[00:00:00] Hey there. It’s Brian Aganad. Welcome to The Asana Academy podcast. Happy new year happy 2023. I hope the first couple days of the year are treating you well. And with that being said, I want to jump right into today’s show. It’s been a while since I’ve updated you on here. But to start off, I would say in 2022, I spent a lot of time in yoga studios.
The first, post COVID true. I would say like truly post COVID year in yoga studios. And in 2022, I also spent a lot of time working with clients online. So today, the show is my thoughts on the yoga industry headed into 2023 and what we’ll see, and the state of it in general and what you can do as a yoga teacher to best prepare for the changing times.
First and foremost, I think the thing now that has become. Abundantly clear to me. Is that COVID has changed the landscape of what the yoga industry looks like for [00:01:00] forever. I think the first thing to point out is that. Post COVID or I shouldn’t even say post COVID since COVID started. More and more people have been flocking to practicing yoga online. In fact, I just saw.
A statistic. I was reading a report. That I subscribed to. On, just like statistics from the yoga industry and in 2022, that the shocking statistic was that. Now over 50% of people prefer to practice at home online and it wasn’t just slightly over 50%. It was nearly 70. I believe the number was, I don’t have it in front of me, but 68% of people now prefer to practice yoga online and at home. And that leads me to my first point.
Which is number one. I think it’s safe to say now that, and for 2023. The death of mom and pop yoga studios has officially arrived. And. What I mean by that is multiple points. [00:02:00] Number one.
Yoga studios have been. They’ve been on, I would say. The mom and pop yoga studios have been on like their lifeline now for a while, which is they’ve been slowly getting phased out even before COVID with bigger chains of yoga studios, you’ve got big chains of yoga studios rising. Like core power yoga is taking over. You see these big.
Chains that are just completely dominating and putting pressure, putting a lot of pressure on smaller yoga studios, which, you go back 10 years ago and you go back even 15 years ago. I think how long I’ve been doing yoga now since 2005 for a while. Where all it was little, mom and pop yoga studios where you’d go practice. But the reality of it is now with the rise of chains. Consumers are demanding more. It’s not okay. Now I think when you walk into a yoga studio, it seems almost absurd.
To not have amenities to not have a locker room, to not have showers to not have you. Towels. The full service at the [00:03:00] yoga studio, that people are looking for. In fact, I moved from California to Nevada, to Las Vegas during COVID and the studio that I practice at here now. And the ones that are around in Las Vegas are.
They’ve all got amenities, right? Like you expect those kinds of things. I walk into yoga classes. Now I walk into yoga studios and I just expect those types of things. All those amenities, the showers, the locker rooms, and not to mention we’ll get to the teaching, but the reality of it is those kinds of things put more pressure on smaller yoga studios with smaller budgets and they’re becoming less and less.
You almost don’t see them anymore, right? It’s impossible to compete with the chains. So that’s number one, the death of the death of mom and pop yoga studios is officially. It is officially here and it’s getting tougher and tougher to run. A business that sustains you or your family. And if you look at the numbers, the incentive, like it’s hard. If you’ve never looked at the numbers of actually running a yoga studio, it’s tough as it is.
So when you’ve got big corporations on top of [00:04:00] it and the pressure of online, it makes it really difficult to run. And. So that’s 0.1 now, point number two, moving on here is. What is the value of teacher trainings these days. And one of the, one of the things that I have noticed very clearly is that.
The. The average, the quality of the average yoga teacher has gone down. Tremendously has gone down. Tremendously. And part of that has to do with teacher trainings, the state of yoga teacher trainings. One of the things about yoga teacher trainings these days is like it used to be, you used to be considered a person of value, or it was valuable to hold a yoga teacher to hold a yoga teacher training certificate.
Meaning I went through a training. I know what I’m doing. I understand the body. I’m well-trained at teaching yoga. I can stand competently in front of the class and teach it. Nowadays yoga teacher trainings are just like a factory for yoga studios because yoga [00:05:00] studios. And even these big ones, especially the rise of these big chains nowadays, it’s really not about building great yoga teachers.
It’s just a factory it’s can I turn them out as quickly as I can? Can I turn them out? As quickly as I can and get more yoga teachers in to fill the studio. So they’re becoming less and less trained. And when you look at all of these, when you look at all of these kinds of trainings, and oftentimes they’re just teaching you like a set sequence, learn these 26 poses that we teach you or learn the sequence.
And that’s all you need to do is stand in front of the room and memorize these cues and memorize these sequences without, by the way, understanding how bodies work without understanding the people in front of you without understanding how to interact with students and understanding how to. To actually provide value to students other than being like a robotic parrot that repeats the sequence that you were taught and training and nothing else. You don’t know how to vary the sequence whatsoever, and you don’t know how to do that. And of course, with these kinds of studios, they also don’t really encourage you to very, they really don’t even want your [00:06:00] personal creativity anymore.
