Working in Yoga

Welcome to Working In Yoga! This week Rebecca welcomes Nicole D’Andrea to the podcast to talk all things yoga studios. Nicole runs Blackbird Yoga Studio in New Jersey, and is also a yoga studio business consultant.

Nicole shares her experience running a yoga studio during COVID and she also talks about what saved her studio during this last year. While a lot of people think that there is a magic formula to which studios survived and which studios didn’t over the last 16 months, I have found from talking to owners that there isn’t. Some of us were cautious. Others weren’t. Some of us were true savvy business owners. Some of us were just lucky (I consider myself more the latter than the former in this). All of us relied on the generous support of our local community to get us through.

Find all of Nicole’s smart commentary on the yoga studio biz through her Facebook group, The Profitable Studio Community. Don’t forget to check out her website www.nicoledandreaconsulting.com!

As a final note: for those of you who listened two episodes ago to my solo podcast on Selling Yoga, there IS a worksheet for you all that is a companion to the episode. Grab the link to this worksheet and all the future worksheets at www.sunlightyogacenter.com/wiydownloads

Welcome to this week on Working In Yoga!

This week I am welcoming my friend Allison Rissel onto the podcast to chat about all things COVID and yoga.

Allison runs 200 and 300 hour YTTs in Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. The is also the founder of three yoga conferences North Dakota Yoga Conference and the 403 Yoga Conference AND launched a yoga conference just for yoga teachers this year called Yoga Teacher Conf.

Allison and I have known each other for a bit and we get immediately to chatting about the challenges of COVID for our businesses, what we like about online, what we don’t, and she says something super important about that. There in fact IS a huge difference between good online yoga teaching and the rest of it. (I am even trying to convince her to help me write some industry best practices around yoga teaching online, cuz wow do we need them).

So take a listen to our chat--I love how Allison offers us some real talk on struggles and successes.

Find her and all of her stuff on www.yogateacherconf.com or follow her on IG @yogateacherconf

This week on the podcast I am flying solo and talking about a complicated and (sometimes) emotional topic for yoga professionals. The idea of selling yoga.

What is it we sell as we share the practice and discipline of yoga in the West? Can we even discuss yoga and “selling” or commodification together effectively?

Well this is the first attempt to do so (of many, I suspect).

One of the greatest mistakes I believe our yoga industry has made is not clearly separating the discussion of business and yoga from the discussion of the practice of yoga. Somehow in many folks’ minds, they are synonymous. And that creates great restrictions, and great gaps that opportunistic folks can slide into to create an industry that is not aligned with the morals and values that most yoga practitioners consider the benchmark of a good yoga practice.

So these are my thoughts on the subject. We’ve got to stop selling yoga. Yoga isn’t a commodity, and isn’t ours to sell in the first place.

Well then. Now what?

Take a listen and you’ll hear my thoughts. I believe we need to get crystal clear on what we are selling in order to balance what we gift our students (the yoga) and what we sell them.

This week I am talking to the fabulous Jo Bregnard about yoga teachers incorporating true self-care into their lives. Jo mentions that we are all caregivers, as we hold space for people to breathe, move, and connect with themselves. Often we forget that.

So Jo gives us four incredibly valuable self-care tips to take into our yoga teacher lives.

Why talk self-care?

Because often times we say placid phrases like “fill your own cup” but don’t really give people steps on how to do exactly that.

Let me tell you, her first tip I really could have used 10 years ago when I was teaching 18-25 classes per week.

There is so much I know now that would have been incredibly valuable to me at that time.

I thought self-care was for other people, not for me.

Catch Jo on her social accounts: IG @jobregnard, and YouTube @jobregnard

And if you are in the Vermont-y area you should definitely go and do an in-person retreat with her.

Enjoy!

This week on Working In Yoga we are welcoming Stephanie Tencer from StudioPo, an Inyengar yoga studio in Toronto, Canada.

Stephanie and I are talking all things studios during COVID, moving our businesses online, the joys of the creative part of running a business, and So Much More.

Did you want to get into the heads of other yoga studio owners who have worked through the last 15 months? Well this is your opportunity.

My favorite parts of this discussion:

-talking about being a “yoga teacher” vs. doing something that aligns with the degree you have trained in.

-all things creativity. Stephanie talks about “curating a message” and the enjoyment she (and we) can get from that process.

-online everything. It was a tech struggle for some, but also a joy. Listen for some gems about gifting our students with a practice that is wholly theirs.

So don’t hesitate to listen, and Stephanie provides two self-care tips for us at the end of the episode. So stay tuned for the end.

Find Stephanie and all her offerings on www.studiopoyoga.com, on IG at @studiopoyoga and check out her amazing YouTube videos on her channel @stephanietenceryoga