03 getting your first classes off the ground

a free 4-part mini podcast series for your first year of teaching

Lollll - so I may be playing a little fast and loose with the word ‘micro’ on this instalment, but in my defence, I had a LOT to cover!

Inside Anchored I have a whole conversation around the 5 main business models of teaching, but todays topic pulls out the two general ways you might teach group classes - for a studio, or independently setting up your own thing - and how you might get started in both.

And, if this conversation has been helpful and you’d love more support in your corner just like this through your earliest days of teaching, the full Anchored program goes live next week. It has over 60 podcast style chats like this one, covering absolutely everything I wish someone had told ME when I was starting out.

Find out more and join the waitlist here to get a cheeky limited discount next week when the doors reopen.

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03 getting your first classes off the ground

Listen to the audio version….(you can download it too)

Or read the written version…

You’ve trained. You’ve got your certificate in your hand. It’s time to teach.

But…how?

Do you just rock up at a bunch of local studios with your new certificate and ask for a gig? (No. Please don’t do that.)

Do you hire a space and start marketing? Or do you market first and hope you’ve got enough students to fill a class? Should you even hire anywhere when there’s a real chance you’ll make no money - or worse, lose some?

So many questions and I will say upfront that there’s no set path that will guarantee you success so I’m not going to try and bullshit you with a 5-step blueprint to financial glory.

But it’s important to know that there are different routes that suit different people. And the direction you choose to go will vary according to a bunch of personal variables; like where you live, how much of a community you already have, what kind of teaching lights you up, and how averse you are to risk - financial or otherwise.

I know that when you graduate, there’s this post-training hype. You’re completely overloaded with information, you’ve just spent weeks or months in that deliciously immersive bubble of learning and knowledge and excitement and growth, and now you want to get out there and just bloody do the thing.

You might feel totally paralysed by how much you don’t know yet and be freaking the fuck out about actually standing up in front of people as a ‘real yoga teacher’, or you might be absolutely raring to go. Both are completely normal.

Unfortunately… the world is not waiting for you with open arms.

You might picture yourself gliding into your first studio role, teaching a few classes a week where the mats packed wall to wall, the perfect playlist drifting through the speakers, the mood lighting is perfect and everyone practicing in sync. Or you might imagine hiring a local hall and having your friends and family fill the space every week because they’re absolutely dying to support you.

And it’s easy to understand why we feel this way.

We’ve done the hard work - we’ve done the training. We’ve got the piece of paper that says we can do this. And when it feels like yoga is fucking eeeeverywhere, surely there will be no shortage of teaching opportunities for us?

Sadly, the reality that teachers quickly realise is that it takes way more time, way more patience, and way more graft than you’ve even come close to in YTT.

And mostly, it takes upskilling beyond what your training has given you so far.

This is why so many folk train as teachers, then don’t really end up doing much with it. The road is tougher than they expected it to be.

So if you’re in those earliest teaching days and freaking out at how things feel like they’re moving at a snails pace, I want to reassure you that you’re not a bad teacher. Nothing is going wrong. It’s not rejection, and you’re not a failure.

This is a totally normal place to sit.

You’re just going down a path that stretches much further ahead of you than you probably expected when you were excitedly signing up for your training.

And taking a realistic look at the yoga industry for a second in general - and I’m not trying to be a downer here, but I think it’s important context - it’s pretty saturated with generalist, average teachers.

And that sounds like a bit of a douchey thing to say, and I don’t intend to put anyone down here at all, but just being able to teach yoga is not enough anymore. It might have been once upon a time when teaching was this rare skillset, but not anymore.

Having a 200hr certification is not enough.

Knowing the theory is not enough.

Even having this amazingly strong and solid personal practice isn’t enough.

And this isn’t me saying go out and do more advanced training or get more certificates - the thing you need is experience. Taking the knowledge you’ve got, figuring out the kind of teacher you are and what you love, hate and relate to most, and learning how to actually be a good - or hopefully great - teacher.

Teacher training gives you qualification, it doesn’t give you real life experience.

I often liken it to the difference between passing your driving test, and then getting actual miles down on the road without the comfort of the L plates and an instructor next to you with an emergency brake.