They just want you to teach the set sequence. Teacher trainings nowadays don’t do anything to adequately prepare teachers to. Actually be great yoga teachers and provide a good product, which also perpetuates the flywheel event. People go to a yoga studio one time and they have a bad experience. They say, forget it. They say I’m done. I will just go find someone online that I can practice with and do it at home and not have to deal with all of that and find someone that I actually resonate with and someone I actually want to practice with.
Th these teachers, the, these teacher trainings. R. Are there just, they’re pumping out teachers. It’s a factory because the business of these studios is, In my personal opinion, it’s unethical to charge thousands and thousands of dollars. And, To sucker people into the yoga teacher dream and then have them completely unprepared. And then they realize yoga teacher salaries on top of it have not gone up probably since I remember, like yoga teachers have been making 20 to $50 since as long as I can remember back [00:07:00] in 2005, when I started.
So that hasn’t changed. And if anything, with COVID, they’ve probably gone down because the numbers that the yoga studios have gone down, they do it. Part-time they come in for a couple months and teach after getting their training. You finished a yoga teacher training. You’ve got energy. You’re excited. And then you realize I’m making 20, $20, $30 a class. And this is awful. I don’t know what I’m doing.
I got to teach. I got to teach 10, 20 classes a week just to make a living. And now I’m tired of it because it’s exhausting. It’s easier to work a regular job. I’ll just stick to my regular job and nevermind this. So no one ever gets better. You’ve got a whole bunch of teachers, new teachers with no direction, no purpose, and no idea of what quality teaching even looks like.
So of course, that’s also going to impact the studios that they teach at. And then in turn impact the consumers. That’s the thing that’s been completely lost in the industry is that no matter what, no matter how quickly you want to grow, no matter how quickly you want to [00:08:00] expand your brand or expand your yoga studios, it’s built on the back of good quality teaching. So without good quality teaching and without good quality teacher trainings.
There’s no way you’re going to have good teachers. So there’s no way that the studio is going to grow and truly tap. Attract people. Good yoga teachers now are rare than ever. For most of these for most of the studios now, trainings are just a cash grab. It’s an opportunity to charge people, three anywhere between 3000 and $10,000.
Two. Give them a piece of paper and say, they’ve memorized the sequence. But that doesn’t really do anything. Too, that doesn’t really do anything to help the studio or help the teachers or help them to become good teachers. And so on that note, that brings me to point number three, which is.
Yoga teachers are becoming more commoditized than ever, which is good. They all know one sequence. They all know the same 26 poses. They all know these same things, but they don’t really truly know. And the [00:09:00] essence of teaching yoga, the essence of being a great yoga teacher, doesn’t just mean understanding.
Let me describe to somebody how to get into triangle pose. Let me describe this pose or let me tell them to breathe in this manner or do this and that. No. Good yoga teaching is actually more. It has nothing to do with poses. Good yoga teaching has means understanding the bodies that are in front of you. Having the wherewithal to look at somebody functionally and say, Hey, look, this is the limitation of their body.
And this is why and communicating to being able to communicate to the student. You’re having a hard time with this, or you’re having pain here. Try this and try this muscle is the limiting factor. And so it’s affecting you across here and providing solutions, right? I think that’s the difference between a great yoga teacher and just, one that’s been pumped out from a factory training.
Is that, one that’s been pumped out from a training, just, they just basically regurgitate poses like a parrot and great teachers. Really truly [00:10:00] great teachers can look and analyze human bodies and provide solutions for them and a path forward to get better. And that’s what really inspires people when they come in is to say, Hey, look, I want, I’m coming to yoga because I want change on some level. And if someone can provide me that change and provide me a path and a clear understanding of what I need to do to improve, then.
My world gets better and my enjoyment for yoga goes up. Teachers have become more commoditized than ever. And that’s the way they want it. Because that’s the model, which is the more commoditized that you are. The more, the same yoga teachers are, the easier they are to replace. And that’s what they do. They’re running it. Like a lot of these studios are run like fast food restaurants, which is, let’s just train them quickly and McDonald’s, or let’s just train them quickly.
And, , to serve hamburgers on the line and no problem, like if they quit because we’re paying them minimum wage. Then we’ll just replace them with new ones right away. So that’s what it is. Most yoga teachers are paid minimum [00:11:00] wage to go teach a class and teach until you’re exhausted. And then we’ll put new ones in there.
To replace you from the trainings that we pumped out, that we charged them thousands of dollars for. So none of that is going to produce great yoga teachers. So all the ones that are out there becoming commoditized. And of course, when you’re, when you become a commodity guess what, you’re never really, truly going to make a living.
