studio owner tells me that they don’t want me to come back after I’ve studied not only to improve myself but also for THEIR business, that tells me that I need to move on, that this is not the place for me and my talents, and that I am destined for bigger and better things. all things happen for a reason.

“If your teacher does not have the correct foundation, how is he able to teach students?…You pratice yoga as a spiritual practice, not in order to become a teacher. Yoga should be like eating very day; it should be like, without yoga you cannot survive.”

A “correct foundation.” that’s the training that we do to continue doing what we do. and without my training I could not survive as a yoga teacher. but that’s me.

If any of you reading this are thinking of becoming a yoga teacher for the money, think again — that shouldn’t even be your motivation in the first place — “many yoga teachers say they don’t make enough money teaching yoga. ‘Then do something else.’ It is your karma to do. Don’t expect anything from it.”

We don’t do this for the money, but I pay the same amount for gas and food as y’all do. and it would be nice to know that I will have a job to come back to.

We all pay a price for our dharma, isn’t it?

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