So you have finally taken the first steps to make your dreams of being a yoga teacher come true by completing your Yoga teacher training. It was life-changing and transformational and with a newfound sense of appreciation for this ancient practice and a heart full of yoga love you have embarked on your new career as a yoga teacher.
You may have found, as many of us do, that with the rise of yoga’s popularity there are many more yoga teachers out there competing for students and teaching spots at studios, gym or wellness centres. Because of this, a lot of yoga teachers are choosing to specialize their teaching into a niche market, these include specialized areas of teaching such as teaching aerial yoga, yoga for children, yoga for seniors or yoga therapy.
If this confuses you slightly think about niche marketing as creating a specialized market or form of teaching for yourself, where you focus on a more specific group of students or a specialized branch of yoga. Creating a niche means that you directly market yourself to a very specific clientele and that you offer specifically designed teaching which may not be found anywhere else in your area.This will increase your potential reach and also expand your knowledge and your teaching skills.
Think about what you love most about yoga, what are your passions? What makes you excited to teach? Answers to these questions can lead you to know which area of yoga teaching to focus on as your niche.
One popular choice that has been on the rise is to follow the road of teaching yoga and mindfulness for kids, and many teachers are finding their true passion and calling in this work. If you have an open heart and love being silly and having fun, whilst also making a real impact through teaching yoga then this path may be the one for you.
The disappointing truth about teaching yoga for kids that no one talks about
Arguably one of the most fun methods of teaching yoga for children is through Aerial Yoga, where we use Aerial silk swings or hammocks to facilitate yoga practice and to get into cool and unusual poses.
Intrigued? Read on to see what makes it so great.
1. Kids are natural yogis and they love doing yoga!
Yoga practice comes easily and naturally for kids as they can easily imitate the yoga poses, and they are filled with such a natural joy and ease in their practice that it’s infectious making teaching these classes easy and an absolute joy.
After deciding to make kids yoga my niche teaching style, I was confronted by the fact that for some parents yoga was still a very foreign thing and they had a lot of misconceptions about the practice. Even though I know the obvious benefits of yoga for children it was sometimes difficult for parents to see past their prejudice or misconceptions and this would stand in the way of them sending their kids to yoga classes as they didn’t believe that yoga was suitable for them. this made them prejudiced and reluctant to send their kids to yoga classes.
This made me sad as I wanted more kids to get the benefits of this amazing practice and to make it easier for the parents to send them to classes and to feel good about their decision.
After discovering Fly Yoga for kids, where we practice yoga using silk hammocks that are suspended off the ground, I found I was able to easily bridge this gap – as aerial yoga differs from a more traditional yoga class and incorporates elements of martial arts, pilates, and dance, making it more accessible for all. Today many of these parents have their kids with me attending regular Fly Yoga classes and they all comment that their kids are filled with excitement and eagerly await their next Fly Yoga Class!
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2. Year-round program – once signed up, children will attend for the entire year
With teaching traditional adult yoga classes, students will often cancel last minute because of being unwell or getting stuck in traffic on their way home, some students will only sign up for one class or special event, especially if you are a teacher who only teaches at studio’s in your area without your home studio base. All of these factors can make it difficult to build a following or to create a steady stream of income for yourself and your yoga business.
By choosing yoga for kids as your niche market you are dealing with a more loyal and constant student, as parents ensure that their kids attend their extra-murals and after school activities.
With the Fly yoga for kids program, your classes will be set up in such a way that they are offered to parents as a year-round program for their kids that will benefit their health and wellbeing with yoga practice and appeal to their sense of adventure and fun doing yoga poses for kids in Aerial yoga hammocks. This means that they are signing up for classes for a whole year or season instead of only class or workshop.
I open my sign-ups once a year in September and I always fill my classes during. There is the occasional student who signs up late or leaves early, however, for the most part, most of my students will stay on for the whole year and some have even been with me for over three years now.
Teaching Kids Aerial Yoga has ensured that I run full classes all year round and has drastically cut down the need for constant advertising and promoting to get new students. Because Aerial yoga is so challenging, engaging and fun for kids of all ages, your retention rate for students will be much better as the kids will want to come back!
3. Teaching kids means that you are making a meaningful contribution
For yoga teachers, we practice and teach yoga not only because it is a great physical activity, but because it has become a way of life for us. We all have had some experience of how yoga has helped to transform us, our life or our mindset and this experience for many is why we become yoga teachers, to share this beautiful practice and its many gifts.
Being able to teach a younger generation about the gifts of yoga and sharing with them the many benefits of this practice, has not only given me a rich and rewarding career but also a great sense of fulfilment in life, as I know that through yoga I am sharing tools and skills which they will carry with them throughout their lives.
When I see the benefits of their yoga practice taking root within their lives it fills me with great joy and a sense of accomplishment. Every day I see kids improving their posture, becoming stronger and more flexible, I see the mental benefits of being more relaxed, centered and better able to manage their emotions and the social benefits as they integrate into a community spirit with their peers. This fills me with a great sense of pride and I feel that I’m fulfilling my purpose and making a meaningful contribution to their lives.