Yoga teaching, like any industry, does not work on qualifications alone. Banking as many certificates as you can in the first 12 months will not make you a better teacher. The thing that actually gets you booked, hired, trusted, paid - whether you’re in studios or running your own thing - is people. It’s relationships. It’s community. It’s consistency and word of mouth and trust and reputation.

We’ll come to that properly in the final episode of this series. But for now, I want to focus on how you actually get started teaching, and begin to get some of that experience under your belt.

When it comes to teaching group classes, you’ve essentially got two core options - studio teaching or independent teaching - and plenty of teachers end up dabbling in a hybrid of both at some point.

When I say studio, I don’t just mean a yoga studio. It could be a gym, a CrossFit box, a workplace - anywhere you’re teaching under someone else’s business. They handle all the backend stuff: bookings, payments, marketing, venue insurance, cleaning… you get the picture. You show up, you teach, you get paid, you go home and then rinse and repeat indefinitely.

When you’re new, this can feel like the dream. Mostly because studios are usually lovely to teach at, but also just because someone else takes care of everything logistical while you get to focus on the teaching part.

It’s structured, it’s predictable, you know where you stand and you get to practice doing your thing in a nice space with a steady flow of students that just appear. I also think it can give you a good range of exposure - studios do tend to be busier by their nature, and it means you get to practice your teaching in front of a wider range of bodies, you might get to see how experienced teachers hold a room if you have access to other classes (which is another perk in itself), and you generally get to start understanding the dynamics of guiding a class without having to manage a single booking or really worry about promoting yourself in any way.

On the other side, you’ve got independent teaching, and this is where you’re running the whole show. You hire a space, manage your own bookings, set your pricing, and fundamentally build your own community from scratch. It’s all yours - both the freedom AND the risk.

And I want to spell out in crayons for you, that neither of these teaching routes is ‘better’ than the other. There is no hierarchy. They’re just different.

Studios can offer you stability, consistency and maybe some wider opportunities with less financial risk. Whereas independent teaching gives you creative control and the potential to build something bigger over time, but with the pay off that you’re carrying all the responsibility. Plenty of teachers I know do a mix of both because they serve different purposes.

And you don’t need to pick one lane forever. You just need to pick somewhere to start.

So I want to talk a bit about what getting started actually looks like in practice for each of these routes.

Let’s start with the more obvious one which is studio teaching, or freelancing as a yoga teacher within someone else’s business.This is usually where people’s minds go first when they imagine teaching yoga.

For the teachers who work within studios, they sit in this weird place as you don’t have the full control that independent teachers do, but you’re also not really employed. I’ve only come across 2 or 3 instances of teachers working for a studio on a fully employed basis - and they’re real edge cases, where the venue is usually a much larger gym or something similar and they’re teaching a LOT, or doing other work for them too like admin or management.

99% of the time, you can expect to get paid a fixed or commission based rate - which might flex according to how busy the class is - for teaching as part of someone else’s business.

You are still ultimately a freelancer though, which means you don’t have the same security or benefits you might in traditional employment.

As with any other role where you’re working for someone else’s business, you wouldn’t expect to walk straight into a job just because you had the training for it, right? You’re not packaging up parcels behind the scenes - you’re showing up as the face of their business, representing them at the front of a class of their clients.

I know that this language can feel like a bit of a cold, crass way to put it, but it’s important to remember when you’re thinking about how you might approach a business to get a role.

Because that business you want to walk into and teach for is probably someone’s baby. They’ll have a put a lot of love, and heart, and soul, and sweat and likely many, many tears building it up from scratch.

This is why my headline, number one piece of advice for new teachers is that studios do not often hire based off cold called CVs or emails. They hire who they know, see and trust.

They’re not hiring you just to functionally fulfil the role of ‘generic yoga teacher’. They want someone who fits the culture of their space, who understands their students, and who they feel would put as much care into a class as they would.

And it depends where you are, but in so many towns and cities now there’s an oversaturation of teachers - and predominantly NEW teachers.

This means that studio owners are probably getting emails every week from teachers telling them all about where in the world they’ve trained, or what hours they’ve just finished, or who they studied under.

Those same teachers are probably also telling them how much they adore the sound of their studio (‘sound of’ because they’ve never actually stepped foot inside) and how much they’d just LOVE to teach there.

