Amy Ippoliti - The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga: The Yoga Professional’s Guide to a Fulfilling Career

Praise for The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga

In the midst of the gold rush toward the yoga profession in America and abroad, here is an astute and well-crafted book that helps teachers and studio owners navigate the challenges of this burgeoning profession. I wish Id had it twenty-five years ago when I first started teaching yoga. The is a jewel of a resource for all of us in the yoga industry.

TIAS LITTLE, founder of Prajna Yoga

Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith are expertly qualified to enlighten aspiring and experienced yoga teachers on how to thrive as a teacher, while ensuring that they honor their life outside of the profession. Get ready to make your mark; The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga is the comprehensive, nuts-and-bolts guide for a sustainable, successful, and fulfilling yoga teaching career.

ROD STRYKER, author of The Four Desires and founder of ParaYoga

The modern transformation of yoga over the past fifty years has caused us to rethink its definition, purpose, and meaning. Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith provide indispensable guidance for any student, teacher, or businessperson who aims to understand yoga then and now. Their hard-won experience, integrity, and insight are applied to yogas complex history, theory, and practice. Both accurate and accessible, this is the book to read if you want to teach yoga in the modern world of business and understand how business is yet another kind of yoga.

DR. DOUGLAS R. BROOKS, professor of religion, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York

A must-read for yoga teachers both new and experienced. This toolbox of teaching tips and business advice will help you walk your talk and build a successful and impactful career.

CARA BRADLEY, author of On the Verge and founder of Verge Yoga

I am excited about what this book represents for the yoga industry. Thank you, Amy and Taro, for bridging the challenging divide between yoga education and money. Rejoice, yoga teachers now you can learn how to pay your rent too! Dont wait to get a copy and apply its practices and wisdom to your work every day.

PATRICK HARRINGTON, owner of Kindness Yoga and director of the Nosara Yoga Institute

Amy Ippolitis teaching style has had a profound impact on my home yoga practice, and Im excited to see how this text transforms my yoga teaching practice!

JESSAMYN STANLEY, international yoga teacher

With its balanced approach to staying inspired and organized, this book offers simple guidance for developing your career while avoiding the pitfalls that commonly hold new teachers back and keep existing teachers from breaking through to the next level. I highly recommend it!

HEATHER PETERSON, CorePower Yoga National Director for Teacher Training

Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith share a plethora of insights showing that yoga is not only an Eastern art or a spiritual journey but also a noble career path when approached with honesty, integrity, creativity, and business savvy.

MANORAMA, founder of the Sanskrit Studies Method and the Luminous Soul Method

This book contributes a unique blend of creativity, wisdom, and accessible tools to greatly benefit all yoga teachers, new and seasoned alike!

CLAUDINE AND HONZA LAFOND, founders of YogaBeyond

You wont find any false promises in The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga, and you will realize that, like any other business, teaching yoga takes work, discipline, and diligence.

COLLEEN SAIDMAN YEE, author of Yoga for Life

Making a living as a yoga teacher requires entrepreneurial vision and business insight. In addition to helping teachers become more skillful with their craft, The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga demystifies the business and marketing landscape of being a yoga professional subjects that nearly every yoga professional can use more support with!

JASON CRANDELL, Yoga Journal contributing editor

Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith are the ultimate power duo when it comes to combining the worlds of yoga, teaching, and business. Im so happy to have their voice encouraging teachers to expand intelligently and thoughtfully.

KATHRYN BUDIG, author of Aim True and The Womens Health Big Book of Yoga

Copyright 2016 by Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith, PhD

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for educational purposes only. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

First printing, June 2016
ISBN 978-1-60868-227-0
Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-228-7
Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to all yoga teachers past, present, and future who serve as community leaders, heroes, and mentors.

Your gifts are helping to change the world.

Contents

As a teen in the mid-eighties , I took my first yoga class before sticky mats existed. I read the Tao Te Ching, volunteered with environmental organizations, and spent my summers immersed in nature, community, and marching on Washington for animal rights and the environment.

I became a yoga teacher at age twenty-seven, after eleven years of strictly asana practice. I knew that there was much more to yoga than just physical postures. Though I felt too young and unqualified to be a yoga teacher, my teacher, Cyndi Lee, had just started training teachers and welcomed me once Id gathered the courage to apply to her training.

That first training satisfied my craving to understand even just a fraction of the infinite mystery of yoga. And through Cyndis belief in me, I felt brave enough to become a teacher.

After the training, I started hanging out with other yogis who shared similar values. They too preferred to live in rhythm with nature, to be aware in their bodies, and to be mindful about how their choices affected the earth. As we practiced more and more yoga, our sensitivity to everything in the world around us increased: to our relationships with our loved ones, to food, to strangers, and to how we chose to spend our money.

Back then, a career as a yoga teacher was unheard-of. Until the mid-nineties, many people thought of yoga teachers as super-far-out whack-a-doodles who led classes in their darkened living rooms on thick red shag carpets, with incense and candles burning. People my age were supposed to join the real world of nine-to-five work and responsibility. I tried and failed to get with this program. I wanted more time for reflection and study, more flexibility (pardon the pun) with my schedule, and the companionship of others who shared my ideals. And I also very much wanted to help others feel and be their best selves.