Yoga: What I Learned Teaching in New York

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Yoga Worries/Revelations

Pure Yoga New York

A year ago, I moved to New York City, having spent the previous 15 years successfully making my entire living teaching yoga in Salt Lake City. Honestly, I worried whether or not by moving to such a big town I'd drown in a sea of amazing yoga teachers and be forgotten and have to go and wait tables. 

Well, that didn't happen. On the contrary, I was able to land auditions and teaching gigs at some of the best yoga studios in New York and was completely delighted by my experience teaching yoga in New York. Even though my wife and I decided that New York isn't our forever place, my year there helped me to discover a few  essential things about teaching, things which I think you might be interested in. 

So, there are 8.5 million people in New York and it seems that every other person in New York is a yoga teacher. And while NYC has a lot of yoga teachers, I found that they aren't all good or very experienced teachers. And what I mean by a "good" teacher is one who is nuanced, ones who stands out, is original, and who has a lot of experience teaching anything other than a generic vinyasa flow class. 

Don't get me wrong, there were still a ton of extraordinary teachers in New York and one of the things that helped me stand out from other teachers and land some of those great teaching gigs was my ability to teach Yoga Nidra.
 

 

Standing Out

If you don’t know about Yoga Nidra, it’s a form of guided meditation that helps people reach profound levels of relaxation and awareness. It's very healing and illuminating. People love it because it's as profound as it is relaxing, anybody can do it, and people often get great mind-blowing results, from their very first session. 

Yoga Nidra is a bit of a niche practice but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how popular Yoga Nidra has become. Both in Salt Lake and New York, Yoga Nidra is always one of my greatest attended regular classes.

I’ve spent the last 10 years studying and teaching Yoga Nidra, and it's truly changed/revealed who I am  as a person and as a teacher. I hope you can tell how passionate I am about it. While receiving Yoga Nidra is relaxing and easy, teaching it can be very complex. I'd love to share my decade of experience teaching Yoga Nidra with you. 

 

Offerings

20-Hr. Yoga Nidra Immersion

Virtual or In-Person July 20–22 2018

While I’m in Salt Lake City for a few months, besides offering classes, privates, retreats, and trainings, I'm offering a 20-hr. Yoga Nidra Immersion (July 20–22). This Yoga Nidra immersion is a unique opportunity to learn about your own deep True Nature, as well as to learn how to teach Yoga Nidra, both to a group and in one-on-one sessions, which are conducted quite differently. You’ll get a certification with this training and it will count as continuing education hours with Yoga Alliance. Plus, you’ll be able to develop a skill that will immensely benefit your students, help you gain more students, and distinguish yourself from other yoga teachers, no matter where you teach. Yoga Nidra is also a great way to develop a robust online presence.

Besides teaching Yoga Nidra, New York taught me volumes about teaching in general and specifically my own teaching. I’m much more prepared to teach on a larger scale than before and I’m excited about new ways in which I’m growing as a teacher.

One thing I practiced and refined was how to get into some of the best yoga studios in the country. In my Yoga Teacher Mentor Program curriculum, I offer a proven strategy to get hired at the studio you want to teach at. It had been a while since I needed to "bust in" to a studio, and have never needed to audition to teach, but I followed my own strategy to get in and it worked like a charm. Of course I brought my best teaching to the audition, but with so many yoga teachers in NYC, even getting an audition is nearly impossible. My strategy to get hooked up with good studios even helped me to network with some of the best studios in the country outside of NYC, including making introductions to people who are running national yoga festivals

Even though not every NYC yoga teacher is fabulous, there are still plenty of really incredible teachers, many of whom I could learn from for the rest of my days. And there are enough great teachers in NYC such that I knew I had to bring my A-game to every class; there's no way I could phone it in.

Yoga Teacher Mentor Program

To ensure I was offering my best, I had to look at  many of the ways that my teaching had become stale or rote. Man, that's hard to do! As a teacher, I think it's hard to see the ways we've become stale because we think it's just the way we teach, or think that our way of teaching is a best practice of teaching. I was very fortunate to get some spot on feedback about my teaching from a nationally renowned teacher, feedback that helped me improve my teaching immensely. I began experimenting and tweeking small things about my teaching which made a big difference in the way my students received my teaching and what I felt of as my role as the teacher. 

If you are interested in really refining your practice of teaching, learning how to reach more students, or make a career from teaching yoga, I’d love to talk to you about my Yoga Teacher Mentor Program. This is a one-on-one mentorship where together, we develop a very personalized curriculum as we discover your talents and leverage them into helping you become an even more extraordinary teacher, making the kind of money you deserve. This mentor program pays for itself as new opportunities arise from the knowledge and experience you gain from this program. Plus, if you register for the Mentor Program, you’ll get the 20-hr. Yoga Nidra Immersion for free.

Wherever your life takes you, may you always teach yoga and may you always strive to bring your A-game. The world truly needs what only you have to offer. 

What are the ways in which you are growing as a teacher or know you need to grow as a teacher? Leave a comment!

Namaste,

Scott

yoga nidra offer
 

A New Meditation for a New Year

SOURCING YOUR TRUE POWER an online Yoga Nidra Course.

 

Basic Information:

  • 6 modules

  • Includes audio recordings, discussions, chants, lectures, videos, etc.

  • Recordings are yours to keep, repeat as often as you like

  • Connect to other students via social media

  • Perform at your own pace, at a time that works for you

Happy New Year!

We made it!

We've got a bright new year ahead of us, full of possibilities and opportunities. 

This is a great opportunity to set a powerful trajectory forward for possibilities in your life through setting intentions by practicing yoga and meditation.

Intentions are powerful. They streamline our forward movement. You ever hear the phrase, "If you're not sure where you want to go, any path will take you there?"

There's untold power in simply knowing what you want, even if you're not sure how to get there. A mentor once told me, "First, figure out what you want, then you'll figure out how you'll do it."

Both understanding what you want and setting the intentions for possibilities in the new year takes practice.

So I've created something to practice. It's a Yoga Nidra (guided meditation) recording designed to help you become very relaxed, define what amazing things you want for yourself, and then visualize what your life is going to look like when this thing happens. It's is an extremely powerful tool to help you to set forward motion for yourself.

The meditation is about 31 minutes long, so plan on setting aside just a little bit of time take care of yourself in this way. Plan on getting comfortable, lying down, and setting aside all other distractions. It's designed to make you feel very relaxed. Don't worry if you fall asleep, the part of you that I'm speaking to is still paying attention.

In yoga, Sankalpa means a slow growing seed of intention you plant in your heart through intention. This meditation plants the seed and starts to prepare the soil for it to grow and to bloom. With the help of this meditation, you'll find your life begin to open up in new and exciting ways.

I've made two versions, one with background music, and one without. You can stream or download them by clicking the buttons below. 

I hope you enjoy this recording, everyone. Share it with anyone you want. Consider practicing it regularly, maybe daily for a week or so, then at least once or twice a week after that. Come back to it regularly to keep your mind and heart honed to your forward motion of 2017. 

And if you're interested in learning more about the mind-blowing practice of Yoga Nidra, consider registering for my online Yoga Nidra course, Sourcing Your True Power.  It's dedicated to the idea that you are more powerful than you can imagine and through this illuminating practice of Yoga Nidra, you can Source Your True Power. I loved putting it together and I'm really proud of it. You can see more details below and I'll be sending out more information about it. 

Happy New Year! 

Scott


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