Why Plan Workshops or Series?
Planning a series of classes or workshops can bring some powerful benefits:
- Planning a series of classes or a workshop gives you the opportunity to promote the upcoming focus, thereby encouraging current and new students to preregister.
- In the case of series, students may be more inspired to attend regularly to experience the promised path of study.
- Series and workshops usually earn more per student and/or encourage more regular attendance, thereby generating additional revenue.
- You have the opportunity to take a higher and more strategic perspective, enabling you to delve more deeply into topics you love and/or progress through a series of related topics. This gives students who attend regularly the opportunity to focus in on a practice in a deeper or fuller way, likely experiencing greater impact. (But the progression of classes need not require previous attendance unless you specifically wish to offer such a series.)
- You must plan ahead of time and therefore have an opportunity to be mindful and responsive to the season, holidays and other considerations. (For example, be prepared to hold a workshop on Goddess mythology around the time of Navratri, or to hold a series on Restorative Yoga to cool and balance students during the heat of summer.)
- With advance planning, you can immerse yourself in the teaching ahead of time if you wish.
- With a predetermined focus, classes are less likely to feel stale, disjointed or too busy.
- You can condense your planning time into a few specific, focused times. If you rarely plan, your focus will pay dividends. And if you’re often trying to fit in mini-planning times, your advance planning of multiple classes means you can avoid the stress of feeling anxious about planning prior to every class.
Making it Happen
We make it easier for you to plan workshops or series, which can help you to secure student commitments and extra revenue. We save you planning time so that you can go deeper into the areas where you add the most value. The world needs you to be sharing the inspirational teachings that you love to share!
Getting Started
- Decide on series title and focus.
- Even if you don’t plan specific workshops, you may wish to promote the benefits of your upcoming classes to encourage student commitment and attendance.
- Plan location and dates.
- Promote your upcoming offerings via your personal channels and co-promote with a studio, co-presenter or other partners.
Taking Reservations & Payments
The standard process for scheduling students and taking payment has been for a yoga studio to handle registration on behalf of their teachers. Phone and online registration via a studio has been, of course, the primary way that students have signed up for workshops for some time. And, of course, this is still a clear and simple option for many teachers who have studio connections.
In addition, some teachers may choose to handle their own online registration. It appears the tools to do so are increasing and we hope to learn more to share with you. Have you tried schedulicity? We are not familiar with it nor have we gotten teacher feedback but they seem to be targeting yoga teachers. Do you have other tools you use? We encourage you to ask your colleagues, test out a tool, and let us know what you think.
Sample Topics
We’ve got 20 different topic suggestions (in our member area) here. We’ve broken out the topics into series lasting anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks, and we include quick links to teaching content. For example, perhaps you would like to offer a series that covers asana categories or families. In a series of 4 to 8 classes, you could cover such topics as:
- Pose Categories & Families
- Standing Poses, Balancing
- Forward Bends
- Backbends
- Twists
- Core Strengthening & Arm Balances
- Inversions
- Restoratives
- Balanced Class Sequence
The links above are for really spectacular member content, but even without membership, you can get Student Handouts in our Store. See samples and more information below.
Student Handouts
We offer professionally-designed student handouts for various series topics. The content is top-notch and will add value to your offering. You can use the strategic flow of the handouts to guide your workshop structure, or simply offer them as background to support in-class practice. Prices as low as $12 each, including rights to copy and distribute to your students.
See excerpts and a sample below, and find them all in the Store.
To see a complete Student Handout, click below. We think you’ll agree that it is:
- Beautifully designed
- Clearly presented with excellent content
- Brief enough to be inviting; deep enough to add real value
- Strategic and organized; can guide your own class planning, or can simply serve as value-added support for students
Please let us know what you think and if there’s anything else you need.
Workshop Handout – Forward Bending
Choose from the following series topics. Each bulleted item is a separate Student Handout. To see the content covered in each handout, go to the Store.
Asana Categories
- Forward Bending
- Backbending
- Twisting
- Core Strengthening
- Balancing
- Inversions
Ayurveda & Yoga
- Introduction
- Doshas
- Dosha-Balancing Asana
- Diet & Lifestyle
Eight Limbs
- Eight Limbs Introduction
- Yamas
- Niyamas
Stress & Yoga
- Nervous System
- Yoga for Stress Reduction
- Breathing Practices
- Yoga Nidra
Surya Namaskar
- Overview
- Asana & Sequences
- Alignment & Devotional Practices
- Variations
