Yoga from the other side

Last week was an interesting first week back to the routine.

The week before, I had rifled through sock baskets and did last minute shops, emails/sign-ups and registers etc to get my four boys back on track in their respective school lives (breathe). They all have sufficient, if not universally ironed and pressed, uniform. They have a time-table. They have extracurricular. Their lives will fall into a comforting albeit sometimes tedious synchronicity and before we know it, the routine will end and it will be Christmas. And I will then drink too much and they will rot in their teenage pits for at least 2 weeks/ and or in front of a brain-melting screen. In between we may play charades or go for a walk. You know the score.

This week was supposed to be about waving goodbye at the school gate and bus stop and finally, after 6 whole weeks, getting back to MY routine. MINE. ME!! Who the hell is that even?

But MY routine disappeared! It is hard to say exactly when I decided that my yoga classes would not work out this half term, but it felt like I had been holding the knowledge all summer and last Thursday I just knew.

It would be boring and tedious to discuss the pitfalls of being a self-employed yoga teacher in this blog but it comes down to basic costs to profit accountancy and self-esteem.

If there was a simple solution, every yoga teacher out there would be doing it, but the reality is that most rely on a main secondary income and prefer the reliability of being employed by a studio, despite the very low remuneration. I have a lot to consider. But the point I want to make is that like every teacher I know, I don't expect to be well paid, I don't do it for the money but I do value my time. So I'm scratching my head a little as to where I go from here but I'm not downhearted. I know I'll be back when it's right and with something right for my customer.

So where am I now? I'm the other side of the customer/ service provider relationship. I'm giving myself the wonderful luxury of attending yoga classes for the first time (regularly) in two years!! It is definitely time to go back to the mat as a student, to return to a beginner's mindset, to learn. I absolutely love teaching yoga, I will never stop but I can pause.

I've been reflecting on my average customer and why it's so hard to get them to commit to a regular yoga class.

I know the answer.

I am my average customer!

Three months ago I bought a 10-class pass at a local "temperature-focused" yoga studio (little hint there). I have been so BUSY with LIFE that I didn't manage to book or attend a single class and the pass has expired. I won't be doing that again.

I was also too busy to "freeze" my local "ENORMOUS gym facility" membership over the summer holidays. I haven't been for 2 months: £140 poof like that. Of course the routine went out of the window the day the boys finished their GCSES and I resumed my role as chief taxi driver and protein-based feast provider.

And then finally today, I woke up at 5 am full of energy. I have no idea what is wrong with me, but I did.

"This is the day," I think. "I will book a yoga class at the best studio of all time with my favourite teacher!" (based in a canal-side village where they are famous for bread - you must know where I mean?).

But despite my 5 am start it has been a morning where the golden retriever decided to disappear in the local woodland for 1.5 hours before the school run. The small child is still asleep when I finally stagger home with a hedge-straggled dog. The husband heads off and the small child may or may not be ill, may or may not take an hour to eat his breakfast but either way, Im not getting to that yoga class. Cue music: DUM DUM DUM. ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST....

If you are reading this you are my target customer and I am exactly the same as you!! If I ever find the solution to this conundrum of time-tabling a yoga class for the permanently frazzled, bewildered and over-burdened women in our community, I will absolutely be letting you know. Until then, good luck. And don't give up trying.

Love Katy X