84. Why a Private Yoga Lesson Isn't a Smaller Group Class

For over a decade I taught private yoga to Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams, and somewhere along the way I realized I'd been teaching privates wrong. Not because I didn't know yoga. Because nobody had ever sat me down and said, A private is a different craft. Here's how.

In this episode I walk through the three shifts that turn a group-class-with-one-student into an actual private lesson: sequencing for one body (not the whole room) by applying 6–4–2 as a checklist, slowing your pace about thirty percent so the quiet can land, and treating consent as an ongoing conversation rather than a one-time opt-in.

I also cover the two pieces your training probably skipped: how to hold your scope so you don't drift into PT, psychotherapy, or yoga therapy, and how to price privates so your students take them seriously and you build a sustainable income. My starting-line recommendation is $75 an hour, scaling up five to ten dollars per year of experience. Two privates a week at a fair rate can out-earn four studio classes.

This episode builds on three earlier ones, E23 (Confidence in Private Lessons), E35 (How to Prepare for a Private Lesson), and E36 (During a Private Lesson). Listen to those for the foundation. Today's conversation is the full craft in one place.

If you want the complete kit, The Private Lesson Playbook has six lessons, seventeen templates, and three ways to consume it (video, private podcast feed, or written). Launch sale $57 through May 31st at comfortzoneyoga.com/private.