I know, because those carbon copy emails would hit my inbox on a regular basis as a studio owner.

Think about it logically…

If a studio has been open for a while, established teachers will often have slots wrapped up, especially the peak slots. And unless the space is in desperate need of someone, it’s going to be a risk throwing a brand new teacher with little experience onto the timetable, potentially putting them in front of a class of 10, 20, 30 students who have been practicing there for years and have fairly high expectations.

Again, I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade here or make out like you don’t stand a chance - plenty of new teachers get studio opportunities. But I want you to understand the studio landscape so that if you’re approaching spaces, or looking to take on a class, you can do it strategically rather than blindly, and potentially pissing owners off.

This is why being part of the community first matters so much.

Go to classes as a student. Get your face known. Understand the feel of the studio and the kind of things they value. Introduce yourself genuinely as a teacher and let people know you’re around for cover if that’s ever needed. Tell them you’d be happy to send over a teaching CV if they wanted one to keep in mind if they’re looking to add new classes to the timetable.

And if you do want to connect with the studio owner, do it naturally - a quick hello after class or a short, polite email is plenty. Please don’t ask for a meeting just to ‘introduce yourself’ or ‘get a feel for the space’. Studio owners are usually doing the jobs of ten different people and just trying to keep the lights on, literally.

Respect their time, and they’ll respect you a whole lot more.

When I ran my studio under the membership model where I hired teachers (we’re now a dry hire space for independents), I was absolutely inundated with cold calls from new teachers. But what was GOLD was having a couple of teachers who actually knew the space, the community, and what was expected from a class.

Sometimes I’d have to go to the cold call list for cover if it got desperate, and it never went well. The feedback generally wasn’t great because they didn’t know the vibe, the people, or what those students were used to.

You’ll all know that there’s more to guiding a class than just the theory of teaching, and if you’ve been IN classes in a particular space, you’ll understand the rhythm, the energy, the vibe, the expectations, the values of the studio and the kind of experience students there are used to walking into.

From a hiring POV, if you’re familiar with all of that, this massively de-risks you.

You’re unlikely to come and start teaching in a way that clashes with the studio’s usual style or tone, that throws the regulars off completely, or that just feels like a weird mismatch.

Not all studios are the same and nor should they be. Some are luxurious, some are community-driven and chatty, some are kinda serious. Each space has a personality. Understanding and knowing that you’re a good fit for that space before you reach out means you’re approaching from a place of awareness and respect. You’re not just making assumptions about them.

Plus, getting to know the studio and community first shows you care. As I said, these businesses are people’s babies. They’ve usually been built with a lot of love, energy, and graft - and studio owners can tell when someone respects that versus when someone’s just trying to get a foot in the door.

That whole ‘what’s in it for me?’ energy comes across a mile off, and it is shitty for everyone.

It’s a two-way thing too - you have to actually want to teach for that particular studio, not just jump at any studio that’ll take you.

I don’t want to stereotype people and practices, but we’ve all walked into classes before and had that feeling like it’s just not us. Or equally, there’ll have been places you’ve practiced before that just feel like home to you.

THAT is where you want to teach.

This is the reason I don’t encourage people to jump ship from their jobs and try to make teaching work financially early on. Because you start making panic decisions and teaching anywhere and everywhere just to earn enough. And that serves no one - not you, not the studios, and definitely not the students in your classes.

But when you are an established part of the community - your launch into working there will be so much easier.

I love remembering the story of a teacher friend of mine who had initially been a student in my classes for ages. She had JUST come back from her YTT and less than an hour before I was due to teach a class, I got SO sick.

Because it was so short notice I couldn’t find any other cover, and this teacher was already booked in as a student so I knew she would be there.

So…I called her in to cover.

She was BRAND new. Literally I think maybe she’d landed back from India that weekend or something, but I trusted her completely.

She was terrified. Absolutely bricking it.

But she’d been going to that class for SO long that she knew my style inside out, and everyone in the room was rooting for her. They knew her, they loved her, and it became the baptism of fire she needed.

When she came to put on her own classes, they were an easy fill. People went for her, despite technically knowing that new teacher classes are gonna be a little clunkier to start.

And I know you might not be getting paid a ton in studio teaching - let’s be honest, you’re probably not - but if you teach well and become an established part of the community, you’re building YOUR teaching audience too. The folk who know you well and connect with what you teach.

