Working for a Yoga Studio

Working for a yoga studio, particularly one that has been around for some time, can be a rewarding experience. Teaching classes at an established studio can make it easier for you to attract students than having to rent your own space. Working for a yoga studio can also help you hone your teaching skills by having more senior teachers observe and give you feedback on your classes.

Teaching in yoga studios can provide a sense of community amongst other students and teachers of yoga. Working in a yoga studio can additionally give you the opportunity to deepen your practice by taking classes with other teachers. This not only helps you stay energized and motivated to teach, but can also introduce you to other students who can become future clients for your classes. 

Get to Know Current Students

Studios look to hire yoga teachers who already have built a substantial following for this reason. New yoga teachers who want to be successful are wise to start teaching yoga at the studio they regularly attend classes of other teachers at. This helps ensure that students know them from the time they first start teaching, which makes it easier to attract a solid initial student base to begin a class. Yoga studios keep track of how many students each teacher is able to attract to his or her classes, so this is an important consideration for prospective studio yoga teachers to think about before starting to teach in a studio.

Teachers who have been teaching successfully at other local yoga studios can often take their following with them when they switch their place of teaching by notifying students of their change of location.

Yoga Teacher Responsibilities

The actual experience of working for a yoga studio varies from studio to studio, but many places provide teachers with a lot of responsibility in terms of locking and unlocking the studio, turning lights on and off, handling cash registers and answering retail-related questions. It is important for new yoga teachers to feel comfortable taking care of these items, handling the temperature in the room, answering student questions after classes and doing anything else necessary to make yoga classes meaningful and pleasant experiences for students.

Legal Considerations

Make sure to sign a yoga teacher employment contract to put into writing the duties and obligations of you as the teacher and those of the yoga studio. When teaching yoga in a studio, it is important to be clear on the terms of your employment. Most yoga studios hire teachers on a contractor basis, rather than as full-time staff members. In either situation, however, yoga teachers should know how they will be paid before starting to teach classes. Find out if you will be paid an annual salary, per class or whether your payment will be contingent upon the number of students that take a given class.
Related: yoga instructor pay information.

Class Details

If you are not a full-time employee of your yoga studio, it is a good idea to spell out the total number of hours our yoga studio employer expects you to work. Even with a full-time contract, spell out what style of yoga you can or must teach, how long your classes will be and whether you have the freedom to innovate in your classes. Put into writing whether the yoga studio provides you props, or whether you are expected to bring these items to class. Be specific in defining the number of hours of private teaching, deskwork, management or even cleaning you will be expected to provide when completing your employment agreement.

Performance Measures

Your employment contract should also include the criteria by which your performance will be measured, any possible reasons for termination from your role as a yoga teacher and what could happen in the case you are fired. It is important for this contract to include obligations that will still be owed from both parties upon termination, as well as any conflict resolution mechanisms you agree to use in the event termination becomes an issue.

It is helpful to spell out all the details of your employment contract as a yoga teacher before stepping in the room for your first class. Though it is not extremely common for yoga teachers to be fired, this is always a possibility in any job role, so it is wise to be as prepared about working as a yoga teacher in a studio as you can be from the outset. This will help you avoid any negative legal and financial ramifications that could come up at any time during your employment as a yoga teacher.