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Transcript

0:00

Can I tell you something? For over a decade, I taught private yoga to Roy Williams, hall of Fame, coach UNC Men's Basketball, two national Championships on his resume when we started, a third on the way, and here's the thing nobody tells you about teaching a client like that. I thought I hated private lessons before Roy thought they were the least interest. Most stressful part of my job. I would never have said no to the opportunity. Are you kidding? But I always braced for them. Privates felt to me like a big energy drain. I'd need to be fully present for the student. Every breath. And then those two lessons a week over many years became the highlight of my teaching week. Maybe the highlight of my career. I got to see my impact firsthand in a way you almost never get to see in a group class. I got to witness the run up to a national championship and the celebration of it, I got to hold space through the highs and lows of one of the most stressful jobs in college sports. And somewhere in there I realized the reason I had thought I hated privates was that I'd been teaching them wrong. I'd been teaching them as smaller group classes because that's what my training had given me. Nobody ever sat me down and said, A private is a different craft. Here's how. So today, that's what we're doing. This is Yoga Teacher Confidential. I'm Sage Rountree, and today we'll talk about a gap in your training. The one thing nobody taught you in your 200 hour is how to teach one person, and I don't mean that as a knock on your training. I love 200 hour programs. I run a 200 and a 300 hour program. I train teachers for a living. But the structure of a 200 hour is typically built around teaching a room, a wide band of bodies, a collective energy, a sequence that serves the average. Privates are almost the inverse of that work, and most of us come out of training with zero hours of dedicated instruction in how to teach one body, one history, one hour. Then we get a private lesson inquiry, and we do what any reasonable person would do. We teach our group class to one person. In their living room, and it feels slightly off. It feels flat. The student is polite but not transformed. We are exhausted in a way. We aren't after a group class because we've been performing at group class energy for an audience of one, and we quietly decide we don't love privates. We don't love that craft. The one we made up, we haven't met the actual craft yet. Now, if you've been with me for a while, you've heard me talk about private lessons before in three episodes. In particular, episode 23, on confidence in private lessons. That's the mindset piece, how to walk in the door without your voice or your hands shaking. Episode 35, how to prepare for a private lesson, the intake, the planning, what to do before the student arrives, and episode 36 during a private lesson, the in the room craft consent and pacing. If you haven't heard those, do go back and listen. They are the foundation, confidence prep, and in the room teaching. Those are your first three layers. What I realized as I started writing today's episode is that those three conversations were the trailer. I've been circling the full craft on this podcast without ever putting the whole thing in one place, and that's what I want to do today. So today we're going deeper into three specific shifts that turn a group class with one student into an actual private lesson. Then we're going to talk about the business of it because let's be honest, most of us undercharge and it's hurting us and every other yoga teacher in our area and everything. We're about to talk about lives in more depth in something I just built called the Private Lesson Playbook. It's got six lessons, 17 plus templates, and three ways to consume it. Video, private, podcast, and written format. It is on Launch Sale right now for only $57 through May 31st at comfort zone yoga.com/private. It's normally going to be $77. I'll come back to it at the end with the full tour, but I wanted you to know it exists before I start name dropping the worksheets and the templates inside it, because a few of the shifts we are about to walk through have companion tools in the playbook, and I'd rather you hear the offer upfront than feel like I pulled a bait and switch. Let's go. Shift One is sequencing for one body, not for a room. If you read my book, the Art of Yoga Sequencing, or you've studied with me just about anywhere, you know, I use this 6 4 2 framework, six moves of the spine, four lines of the legs, two core actions. It is a checklist for balanced movement, not a pose counting formula, and it's how I sequence group classes, workshops, trainings, all of it. In a group class, you always sequence through the whole 6, 4 2 because you don't know which student needs which thing. You build the full nutrition into the meal and each body takes what it needs. Back bender over there gets their fixed, tight hamstring person over here gets theirs. You are a cook feeding a dining room, and you need every station hot. But in a private lesson, you are not a line cook. You are a private chef cooking a tasting menu for one. You do not have to hit every axis of the 6 4 2 in a 60 minute private. You shouldn't necessarily. You choose based on the intake, the stated goal, what your student's body is showing you today, which of the six moves of the spine get deep attention, which of the four leg lines you explore, which of the two core modes you build the session around the rest can be touched briefly or deliberately held for next time. That is a completely different sequencing job from a group class. It's slower, it's more targeted, it's more tactical, and it is wildly more satisfying once you stop trying to feed the whole dining room. The private lesson playbook has a full session plan worksheet that walks you through applying 6 4 2 to one body greet center warmup, main sequence featured skill, cool down Shavasana close with prompts for which axes get deep attention and which you're deliberately saving for. Next session, I use this worksheet, my trainees use it. It is the single biggest unlock for teachers who have been teaching privates like their group classes. The second shift is pacing, and here's one I got wrong for years. Group class pace is set by the collective. There's a rhythm. Students can hide in it. They don't have to land fully in every pose because nobody's looking and the train's already moving to the next station. In a private, there is no collective. There is one person with one nervous system being held in your full attention. There is nowhere to hide. Not for them and not for you. So slow down by about 30%. Hold each pose a little longer than you would in a group. Allow silences let the student breathe for several cycles before the next instruction. The quiet is not empty, it's where the practice lands. And here's the piece nobody warns you about. The quiet will feel terrifying the first time. You'll be convinced your student thinks you've forgotten what you're doing. I promise you they don't. They think you are the most attentive teacher they have ever had 'cause you are. Roy used to tell me after sessions that the thing he valued most was that I just helped him feel better. That was hard for him to find at his level where people always needed something from him where everything he did was output focused. He came to yoga for the two hours a week where somebody was not asking anything of him. I could have wrecked that in the first few sessions by talking too much. Slow down. The third shift is consent in a group. Assists are offered at a distance. Maybe you use consent cards, class level opt-ins, a general announcement at the top of class. It's workable and it's appropriate for the scale in a private lesson. Consent is verbal, explicit, and ongoing. A yes in session one is not a yes. In session four, a yes to a hip assist is not a yes to a shoulder assist. You ask each time, I'd like to offer a hip assist in this pose. May I? Would you like me to demonstrate this on your body with my hands, or would it be easier if I demonstrate it on mine while you watch? I'll adjust one thing at a time. Let me know if anything doesn't land. If this sounds excessive, try it for two sessions. Your student will tell you if it's too much, and