Yoga is a multi-billion dollar business and an attractive career option for youth and adults aspiring to teach this ancient Indian mind and body healing science: Indra Gidwani From a relatively unknown spiritually uplifting discipline, today yoga has become a transnational cultural phenomenon with millions of practitioners worldwide and a dedicated International Yoga Day. The fact that yoga is a multi-billion dollar business has also made it an attractive career option for youth and adults aspiring to make a living by teaching this ancient Indian mind and body healing science. There are different schools of yoga including Hatha yoga, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kundalini, Vinyasa etc and each of them requires separate dedicated training for a few years to qualify as a teacher. The best teachers live their yoga practices on and off the mat. It takes many years of systematic practice to make a good yoga — as any other — teacher. Study Programmes Yoga instructors are essentially fitness professionals who teach yoga, a low impact exercise that uses controlled posture (asana) and breathing techniques (pranayama) to improve physical strength and flexibility. However, all yoga instructors must complete a basic training and certificate programme, with the option of specialising in a particular discipline. There are numerous well-known yoga institutes such as Iyengar Institute, Pune; Ramdev Institute, Rishikesh; the Anahata Retreats, Mumbai for Kundalini Yoga training and several specialising in other yoga disciplines. Pay & Perks Aspiring yoga teachers/instructors should budget for a modest start. Initially, most yoga practitioners start their careers by teaching in schools and colleges or as counsellors or instructors in hospitals and rehabilitation centres. A beginner won’t earn much until she builds a strong clients base of satisfied customers. Starting income will vary between Rs.400-900 per hour depending upon the policy of the employer institution and teacher’s experience. However, the rising popularity of yoga among high-income celebrities makes teaching yoga a lucrative profession for expert practitioners. Yoga teachers of the rich and famous charge astronomical sums, that are willingly paid, for yoga training can be — and usually is — a life changing experience. Unsurprisingly, thousands of youth sign up for training programmes to become yoga teachers every year. “Given the rate at which the popularity of yoga is growing, we will need all these and more teachers to fill the gap between demand and supply,” says Bijay J. Anand, a Kundalini yoga teacher and founder of Anahata Retreats, a Mumbai-based yoga institute that attracts acclaimed teachers of yoga, Ayurveda, wellness and spirituality from around the world to teach students and seekers of knowledge in Goa, Ladakh and New Zealand among other locations. Anand’s journey began 25 years ago after he experienced the uplifting and healing power of yoga for mind, body and soul. Since then, he has deeply studied and schooled himself in Asthanga, Vinayasa and Hatha branches of this classical discipline. But it was his first experience of Kundalini yoga under the tutelage of one of its most revered practitioners — Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa — that…
