Teaching Yoga in Tokyo: How to Get Started

Ice cream with everyone after teaching my first yoga class

Article by Dylan Robertson.

I have been asked how I got started teaching yoga and how I manage to get a decent number of people coming to my classes most of the time. I will attempt to answer these questions in this article.

Where to Start

The first thing to realize is that simply graduating from a yoga teacher training course is not enough to become a yoga teacher. In fact, it’s just the beginning of a long journey.

You can’t just walk into an established studio that employs experienced professional yoga teachers and expect to be handed a prime teaching position. The studio owner first wants to see if you have teaching experience and a good track record. But, how do you get experience teaching if no yoga studio will give you a chance? The answer is to organize your own classes and document your teaching experience.

Since July 2008, I have taught yoga classes about once a week in local community halls. After each class, I write a brief summary of who turned up, what the class was like, and any after-class socializing. I also add a photo so that readers can see that normal, real people are attending. This strategy has worked for me and after teaching about 20 classes and over 100 people, I now get offers from studios to do entry-level teaching spots for beginner-level classes.

Ok, sounds great, but how do go about arranging a yoga class on your own, and get people to attend them?

Venue

Each municipality in Japan has a variety of facilities available for hire by the public at roughly half of the cost of equivalent commercial facilities. You can find full details of such facilities on the website of the local municipality. Some may require you to be a resident of that municipality, whereas others will let anybody hire a room.

I’ve been running classes in several community halls in Shibuya Ward. Charges vary depending on whether you want the room on a weekday, weekend, in the daytime or evening. For a room that can fit up to 15 people comfortably, I pay around 3,000 yen for a Sunday evening. Once booked, I can use the room for any amount of time between 5:30 pm to 9:45 pm.

Class Schedule

The better the room and the location of the facility, the more competition there will be to get it. Generally, they open for reservations two months in advance. Telephone reservations are open from 9:30 am, but in-person reservations can be made from 9 am. If you are after a popular time and location, you had better be there in person before 9 am two months in advance.

In Tokyo, people are extremely busy and tend to plan their schedules far in advance. I sometimes have students booking my yoga classes over a month in advance. Therefore, as soon as you have reserved a room, you’ll want to get the word out ASAP via every means available to you. This gives people time to mull it over, pencil it in their calendar, and tell their friends.

Writing Class Notices

I’ve seen a number of beginning instructors send out vague details of their classes and then wonder why nobody turns up. When writing your class notices, you need to tell people very clearly what you are offering so they can decide if it is for them or not. This includes the following:

• Who you are: a little information about yourself and your yoga background. No need to put yourself up on a pedestal – just be real and tell people honestly where you’re at in terms of teaching experience and track record.
• What: exactly what kind of yoga are you offering? For what level of practitioner? Will you accept people with different needs such as pregnant women, elderly or kids? You can’t please everybody and you don’t want to be turning people away, so be clear up front.
• Where: people are busy – they don’t have time to track down the venue themselves, so be sure to give the full address of the venue, a link to a map, and a telephone number for the venue. Some people are more verbal than visual and so a map won’t mean much to them – so be sure to write detailed directions from the nearest station.
• When: date and time
• Language: what language will you teach in? English, Japanese, or both?
• Cost: the cost of your yoga class or your donation policy
• Bring: what should the student bring to class (yoga mat, yoga wear, bottle of water, towel, change of clothes, etc.)?
• Reservations: if you’re going to take reservations, how can they get in touch with you? If you’re not going to take reservations, then say so.
• Cancellations: you might suddenly get sick or need to cancel the class for some reason. How will people know if you cancel the class? Will you contact them? Think this through and stick to your word.

Note that when surfing the net, most people have very short attention spans (if you’re reading this, you’re not one of them, though!). You need to write in a way that is simple and easy to understand, otherwise you will lose them.

And, let’s face it, we’re here in Japan and most people either can’t read English or choose to ignore information unless they can quickly digest it in their native language. So, if you want to reach out to a wider audience, you must make all information also available in Japanese.

Publishing Class Notices

To get the word out, I use the following online resources which I originally created to publicize my own classes. Over time, instructors and studios approached me to help promote their classes and events. Any yoga teacher or studio offering yoga classes, workshops, events, retreats or teacher training courses in English in Tokyo is welcome to post their information in these forums for free.

• HelloYoga.com (you’re looking at it), a website serving Tokyo’s English-speaking yoga community send me an email at dylan@helloyoga.com with details of any events you’d like to me to promote.
• Facebook Groups:
  • “Yoga in Tokyo” (for English speakers)
  • “英語でヨガ in Tokyo” (for Japanese speakers)

Liability Waiver Forms

Once people start showing up, you’ll need to get them to sign a liability waiver form. I offer my students both English and Japanese versions. I am no lawyer and can’t say how much this will help if a student decides to sue you. At the very least, it makes your stand clear in writing. You should also add a clause that says students are responsible for the safety of their valuables and belongings during the class.

I took the Yoga Alliance’s sample yoga teacher liability waiver (no longer available online it seems…), edited it a little to incorporate into a student registration form and then had a Japanese legal scrivener (gyoseishoshi) make the Japanese version. If you’d like a copy for your classes, please email me at dylan@helloyoga.com and I’ll send you the Word document files which you are free to use.

You’ll also need to figure out some way of managing your student records if you plan on doing this for a while.

How Much Should You Charge?

The price of an average drop-in lesson at an established yoga studio in Tokyo is 3,000 to 3,500 yen. Since you are starting out, with no established studio to back you up, I suggest you ask for 500 yen or 1,000 yen.

You can gradually increase prices later, once you feel your lessons are worth it. But give your students at least 30 days notice of any such increase and write it clearly in your notices. I managed to do this without alienating my regulars by shifting from a basic 60-minute class to a new 90-minute format that added a pose lecture, meditation session and Q&A corner.

Is Yoga Teaching for You?

Does all of the above sound like a lot of hassle and bother? Well, that’s why over 90% of people who graduate from yoga teacher training programs never become teachers. The are simply unable or unwilling to do what it takes.

If organizing your own classes seems daunting but you are still passionate about teaching yoga, don’t lose hope. They key is to not go it alone. Find people to help you with the areas you are weak in so that you can focus on your strengths.