if they do, you can taper until then, ask every time. It is not clunky. It is professional, and it is the thing that makes a student feel safe enough to drop in all the way. The playbook has a full consent script template. You can adapt to your own voice. Three versions, one for hip, one for shoulder, one for head and neck. Practice them out loud until they sound like you. Before we talk about money, one more piece of craft that nobody gave me in training your scope. You are a yoga teacher. You are not a physical therapist, a psychotherapist, a trauma specialist, a nutritionist, or a yoga therapist, unless you do also hold those credentials, in which case you already know to bill for those services separately. Everything else lives outside your lane. This matters more in privates than it does in small groups because privates are intimate. A student alone with you on their living room floor is going to tell you things they would never say in a group class. They will ask you what you think they should do about their back pain, their insomnia, their marriage, their grief. You need a sentence, one sentence, warm, professional, and unapologetic. Here's mine. That's outside my scope of practice here. That is the whole sentence. You don't have to dress it up. You can add, here's a provider I would trust with that and hand them a name from your referral network. You are not being rude. You are being the exact kind of professional that your student is paying for, which means you need a referral network. Physical therapist, massage therapist, mental health professional, yoga therapist, primary care doc. You respect. Build the list before your first private, not during. Okay, let's have the money conversation. Let's talk about what this is worth, because most yoga teachers underprice their private lessons, not by a little, by a lot. And every time we do it, we undercut every other yoga teacher in our area trying to price the craft fairly. Here's the reframe I want to leave you with. When a private lesson costs more than a drop in group class, students take it more seriously. They turn up, they do the homework, they tell their friends. When you underprice, you're not being generous. You are training your student to treat the lesson as disposable. My starting line, bare minimum recommendation for a teacher fresh out of a 200 hour yoga teacher training is 75 US dollars an hour minimum aligned with local massage therapy rates. If an hour long session in your town is $90, a private yoga lesson should not be 50. Scale up by five to $10 per year of teaching experience. By year five, you're at 100 to 125 an hour or more. By year 10, more still. Now, let's do the math out loud. If you teach four group classes a week at, say, $40 a class from the studio, that's $160 a week. If you are placed two of those group classes with two privates at $120 each, that's $240 for less teaching at a few more privates, and you are making two to three times what the studio pays you for the same number of hours on your feet. And here's the part that actually matters. You are doing the most impactful teaching of your career 'cause you are finally teaching the craft. Your 200 hour didn't cover. Okay, here's where I tell you what I've been up to. I just finished building something called the Private Lesson Playbook. It is a six lesson course that walks you step by step through the entire private teaching craft, from knowing whether privates are even for you through designing your offer, choosing your venues, filling your pipeline, teaching the session itself, and then retaining clients and scaling when you're ready. I pulled this material out of mastering the art of yoga sequencing my mentorship membership, where it lives as one module inside a much bigger curriculum because I realized it deserved its own home. Teachers were asking me about private specifically over and over, and I wanted to be able to say, here this, start here. The six lessons are know yourself as a private teacher, who you serve, who you don't, and whether privates belong in your craft at all. Plan your private offering rates, packages, semi-private cancellation, policy scope, intake goals first, not injuries first, and I explain on the page why that matters legally and pedagogically. Venues for privates Studio. Their space. Your space or online. Each is a different kitchen, and the playbook will walk you through how to cook in each one, how to find and convert your private students, your pipeline. The one handshake away strategy for partnerships with trainers and PTs. The class mentioned script, the referral ask, and the website page. And teach your private lesson with confidence. The full session shape, the 6 4 2 applied to one body pacing consent homework, managing your nerves, and what to do when something goes wrong. Finally, how to evaluate, retain, and scale session notes, progress evaluation, raising your rates without apology, scaling options, referring out and ending relationships professionally. And then, and this is the part I'm really proud of. There's a big templates library. This is where I brag a little 17 templates. I might even add a few more built for my own practice. Here's a taste. The goals first intake form I mentioned earlier with the waiver language goals questionnaire and a logistics session. The cancellation policy language, you can copy into your booking confirmation email today. The policy that once you announce it clearly almost never has to be enforced. It's magic that way. The package pricing worksheet that does the per session math for you, so you can see at a glance whether your five pack discount is reasonable. The private lesson one pager, you can post on your website, the single URL you send. When anyone asks, tell me about your private lessons, the partnership outreach email you can send tomorrow to the personal trainer or the physical therapist in your town. Under 150 words, I have written it. You just fill in the name. The consent scripts for assists a few samples. The session plan worksheet with the 6 4 2 applied to one body, the homework handout template and the follow-up email template that together make retention almost automatic. The rate raise announcement. Email the exact words I use One paragraph, no apology. The scouting visit checklist for any new venue. The online private setup kit, camera, mic platform, the whole thing, the annual client review questions you sit with each December and more. 17 total. As I said, I may even add a few more. Here's what I want you to hear. Any one of these templates built from scratch is a weekend of your life. The intake form alone, the legal review, the goals versus injuries, logic, the waiver language, easily eight hours if you're doing it right. I already did that work for you 17 times. Here's the other thing I did, because I know my teachers and I know you learn differently depending on the day, the commute and whether your hands are free, you can consume the playbook three ways. Video. Each lesson has a companion short video if you like to watch me teach it. Start there. Private podcast. Each lesson is also available as a private podcast. Feed straight into your podcast app. You can listen on a walk, you can listen on a drive. If you learn best by listening, the private podcast is probably where you'll live. And clearly you're a fan of podcasts, so this is a great option for you. And written. The full written course with the six lessons, all the prompts, success checks, and the templates library is available as a beautifully formatted Google doc that you can read, annotate, translate into another language if you would rather read in another and write, write into, and you don't have to pick one, you get all three. It's the same price. You just get to choose however you like to learn. Now if you want my eyes on it, there are two upgrade paths because I know some of you want more than a course, you want some direct mentorship. First, you can hire me to review your work, your private lesson page, your intake form, your package design, your first session plan. Whatever you're building, I'll look at it and give you the feedback a trusted colleague would give over coffee. That's a one time thing. It can happen either live or asynchronously, and it's added on top of the playbook. Second, and this is the one I nudge you toward if you're in it for