4. You have a unique niche – be the first or only one to teach aerial yoga for kids in your area
Traditional yoga has made its way into popular culture in a big way and with its rise in
popularity, the amount of yoga studios and schools has been on the increase. With this, there has also been an increase in the number of people who are interested in kids yoga and you may even see it being offered at many studios or even schools in your area.
Aerial Yoga for kids is still a relatively new concept and this could mean that you will have something special to offer in your community. When it comes to Fly Yoga for Kids, you may very well be the only person offering this in your area which gives you a special opportunity to share something new and exciting and to have a business model that is easy to market and sell.
Aerial yoga for kids is a unique niche which can help you to stand out from the other offerings available making it easier to find new students for your classes and to create excitement and intrigue.
5. You get to teach in the afternoons and have your nights free!
Fly Yoga Kids classes usually take place during the afternoon hours, which is an unused time-slot in most studios. This will make it much easier to find spaces from which to teach or to fill some of those open time slots which would otherwise go unused if you have your own studio.
For most yoga teachers teaching hours fall over evenings and weekends as adult students have work during the day time. With Aerial Yoga for kids you will mostly teach in the afternoons after school, leaving your evenings and weekends open for family, socializing or your own practice.
6. You can create a steady stream of income
Aerial yoga for kids is both fun and challenging and will keep them coming back for more. Because of its popularity, I have been able to create year-round programs, and I charge monthly
fees throughout the year, instead of only offering one time classes or workshops, creating a steady stream of income year-round.
Teaching yoga can sometimes mean that your monthly income is varied and uncertain as students cancel at the last minute or suddenly stop coming to regular classes. However, with offering Fly Yoga Kids you will be able to introduce the same lucrative programs I have in your area and create a steady flow of students and monthly payments for yourself. Because students sign up for the whole program you are ensured full classes and a regular flow of payments.
7. Sense of fulfillment – earn a good salary by teaching yoga
And with this steady flow of regular income and program sign-ups, you can step into abundance and earn a good living from sharing your passion for yoga with children. There is a great sense of fulfillment and accomplishment when you start manifesting your dreams of being a yoga teacher and at the same time you are also able to earn a good living through teaching.
Not that we are expecting to become millionaires from teaching yoga, but you can and should be able to make a decent living out of it. Being able to do what you love and what you are passionate about while also making a good living from it, is one of life’s greatest joys.
8. It’s easy to get and to retain new students
Kids love Aerial Yoga! From the challenging poses to the thrill of seeing the world upside down in inversions and the magic of being cocooned in a magical silk nests, this practice of yoga is filled with a sense of mystique and wonder. This appeals greatly to kids natural sense of curiosity and joy and you will find that you are easily able to attract interest in your classes.
Because Fly Yoga Kids is such a unique offering and the kids who join fall in love with the classes and always stay on to become loyal students, it means that you will have to spend less time on advertising and looking for new students and can have more time to spend on doing what you love – which is teaching!
9. It sets you apart from other kids yoga teachers
Marketing and advertising these classes is a simple process and the uniqueness of what you are offering will enable your classes to easily stand out those around you.
Couple this with the beautiful images you can take of kids in your aerial swings and all the many benefits of Fly Yoga Kids, making a name for yourself and attracting new students will be easy, effortless and fun.
10. Aerial Yoga for kids means you can expand your reach as a kids yoga teacher
Traditionally teaching kids yoga relies a lot on storytelling and books, which works well with the younger age groups as they love following along and imitating the characters in the books. It was my experience that as kids get older they get bored easily with this type of class and it becomes more and more difficult to keep them engaged and interested in yoga.
When I found Aerial Yoga for kids I was amazed and overjoyed that I now had found a way to engage a more diversified range of ages. With the help of these amazing swings, I now have classes for ages 6-16-year-olds and can keep them engaged and entertained in every lesson. Those of you that already work with tweens and teens will know that this is no mean feat as with this age group one really has to work and plan to keep them engaged and wanting to come back, with the Aerial Yoga this has become a breeze and all my kids regardless of age love coming to class! Aerial yoga has special benefits for teenager girls.
11. It opens the doors to working with a diversified student base
Not only just a tool for fun poses and getting upside down, but Aerial Yoga can also be used more therapeutically, using poses that are designed to calm the nervous system which promotes sensory integration and self-regulation.
The weight, pressure, and feel of the fabric on the skin can also be very soothing and calming for kids who may be hyper or find it difficult to regulate their emotional states, coupled with slow movements and the meditative sensation of floating in the hammock makes this a great therapeutic tool. With the use of the fabric swing, you can offer more personalised and individual classes to those kids who may need more one on one attention.
12. Helps to keep your classes current and on-trend
The world around us is constantly changing and rapidly expanding and growing. What makes great yoga teachers stand out from the rest is the ability to move with grace and ease through these times of change and transition, and to stay on keep growing and expanding both on a personal level, as well as on a teaching level.
As a yoga teacher for children, it is important to stay current with what is happening in the world of yoga and movement, and even more important is to stay in tune with what is new and fresh for kids-think about new music, books, movies and current trends and how they can add to your classes.
Fly Yoga Kids is a new and creative way of teaching kids yoga and mindfulness practices and will create and retain a lot of interest from students and in turn their parents. It opens a world of possibilities as you find new ways to move the body, to breathe and to add exciting things such as Aerial Yoga parties to your offerings as a teacher or studio owner.