So come next year, or the year after, when you want to take on more classes, start branching out into workshops, or even run a retreat, you’ve got a huge pool of students who know and love you.

This is the long game. Being visible and patient. Not rushing into anything just because it pays the bills, especially if it’s a bad fit. But leading with, and finding community first.

So start by picking one or two studios you already practice at and show up consistently for a while. You’re a yoga teacher who fucking loves yoga..going and doing yoga should not be a hardship. Plenty of studios have good introductory offers too, if you’re new to a space and just wanna get a feel of whether it’ll be good for you.

Spend time there. Then introduce yourself, chat to the owner, and be genuinely curious about how things work and how you can be a part of supporting that business.

If that sounds like too much effort, that’s fine - but just know it’s going to make things harder. Studios are far less likely to take a chance on someone they’ve never seen before, and even if they do, you’ll start from a colder place. Being known in the space by the teachers and other students first makes everything so much easier.

And although I said cold calling isn’t usually the way to go, I should caveat it by saying that it isn’t always a dead end - it just has to make sense.

If a studio has recently opened, or you’ve seen them advertising for cover or new classes, that may well be a good time to reach out. But if you’re in a smaller town or somewhere with a close-knit community, it’s actually even more important to get involved in person. Word travels fast in smaller teaching ecosystems and being part of the community will get you further than any generic email ever will.

And finally, if you are reaching out cold, make sure it sounds like a genuine introduction and not just a copy and paste pitch that has gone out to a bunch of different spaces in a single afternoon.

If you’ve been teaching for a studio for a while and want to branch out with some of your own independent offerings, or if that’s the route you know you want to take from day one, things are going to look a bit different for you.

Independent teaching sits at the other end of the spectrum in so many ways. You hire the space, set the price, create the class, market it, and manage bookings. It’s all you. The admin, the finances, the risk, the joy, the ownership - all yours.

It’s more work. Way more. And it’s a far slower burn to success - both financially, and in terms of having busier classes.

There’s a good chance you’ll spend hours planning classes for one or two bodies, and I think you can be months or even years in and still feel like you’re winging it half the time. BUT you’ll also learn more in those first six months of flying solo (if you stick with it) than any training could give you.

When you’re teaching independently, you have the freedom to create something that actually fits your life, your energy and your interests. You can build a small, loyal community that grows with you. You can play with formats, time slots, themes, or styles. You can teach in a village hall or a park or a barn - wherever you can throw a couple of mats down.

You’ll also learn incredibly quickly what doesn’t work. The venue that’s too cold. The slot that nobody comes to. The fact it takes more than putting a class on to get people to come.

I think it’s one of the most humbling things you can do as a teacher. But when people do come, when they stay, when they bring a friend - honestly it’s magic.

But for the realities of this path….

You might be tempted to just hire a hall and get going, assuming bookings will roll in.

Alas. They won’t.

And look, I’m not saying this to put you off. I just think it helps to know what you’re walking into so you can feel prepared.

Firstly: the boring numbers bit. Most venue hire will cost you an average of £15–£30 an hour, sometimes more. If you charge £10 per class, that means you need at least three paying students just to break even. Four to make a bit of profit. Anything above that is a bonus.

And four doesn’t sound like many, but I’ve been teaching for almost a decade and it’s not uncommon to only have that many students in some of my classes even now.

This is WHY you need to market your class. And I’m not talking here about having a logo and a website and a photoshoot and trying to rack up Instagram followers.

Unless you live in the middle of nowhere, chances are there are already a good number of yoga classes available to folk in your area. You’re not offering something wildly new - at least not yet - which means you have to work to get people in the door.

One.

By.

One.

Start by talking to actual humans. Friends, colleagues, neighbours. People who already know and trust you. Tell them what you’re doing, when, and where. And by all means, post it in local Facebook groups. Stick a printed flyer on a noticeboard or ten around town. But don’t rely on strangers to fill your classes on day one.

This is why it can be incredibly tricky to start up a new class in an area where you don’t have any social connections. In those early days, it’s people you know who you need to be pulling in.

It can feel small and scrappy, and underwhelming - but it’s the reality of how independent classes work. You’re not trying to fill a 30-person studio. You’re just trying to get two, three, four people to come along, who then want to come back next week.