the long haul, join MMM: 18:24

Mastering the Art of Yoga Sequencing, I call it MMM, because it's delicious. It's my Julia Child themed mentorship program and fully half of my 300 hour yoga teacher training. My review and mentorship are always included for the six months you are inside MMM. Every month, every piece of work you submit, and it's not a one-time review, it's an ongoing relationship. The playbook is the complete private teaching kit. MMM is the complete teaching practice with me in your corner. If you know you want to keep going for the long run, the latter is playbook first, MMM next. Details are at sagerountree.com/mentorship and in the show notes. Okay, let me land the plane. The private lesson playbook is your complete kit for having an outsized impact on your students while doubling or tripling your income over what studio classes pay you. That is the whole promise. It's a big one. I am not hedging. This is an outsized impact because teaching one person really well is the most impactful personal yoga teaching you will ever do. Two to three times your income because a single private lesson at a fair rate pays what three or four group classes pay. And you already know that this is true. If you've been honest with yourself for a minute, you've seen the teachers in your area who teach privates and you've seen the teachers who don't. The difference isn't talent. The difference is that one group figured out this craft and the other group is still teaching group class to one student in a living room and wondering why it falls flat. Now the private lesson playbook is normally $77 through May 31st as a launch sale. You can grab it for 57 US dollars. That's $57 for six lessons of the craft. Your 200 hour probably skipped 17 templates I built. So you don't have to. The three ways to consume it, video, private, podcast written, and a clear upgrade path. If you want my eyes on your work.$57 is the cost of one underpriced private lesson. You will earn that back on your first booking, probably on the cancellation fee from your first no-show once your cancellation policy is clearly in place. So come to comfort zone yoga.com/private and grab it. The sale ends May 31st. If you're hearing this after that, it's still there for you. It'll go to $77 and stay there if you're ready for the. Ongoing mentorship version, sagerountree.com/mentorship is where MMM lives. The playbook is inside already, so if you join MMM, you don't also need to buy the playbook. I'll leave you with the question I hold in all my teaching, the one I hold every time I'm about to work with any student. How can we best honor our role as teachers of this practice and the one student who trusts us with it? Sometimes the answer is to take the client on in a private capacity. Sometimes the answer is to refer them warmly to a colleague who's the better fit. Sometimes the answer is to teach the lesson the student needs, not the lesson they asked for. Let that question be your compass. And if the Private Lesson Playbook can be the map that goes with the compass, I would be honored to hand it to you. Comfort zone yoga.com/private,$57 through May 31st. Meanwhile, thank you so much for listening. This is Yoga Teacher Confidential. I'm Sage Rountree. I'll see you next time.