Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher
Yoga Teacher Confidential is your backstage pass to the unspoken truths of being a yoga teacher. Sage Rountree, PhD, E-RYT500, dives into the real challenges and rewards of teaching yoga, offering expert advice and secrets to help you build confidence, connect with your students, and teach with authenticity. Sage draws on her two decades of experience teaching yoga, running a studio, and training teachers to share practical insights you can use right away. You'll also hear advice from her books, including Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, The Art of Yoga Sequencing, and The Professional Yoga Teacher's Handbook. Whether you’re navigating imposter syndrome, mastering classroom presence, or refining your skills to teach specialized niches like athletes, this podcast empowers you to lead your classes with clarity, grace, and ease.
Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher
Confidence in Private Lessons: Overcome Fear and Thrive
Many yoga teachers avoid private lessons—not because they lack skill, but because they lack confidence. If you’ve ever felt unsure about pricing, session structure, or meeting a student’s needs, this episode is for you. I share my journey from uncertainty to confidence, plus three essential steps to help you teach private lessons with ease.
Chapters & Timestamps:
[00:00] Overcoming the Fear of Teaching Private Lessons
[00:00:54] The Benefits of Private Yoga Lessons
[00:01:32] My Journey with Private Lessons
[00:04:36] Why You Should Offer Private Lessons
[00:05:44] Three Steps to Confident Private Lessons
[00:08:14] Bonus Tips for Adding Value
[00:09:13] Conclusion and Next Steps
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Can I tell you something? I find teaching private lessons terrifying. And that's after 10 plus years of teaching private lessons twice weekly to the most famous man in my town. If you are intimidated by the idea or the actuality of teaching private lessons, you are in good company. Many yoga teachers avoid offering private lessons, not because they don't want to, not because they wouldn't be great at it, but because they don't feel confident doing it. Maybe they're worried about pricing, unsure how to structure a session, or afraid they won't be able to deliver what the student needs. Sound familiar? Let's talk about how to step into your confidence and make private lessons a rewarding part of your teaching. I'm Sage Rountree and this is Yoga Teacher Confidential, Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher. Private yoga lessons are a powerful way to deepen your teaching, serve your students more effectively, and create financial stability in your career. Unlike group classes, privates allow you to tailor every session to the individual's goals, needs, and preferences. But many teachers struggle with self doubt, fearing they wouldn't be good enough or won't know what to do in a one on one setting. So today let's explore why privates are such a key part of your service portfolio, how you might be overthinking them and what you can do to feel confident teaching them. First, let me confess a little more about my own fear of teaching private lessons. I've offered them since the beginning of my teaching career, giving my first lessons back in 2004 as trades in exchange for coaching and marathon, and then an iron distance triathlon. These weren't especially uncomfortable experiences because they were with my peers and they were a one to one exchange of expertise for expertise. Better yet, talking with my running and my triathlon coach, he was a professional triathlete who won Ironman like Placid as an amateur, gave me fantastic insight into the experience of an athlete in a yoga class. This feedback is priceless, and as we covered in the previous episode, that is not the kind of feedback you'll generally get from your students in a group yoga class. Fast forward a couple years, and skip over a few one off private lessons I taught here and there, and we wind up at how I got started teaching the most famous man in Chapel Hill, at least when Michael Jordan isn't in town. Another triathlon contact of mine ran an executive fitness program that regularly did assessments of CEO types and suggested training plans for them. He reached out with a client who wanted to try yoga to combat their high stress position. Did I offer private lessons? He asked, and if so, what did I charge? And would I be interested in teaching a lesson to the client's wife as the client himself was skeptical and too busy to jump right in. I quoted a high rate for me at the time it was 2010 and I said 125 an hour and soon after I was contacted by the wife of our beloved University of North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams. I wound up teaching Wanda Williams and her best friend yoga at the Williams home for several sessions before I even met Roy. He was on his way into work that first day I met him and it was simply a quick hello. But soon he had 20 minutes to try a little yoga. He couldn't even stay for the full hour. Eventually that grew to an hour and then he became a regular for a full hour lesson twice a week. I learned after about a year of this regularity that he had rescheduled a standing weekly meeting so he could continue with the twice weekly private lessons. And this went on for over a decade until his retirement. Over those 10 plus years, I grew less intimidated, but I always took care to show up early to hold