When you become a commodity, it’s a race to the bottom. Like Amazon, it’s just a race to the bottom. It’s how cheaply can I provide for the service? And how quickly can I get it out there to the masses. But the reality is if you’re a yoga teacher and you actually want to survive in. This industry that doesn’t cut it. You have to be different.
You have to be different in today’s world. Moving on. So point number four. On that note. I want to shift into what yoga teachers do, and if you’re a yoga teacher, what you need to do to survive and the things that you have to do, if you truly want to make a living, teaching yoga, these are the things you have to do at some point. Number four, right? Yoga teachers are forced to become [00:12:00] more entrepreneurial.
And this is the one I think that’s very difficult. For teachers difficult for you. If you’re a teacher and things you’ve struggled with, is that. No one has the skills, right? They don’t just magically have the skills to become. Entrepreneurs to go out for themselves, they don’t understand how to brand themselves. They don’t understand how to create products. They don’t understand how to create a business around their skills. And it’s an incredibly missed opportunity and incredibly missed opportunity because look.
Also in today’s world with the internet and social media. Now things have really changed in that the rewards, the incentive for making it to the top is that if you make it to the top, the rewards are completely disproportional, right? Those that can make it to the top and perfect their craft and become very good at it and become.
To become the top 1%. They make a living just fine. They make more than enough, because, but they have skills in [00:13:00] other areas and nowadays. Nowadays the. The best yoga teachers. And this is also some advice for you. Which is, if you shun the business side or you push away saying, I don’t want to learn business because it’s anti Yogi. I don’t want to learn how to sell because that’s being anti yoga.
I don’t want to learn how to do X, Y, and Z and market myself, because I feel like that’s all. Anti yoga, then you’ll just get swallowed by the tide and forgotten. Like you’ll be forgotten quickly, like business and markets move on quick and they’re happy to forget you if you don’t adapt to the times.
So it’s an opportunity to sit and say I need to. In turn. Develop more skills, learn more things. And what are those specific things, right? What are the specific things you have to learn? Number one, you have to learn how to market yourself correctly. Marketing and sales is key. Everything in life at expecially, especially when you’re working for yourself as an entrepreneur is revolved around selling.
Is selling yourself and selling your [00:14:00] services. And S and selling your products. And that’s why we have programs for yoga teachers and coaches to create products and learn, to sell and learn, to create things of value so that you can so that you can thrive, right? If you want to make it as a, if you want to make it as a yoga teacher, if you, if your aspirations are to be a full-time yoga teacher in this world.
There is. A whole lot more to it than simply just saying, I’m going to show up and I’m going to teach classes every day. I’m going to teach 20, 30 classes a week. And make a living good luck. Do they do that for a month? And you’re exhausted, right? And you realize it’s impossible. And then you look at the state of our world and you look at the state of our economy with the rising prices of everything. You have to be a fool these days to not notice that.
Teaching classes, teaching. Th the rate for yoga teachers to teach classes is not going up. It’s going down if anything, so do the math. 20. 20 yoga classes, 20 yoga classes a week at 20 bucks, a class or even 40 or [00:15:00] 50 bucks a class do the math. You’re barely going to survive. So if you truly want to make it, that’s not the path.
Is to be able to. Say, I’m going to expand my skills. I’m going to develop an expertise. That provides real true value for people. And that brings me to point number five, which is the demand by consumers. To solve specific problems they have is higher than ever. And this is the opportunity, and this is what I want to push you into if you are a teacher and and the thing is I know a lot of yoga teachers and the sad reality is they’re really good people. They have good hearts, but they’re struggling. They’re struggling because they don’t know what to do, and they don’t have the skills to do it.
And. As the industry becomes more and more crowded. And more and more teachers show up. People don’t want general stuff that the world doesn’t need. Another breaking news. The world does not need another Vinyasa flow yoga teacher. It just doesn’t. [00:16:00] Then the yoga industry does not need another teacher that can teach a knockoff Bikram sequence. They don’t need that. That’s not what the world needs. The world does not need any more copycats of what’s already out there. There’s enough of them. And the yoga industry is pumping out yoga teachers quicker than ever.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if within the next few years that there’s more yoga teachers than there is yoga practitioners in this world because of the speed at which they’re pumped out. But what consumers really want. Is specific problems of their solved, which yoga solves a lot of them. Very specific problems.
Yoga is great. Think about this. I want you to think about this. Yoga is great for millions and millions of things. Is yoga great for mental health? Yes. Is yoga great for back pain? Yes. Is yoga great for building muscle and losing weight? Yes. Is yoga great for more industry? Industry.
Energy. Yes. Is yoga great for. The list goes on and on [00:17:00] I’ve got programs where I help people with the things right back pain, press handstands, building bodies, anatomy, all of these types of things. These are high value things that people want. Solved right. More than ever is.