And those initial bodies might be your best mate and your mum.

But over time, that tiny group becomes your base. They’ll bring friends. You’ll start to get the odd stranger that comes along. They’ll start to associate you with the feeling they get from practice. And that’s how a teaching business really grows - from trust and community and the relationships you build.

A lot of this really is about expectation management.

Understanding that if you’re paying to hire somewhere, you might not make money (and you might even lose money) for a little while. Treat it as a continuation of your investment in yourself as a teacher - don’t be disheartened. It’s totally normal.

You’re just investing in getting better, more confident, and more established.

This shit takes time to build. A LOT of time. Agonisingly slow.

And you can make it easier on yourself by putting a few practical things in place:

• Have a basic booking system. You don’t need fancy tech but this is 2025 and no-one wants to have to ring someone for the details of a class. Plus, if you’re not getting automated payments up front, it’s too easy for people to skip out on class when the weather is shitty or they don’t feel like it. It also shows you take your classes seriously. When people can book and pay easily, it signals that you value their time - and your own.

As a cheeky plug, if you’re in the UK and you’re getting set up, I’ve founded a new start up with my husband that’s a booking system for teachers and is IDEAL for new teachers. Message me and I can let you know more… 👀

• Set clear T&Cs. Be strict on a refund policy, your minimum numbers, and your cancellation terms. I know it’s boring and it can make you feel mean, but upholding boundaries is what will keep your teaching sustainable long term.
  

• Get your other boring ducks in their rows. Insurance, any licensing you might need, health declarations - you’re the one responsible for making sure everything is safe and above board for your classes.
  

• Do not overcommit. Don’t hire a venue you can’t afford to keep for a few months. If that feels too risky, start smaller and cheaper - at home, outdoors, or in community spaces that don’t require a big upfront payment.
  

• Use the early weeks to practise. Your early classes are absolute gold - don’t waste them having a sad on that numbers are tiny. You’re not having to impress anyone or fight to ‘keep the gig’ like in a studio. So it’s a great time to go slow, experiment, find your rhythm, and let your teaching evolve naturally.
  

• Manage your energy. Running independent classes can feel empowering, but also incredibly draining. It’s all on you. Keep your calendar realistic and build slowly. One class that lasts six months or more is worth more than three that burn you out in a matter of weeks.

The hardest bit is staying consistent when classes are small. But that’s the reality of this - those who are making it work as independent teachers are the ones who stuck with it in those hard, early stages. Ask anyone. Your job isn’t to get 20 people in the room by next month - it’s to still be teaching six months from now. Do what you need to do to help that happen.

Independent classes are a little bit like your playground as a teacher. You can literally do whatever the hell you want. No one’s telling you what to teach, but that also means no one’s filling the room for you either. So you have to be willing to do ALL of the work and carry all of the risk. This is why it’s so important to have a purpose behind doing this that’s for more than just the money.

So how do you decide which route to take?
Ask yourself: what’s important right now - stability or freedom?

If you’re craving structure, accountability, and the security of a ready-made community, studio or gym teaching can be perfect. It’s low-risk, you’ll gain exposure fast, and you’ll learn by osmosis. Just be prepared to put a bit of time and effort into finding a studio home that’s a good fit for you.

If you’re craving autonomy and you’re okay with a bit of uncertainty, independent teaching gives you room to experiment and grow something that’s genuinely yours. Longer term, this is the route that would offer greater potential financial reward - though as with anything, that’s not guaranteed.

And if you’re not sure or bit of both appeal, mix the two. Plenty of teachers do. Maybe one or two studio slots a week to keep things consistent, and one independent class or occasional set of events that you can shape and evolve in your own way.

The key thing is to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Don’t just go into this in a blind panic.

If you know your reasons - whether that’s practice, income, confidence, community - you’ll be way less likely to spiral into comparison when you see other teachers on different paths, or freak out thinking that none of it is going to plan.

This isn’t a race. You’re not behind. This shit just takes more time than anyone likes to admit.

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The on-demand version of Anchored is launching on 17/11 - find out more about what’s included in the program, and jump on the waitlist to make sure you get an exclusive waitlist only discount when the doors open ⬇️

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