the space with calm and ease. I was there in the morning after some really tough losses and to offer a familiar, comforting balance of consistency and variety. Having this tiny group private lesson of one, two, or three regulars week in and week out prompted me to develop sequences that suited the needs of folks in their 60s, accommodating for stress and knee injuries and the vagaries of daily life. These sequences form the bulk of my book, Everyday Yoga, which is dedicated to Roy and Wanda. I would never have seen that coming when I first got the gig. If you're holding back from offering private lessons, you're not just limiting your income. You're also missing the chance to make a real impact and the opportunity to see the difference you're making in your clients lives. Private lessons allow you to build stronger relationships with your students. They allow you to provide personalized advice that truly helps your students progress. They allow you to gain confidence in your ability to teach the person in front of you. That's a critical skill that you can scale in your group classes to keep your students balanced and coming back for more. And private lessons help you earn more per hour than you would teaching a group class. Sometimes lots more. And here's the secret. You already have the skills to teach private lessons. It's not about having a perfect plan. It's about being present, listening, and responding. And these are skills you hone both in your own yoga practice, and then in turn, in your relationships outside of the yoga studio, you just need to bring them to bear in your relationship with your private clients. If you're ready to feel more confident offering and teaching private lessons, here are three tips to get started. Step 1. Clarify your offer. What kind of private lessons do you want to teach? Who do you want to work with? Define your niche so you feel clear about what you're offering and to whom. Once you drill down on who you can help, it becomes way easier to market your services because your messaging just falls into line. Are you a whiz at arm balances with a knack for getting students into liftoff? Well, that's your angle. Or did yoga help you through a postpartum period or parenting or bare menopause? Those are all great angles for private lessons too. Take the time to reflect on your experience and the moments when you found yoga most useful. And I bet you'll start to see your ideal customers come into focus. Step two, set your pricing with confidence. Instead of undervaluing yourself, start with a rate that makes sense based on your experience, your expenses, and your local market. Here's a hint. If it feels slightly uncomfortable to say out loud, you're probably on the right track. You can always offer packages to bring the per lesson costs down and consistent practice will help your students progress their own practice way better anyway than any one off ever would. Listen to season one, episode 20 of this podcast for more advice on how to feel confident with your pricing. Step three, structure your private lessons simply. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. You don't even need to be fancy. Use the 6 4 2 framework to guide your planning. Six moves of the spine, four lines of the hip, and the two core moves. But stay flexible to adjust based on what your student needs that day. That's part of the beauty of offering a private lesson. Better yet, to make your planning easier, automate a simple intake form so that when clients book a private lesson, you can discern what they're looking for and you can arrive prepared to teach a practice that suits their needs. You could do this using Google Forms or Airtable or any system that you're comfortable with. When you start each private lesson with a plan, but you're open to adapt that plan, you will deliver huge value to your private clients. So that's three steps to feeling more confident teaching private yoga lessons. And here's a bonus step. Add even more value to a private lesson. This might mean following up with a suggested home practice, either in a written description or on a video. You could even record that video during the session. Check in with your private lesson client to see how this added value is landing. This will elevate your client's experience and keep them coming back for more. See, you already have the skills you need to get clear on whom you're helping, price your offering well, and teach a balanced lesson that has room for adaptation. When you do this, you'll build confidence in offering private lessons, and your students will notice. Your retention and referrals will increase, and you'll feel even more confident offering private lessons, and the positive spiral will continue. Here's an affirmation to help you remember. I can make a big difference one on one. I can make a big difference one on one. In the next episode, we will explore unintentional private lessons. That is, the classes where only one student shows up, as well as what to do if no one shows up. Meanwhile, for more support for every stage of your yoga teaching career, join me and your colleagues in the zone at comfort zone yoga. My virtual studio focused on teacher development. We can chat there about what's holding you back from offering private lessons and give you advice about the first next steps to lining up your next private clients. You can do this and I'm here to help. Thanks so much for listening to Yoga Teacher Confidential. I'm Sage Rountree and I'll see you next time.
