Occupation: Yoga Teacher

Only twenty-five percent of people who complete a yoga teacher training ever teach. 

That’s a miserable return on investment.

But to be fair, a high percentage had no intention of ever teaching in the first place—they did it to deepen their own practice.

That’s certainly why I went. I did my first training at age fifty. Teaching was out of the question. I couldn’t stand on my head, do the splits, or even touch my head to my shins in a forward bend. Who was I trying to kid?

That ship had sailed.

But as it turned out, I did wind up teaching. I even opened a little studio and have been going strong for the past twenty years. 

It’s nuts.

Anytime I encounter a form asking for my occupation, I pause, then sheepishly write: Yoga Teacher.

Then I laugh.

Nobody takes you seriously when you put that on a form. Maybe if you’re Rodney Yee they do, but not if you’re the owner of Main Street Yoga in Mansfield, PA, population 2,800, It’s just kinda cute.

Being a Yoga teacher is more like a side-hustle than an occupation, in the minds of most people.

 It’s like selling DoTerra or being a teacher’s aide or a quilter. 

Even if you spend thousands of dollars on advanced trainings, learn how to put your classes online during a pandemic, buy ring lights, and learn software, the bottom line isn’t going to justify those expenses from an Excel point of view.

If you’re going to be a yoga teacher, you have to be in this business for a whole other reason. 

You have to see it as community service— a gift you give to people you love and value and respect. 

You do yoga for yourself. You do postures and breathing because it enhances your health and well-being.

But you teach yoga to express your gratitude and your love to the people you serve.

I am thinking about this now because my daughter Emily has agreed to teach some yoga classes for the people she works with. 

They recently discovered that she’s a certified yoga teacher, and they’ve asked her if she’d be willing to run a class for them.

But even though she’s certified, she got certified a long time ago; she’s one of those people who did it for personal transformation, not with any real idea of teaching.

After college, that’s what she wanted to do, so  I gifted her a month-long teacher training at Kripalu as her college graduation gift.  And I was thrilled to give it to her! 

She completed the month, and it was grueling, but she really liked it and grew tremendously.

 Nobody who does a month-long residency at Kripalu comes out of it the same person who walks in.

 But teaching yoga wasn’t what she wanted to do for a job. 

She high-tailed it to the West Coast to do a stint with AmeriCorps.

She fell in love, stayed there, got married, and got a real job, with real money, and status, and a 401K, etc.

But now, seventeen years later, she is about to unfurl her mat in the front of the room and take the teacher’s seat. 

She’s going to lead people into their bodies via the practice of yoga.

She’s excited. And a little scared.

I know she’s going to be great.

She’s older now. Thirty-nine as opposed to twenty-two. And in those intervening years, her mat has always been a part of her life. 

In some ways, she has always been teaching —by example, as her children watch her spend time on her mat.

By who she is at work as a result of spending time learning how to breathe through difficulty.

This year, her life has hit a rough patch, and her friends, colleagues, and co-workers have been extraordinarily supportive during this time of disruption and turmoil.

And now she has this opportunity to give them the gift of yoga. To say thank you. 

Because teaching yoga is a gift. 

Teaching yoga has nothing to do with the teacher; it’s for the student. 

The teacher takes what she learns on her mat and tries to translate that into an experience for somebody else.

She’ll give her community an opportunity to take a deep breath.

To open the space where their hearts live.

She’ll invite them to treat their hearts with the same tenderness they’ve treated hers.

She’ll hold this space for them. 

She’ll do this as an act of Seva—selfless service to thank them for all the times they’ve been there for her in countless ways.

Because that’s what yoga teachers do. 

Even if they don’t write “Yoga Teacher” down after the word: Occupation.