JiggaRoo

I have often entertained the idea of becoming a certified yoga instructor, so the question posed by the editor of Slate Magazine got me thinking – How do yoga teachers make ends meet when most work part time shifts and are unlikely to get the health benefits that come with having a full time job?  The article poses some great questions but offers no answers…

To make decent money in yoga, do you have to open your own studio, or even a chain of studios? How much of a yoga studio’s profit comes from the workshops they require teachers to take? (The basic 200-hour training course costs $4,000 to $6,000, I was told.) Do a few famous gurus with studio chains make lots of money while everyone else struggles to make a bare living (or not), especially since the recession began?

An article from the New York Times depicts a yoga instructor who is now forced to go on food stamps because she can no longer keep up with the bills.  Lisa Feuer teaches at Karma Kids Yoga for $40/class, but when students don’t show, she only gets half that money.  Like most freelance jobs, the income is unstable (nothing new here).

“When people had a lot of money and not much time, they were more willing to pay for home-fitness instructors, private tutors, personal chefs,” says David Autor, an economist at M.I.T. who studies long-term changes in wages and economic inequality [...]  This year, because of the classes and students she has lost, Feuer is on track to make as little as $15,000, a 30 percent drop from the past. But because she is underemployed rather than out of work, she is not eligible for unemployment insurance. She also doesn’t show up in the unemployment statistics.

For those who are currently teaching yoga, how do you manage?  Is yoga simply a side job on top of your other job or do you teach at multiple studios in order to make up the lack of hours?  How has the recession affected your cost of living?

For Further Reading: Yoganomics [DoubleX], The Self Employed Depression [NY Times]