In a sea of sameness. The ones who stand out, thrive the ones that can truly have a skill set to their name thrive. And this is really where if you want to make it. In, if you want to make it in. The yoga industry these days, if you really truly do want to be a full-time yoga teacher, it forces you to become entrepreneurial.
You need to work for yourself in some ways you need to create products. You need to create. These things that allow you to scale. And so that, that way you aren’t consistently trading your time for dollars, right? Because at the end of the day, you’re trading a finite resource for an infinite resource, which is a bad trade, and you’re never going to make it in the long run. And this, if you’ve taught.
Dozens of classes a week. [00:18:00] You just get exhausted. So the area of growth and the thing to really focus on, and I’ll tell you this. Now I had someone God, almost 10 years ago now, probably back in 2012, when I started creating things online, you got to create products, you have to create these things. So you have to break yourself of this mindset.
Of. Anything that’s anything business as anti Yogi, it’s not right. You have bills to pay, you’ve got rent and you have to pay, you’ve got car payments, you’ve got all sorts of things, right? You’ve got credit cards to pay. They don’t accept Pronto as a form of currency. They accept dollars.
It’s a disservice to yourself by saying I’m just going to go down with the ship. I don’t believe in anything business. It’s evil related to yoga. It’s not taking care of yourself as a very beautiful thing. And survival means and thriving means. Learning the business side of it, creating things for yourself, creating products.
Creating programs, creating a brand around yourself and high value. And that means [00:19:00] improving your skills. That means you have to have the thirst to get better. The truth is. Excuse me, is that. Most people have no desire to be the best. And now. It’s hard to hide because of the scale that the world has gotten exponentially smaller because of the scale of this world.
The world. Said that wrong. That the world has gotten smaller because of the scale of the internet. And so now customers demand more and that’s for you to Uplevel your game. So this is more of, this is more of an episode to say, yeah, times are changing. Things are changing. And if you want to make it as a teacher in this world, you have to change with it.
What you clung to 10 years ago, five years ago, or even post COVID, like it’s all different now. And you have to do that. You have to do these kinds of things. And. And yeah, none of this. None of this is a direct plug for any of my programs. Yeah. If you want to do them great. We have these programs to help people create businesses, build programs, right? [00:20:00] We’ve tons of testimonials or even want to become a better yoga teacher. We’ve got programs for that to body breakthrough. But the reality of it is you don’t have to do any of those things.
If you don’t want to go. Just go commit to getting better yourself, whatever it is. But if you want to make it, this is how. And those are my main, those are my main five thoughts and what I, the direction I think the yoga industry is going in and 2023 and what you can do to survive and stay ahead of the time because all of these things.
All of these things are critical. They’re critical for your development. They’re critical for you to thrive. And I know that you want to, I know a lot of you guys that follow me for years and years and listen to me because of these things like, yeah. Some people hate me because I don’t fill people up with fluff on things.
I just say how it is. And the reality of it is you want to survive. That’s how you do it. That is how you do it. You create these things and you have the ability to do that. Again if you’ve got any value from this episode today go ahead and go ahead i would appreciate if you share it with someone share it with another [00:21:00] yoga teacher who needs to hear this or someone at yoga studio owner who needs to hear this maybe to pivot because the owner’s the exact same thing you got to create products you’ve got to create things that that allow you to expand beyond the traditional model or tag me on instagram @brianaganad i do have a new instagram after mine got hacked a few years ago i do have a new one @brianaganad tag me shared in the story and let me know how you got value That’s the way this podcast grows that’s the way people find out about me you can do that there. And. If you have any other questions tag me on instagram and let me know. That’s all i’ve got if you like this episode if you want me to do more on the On the yoga industry and the state of it happy to do that i’ve got tons of thoughts and tons of ways that you can improve it just dawned on me that i spent so much of last year in yoga studios again it’s been a while like on on a personal note it’s been a while i have not with covid all of a sudden when covid happened in 2020, it’s stopped going to them all together and then 2021 was still with all the restrictions and whatnot i’m not really into going [00:22:00] to yoga studios and practicing with masks. So i got to spend a lot of time in studios this year practicing and you can see how things Change you see the struggles of you see the struggles of that yoga teachers are going through and you see these types of things and as someone who and i’m incredibly grateful for this as someone who has been able to make a living for myself teaching yoga is my was my passion and still is my passion for that way and helping people is my passion and helping to push people to higher levels that’s why we do this and i think deep down in you that’s why you got involved with yoga is you have a passion And you have this desire to want to help people and you feel like you’re going to make the world a better place so there’s just different rules to the game and how you do it today right there’s a different strategy for how you go about that and if you want to make it you have to do the things that allow you to be seen in today’s world and to not become invisible amongst kind of the sea of sameness and. and the yoga industry which has become a factory But that being said that’s all i’ve got for you today i’m [00:23:00] out
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