Let it grow naturally
Start small, teach classes and build your community with care. Within time, if you’ve got it right, word-of-mouth will spread, and people will come looking for you. Make sure you have great signposting so people can book with ease whether it is through a website or social media. Then, effortlessly, just increase your classes to a level that works for you, your lifestyle and your family. In 2009 when my daughter was four years and my son was ten months old I started with one class a week, the following year I was teaching three, two years later when my son went to school I increased it to five classes and two years after that I was running twelve classes a week! I realised for me that was too many and settled at around eight classes a week for a few years, working the classes around my family and my life. That way it was always doable, and most importantly enjoyable. If you’re not enjoying it, what’s the point?
Listen and follow your community’s needs
When I started teaching yoga eleven years ago, I was a new mum myself, so it felt right to teach new, pregnant and birthing mums. As my community’s children grew, so my children grew too. Naturally I wanted to study more to continue supporting my own family, therefore I was able to support my community too. As I grew they grew, as they grew I grew. I have always been part of my tribe – not the controller of it – as they are me, and I am them, I understand what they need now, and what they will need next. As my children grow and the ZenMuma family’s children grow, so we hold classes in toddler yoga, kids’ yoga and teen yoga. Now, some of my community have been around for a decade or more, so they are looking for more from my offerings. In 2017 I launched the ZenMuma Teacher Training School so I could train up women, to teach other women, pregnancy, baby and kids yoga classes. Therefore, widening our service to the whole of the country, even to the international tribe of ZenMuma women. Women supporting women through motherhood, one of the most important journeys of our life. In 2018 there was a new calling I responded to, women needing self-care yoga retreats, which I offered around the world from Thailand to Morocco, always being mindful to work with local businesswomen, who were also yogis themselves. This year our community asked for us to provide the 200-hour yoga teacher training course which we launched with our sister company Big Sky.