Why Yoga teachers are hired & fired on a regular basis

Though it’s not for the reasons you might expect

When I teach yoga teacher training, there’s something I like to tell new teachers early on: as a yoga teacher, you’re going to be hired and fired all the time.

I don’t necessarily mean by a studio.

Every time a student walks into your class for the first time and decides to return, in a way, they’ve hired you.

And every time someone who has practiced with you once, eleven times, or for several years stops coming, you’ve been fired.

That can sound harsh when you’re a new teacher. You’ve put so much into your training, your sequencing, your music, your cues, your understanding of the practice. When someone doesn’t come back, it’s remarkably easy to wonder: Was it something I did?

Sometimes it was.

Often, it wasn’t.

And learning to live comfortably with that uncertainty is one of the quieter parts of becoming a yoga teacher.

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Why do students stop coming to a yoga teacher?

The short answer is that students leave yoga classes for all kinds of reasons: schedule, location, price, life changes, teaching style, personality, physical needs, or simply because they want something different.

A student disappearing from your class doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing something wrong.

Think about how you choose a class yourself.

Some days you want a particular teacher. Other days, the class at 6:00 p.m. simply works better than the one at 7:30. You might follow a teacher across town because something about their approach speaks to you, then discover another practice that feels more appropriate six months later.

Students are no different.

They have jobs, relationships, children, injuries, financial pressures, changing bodies and changing priorities.

And yes, sometimes they simply don’t like your class.

That’s allowed too.

Not every student will connect with the way you teach

One student may love your voice while another finds it distracting.

Someone may adore your sequencing while somebody else wants something slower.

Your attention to philosophy may be exactly why one student returns every week and precisely why another goes looking for a more physically focused practice.

There’s a temptation here, especially when you’re establishing yourself as a yoga teacher, to try to become everything to everyone.

I don’t think that makes us better teachers.

It can actually take us further away from understanding what we genuinely have to offer.

Your job isn’t to be everyone’s yoga teacher

There’s a difference between listening to useful feedback and continually reshaping yourself in the hope that nobody will leave.

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Feedback can make us better.

If several students struggle to understand the same cue, perhaps the cue needs work. If people consistently feel rushed, there may be something worth examining in your pacing. If a studio gives you thoughtful feedback about your class, listen.

Remaining a student includes being willing to see our own blind spots.

But one person preferring another teacher isn’t evidence that you need to reinvent yourself.

Sometimes the chemistry simply isn’t there.

That’s true of yoga teachers, coaches, therapists, hairdressers, restaurants — almost any relationship built partly around personal preference.

Sometimes students leave because life changes

Over the years, I’ve seen students come and go for reasons that have very little to do with yoga itself.

They move.

Their work schedule changes.

They have a baby.

They can no longer afford the classes.

Their body needs a different kind of practice.

They lose interest in yoga for a while.

The studio is no longer convenient.

They find a teacher they connect with differently.

Sometimes you may never know why somebody stopped coming.

That can be uncomfortable because our minds like explanations. When we don’t have one, we’re very good at inventing one.

She hated my class.

I shouldn’t have said that.

Everyone prefers the new teacher.

Maybe.

Or perhaps Tuesday evenings simply stopped working for her.

Popularity can disappear as quickly as it arrives

There’s another version of being “hired” that yoga teachers encounter.

You start teaching at the studio everyone suddenly wants to visit. Your classes fill. Your social media grows. People talk about you. You feel as though something has finally clicked.

Enjoy it.

Just don’t confuse popularity with permanence.

Yoga has trends like everything else. Studios become fashionable. Styles come in and out of favour. New teachers arrive. Students become curious about the next thing.

If someone found us because we were teaching at the place of the moment, they may eventually move on to the next place of the moment.

That doesn’t diminish what happened while they were practicing with us.

A student doesn’t need to stay forever for the relationship to have mattered.

What should you do when students stop coming?

First, resist the urge to immediately interpret their absence as rejection.

Then get curious.

If there’s genuine feedback available, hear it. If you notice a pattern, pay attention. Keep learning. Keep practicing. Keep developing your ability to teach the person in front of you rather than the imaginary perfect student in your head.

And then allow some people to leave.

For me, the foundations are fairly simple:

• Stay passionate about sharing yoga.
• Remain a student yourself.
• Keep your own practice alive.
• Be willing to receive feedback without allowing every opinion to define you.
• Accept that you will never be everyone’s teacher.
• Teach generously rather than trying to make students dependent on you.
• Give students room to grow beyond what you can offer them.
• Remember that ultimately the practice is the teacher.
• Stay grounded in who you are instead of constantly comparing yourself with other teachers.

That last one can be particularly difficult.

It’s easy to look across the studio and wonder why another teacher has 28 people while you have nine.

But nine people chose to spend part of their day practicing with you.

Teach those nine.

A good yoga teacher should want students to grow beyond them

I sometimes think teaching yoga has something in common with raising children.

We don’t want students to remain exactly where they were when they met us. We want them to develop discernment, curiosity and confidence in their own practice.

Perhaps eventually they need something we cannot give them.

Good.

Maybe they find another teacher who takes them somewhere else.

Good.

Perhaps they eventually become teachers themselves and know far more about certain aspects of yoga than we ever will.

Even better.

The purpose of teaching isn’t to create lifelong dependence on the teacher.

It’s to help create more capable students.

The most important teacher isn’t standing at the front of the room

One of the beautiful things about yoga is that, eventually, the student begins listening differently.

They learn to notice their breath.

Their body.

Their reactions.

The places where they push unnecessarily and the places where they habitually retreat.

A teacher can help create the conditions for that awareness, but we cannot own it.

At some point, students discover that one of their most important teachers is within.

And perhaps that means our job was successful.

Teaching yoga is also a practice in letting go

We often talk about non-attachment in yoga as though it belongs exclusively on the mat or meditation cushion.

Then teaching gives us a wonderfully practical opportunity to experience it.

A class fills.

A class empties.

A student arrives.

Another leaves.

Someone tells you that your class changed their life.

Someone else never comes back.

You keep practicing.

You keep learning.

You teach the people who are there.

Teaching yoga gives us the opportunity to share a practice that can strengthen and open the body, steady attention and create space for deeper self-inquiry. But teaching also asks something from the teacher.

It asks us to care deeply without gripping too tightly.

To keep showing up without requiring a particular result.

To understand that being a meaningful teacher in somebody’s life doesn’t necessarily mean being their teacher forever.

Being hired and fired is part of being a yoga teacher

If you’re a new yoga teacher worried because students have stopped coming, don’t rush to either extreme.

Don’t immediately assume you failed.

And don’t automatically tell yourself it has nothing to do with you.

Stay curious enough to learn and grounded enough not to turn every departure into a judgment of your worth.

Some students will practice with you once.

Some for a season.

Some for years.

A few may disappear and unexpectedly walk back into your class much later.

That coming and going is part of teaching.

It’s also, when you think about it, remarkably similar to yoga itself: show up, pay attention, learn what there is to learn, and practice letting go of the outcome.

I keep returning to these words from yoga teacher Sylvie Gouin:

“May we be blessed with the courage to always keep up and the wisdom to always let go.”

For yoga teachers, I can’t think of a much better reminder.

And while you can’t be the right teacher for everyone, you can make it easier for the right students to discover what makes your teaching yours. POSE FOR A CAUSE is our YOGI TIMES initiative giving individual yoga teachers the opportunity to be featured through one pose, one story and the practice they want to share with the world.