The Brutal Economics of Being a Yoga Teacher

Forward

When I wrote “After 27 Years Teaching Yoga, I Got a Job at the Mall,” I intentionally left the financial aspect out of being a yoga teacher. It was too much to include, too big of an animal to contain, and I had way, way too many feelings that I felt would result in a “sour grapes” read.

Michelle Goldberg contacted me after reading 27 Years. She wanted to write about the very part I could not bring my self to tackle. “How fortuitous,”  I thought. I hoped I might be quoted here and there, so imagine my surprise when the article came out and it was structured around moi.

I sat at my kitchen counter and read it aloud to my partner Sandy. Here was my story, the story of many yoga teachers, laid out by a very skilled writer. Like a horse being led to water, you don’t see where Michelle is leading you until your head is already down in the trough, and the absurdity of what it has become to try and teach yoga comes to a sobering punch line that left me with my head on the table, sobbing and unable to read the final line out loud:

“Just let go.” (That’s not the whole line. That would spoil it, right?)

The catharsis lasted two days. After years of running around, waving my hands in the air yelling, “Warning, Warning, Will Robinson, Danger! Danger! Danger!”, the story was finally told, and better yet, not by me. I could at long last let go of the chip on my shoulder, and morn the end of an era.

My final teacher training with Pacific Yoga Teacher Training was last year, and starting November 1st I will be on sabbatical from ongoing classes and workshops at Taj Yoga. I feel like I’m going to the bat cave, a bat cave that houses a Big Box Department Store, where I will spend the coming months considering: what’s next?

If you are a yoga teacher or a student, I hope you will take a moment to read this fascinating and arresting look at the changing field of yoga. Link posted below.

The Brutal Economics of Being a Yoga Teacher

by Michelle Goldberg