Corporate Yoga: 5 Quick & Easy Tips To Start A Corporate Yoga Program
Corporate yoga is a great yoga teacher income stream. Here are five quick and easy tips to get you started.
Tip 1
Evernote
Get super organised by putting all your “workplace yoga” ideas and processes into your Evernote. I personally don’t know how I managed to survive in my busy life without Evernote, and the best part is that it’s 100% free. That deserves a “Yipppeeee” and maybe a little jig.
Tip 2
Extra Mats
Bring 3 or 4 extra mats because, yes you’ve guessed it, at least 3 or 4 people will forget their mats.
Tip 3
How Many?
Find out approximately how many employees will be coming along. If you don’t have enough yoga mats, see “The Yoga Mat Dilemma” tip below.
Tip 4
Yoga Mat Dilemma
You’ll need to create a step-by-step process for transporting your workplace yoga from business to business. And yes, add that process to your Evernote.
First of all, how are you going to organise the mats so you can easily carry them to the venue. If you have 30 yoga mats and the venue is a fairly long walk from the car park, you’ll spend 30 minutes lugging the mats to and fro. Plus, you’ll need a really big car! Here’s how I get around this “yoga mat dilemma“. I explain to the Big Cheese (e.g. HR manager) that the yoga workplace program is a tiny investment for the corporation. All they need to spend is a one time payment of £300 for the yoga mats (20 students x £15 yoga mats = £300). And £70 a week for your yoga class. For a corporation this is a tiny amount to pay for healthier, happier employees.
I then ask them to store the mats somewhere near the room (or have a member of staff lay the mats out before I get there). Whatever you do, don’t be a dog’s body! Forget about lugging around mats and props! Instead purchase the mats and props for the corporation and make a little profit (e.g a 20% markup). Plus, you can recommend to the corporation that the employees can take their mats home with them (for a home practice), as long as they remember to bring them to your class.
Tip 5
Yin Yoga Focus
Focus on Yin Yoga for your workplace yoga program.
You might be tempted to include testing arm balances, deep twists and tricky headstands, but leave them for your normal yoga classes. Instead give your workplace yoga students a simple sequence that stretches, strengthens and relaxes. I also recommend including breathing exercises, guided meditations and mantras because they all help to reduce stress levels.
Corporate yoga is usually taught during lunch breaks which means the employees need to go from their mat straight back to work. Exhausting them with 108 sun salutations and leaving them in a pool of sweet won’t make you win any friends amongst the management (or the employees).
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