132: The Journey From Student To Thriving Teacher with Emily Anderson

The Mentor Sessions

The yoga world has changed so much in the last 5 years, and more and more yoga teachers are finding they need to build and create their own opportunities to teach. Even before the pandemic it was nearly impossible to build a full time career teaching group classes at studios. The pay is too low, the opportunities too rare and the workload is way too high to exclusively teach at a yoga studio.

But paving your own path can be challenging, especially if you don’t see anyone like you doing it. That is why I’m so excited to introduce you to Emily Anderson. No one is paving their own path better than she is.

Emily Anderson (she/her) is a self employed yoga therapist in training. She shares yoga as a way to reconnect with the body and mind, process trauma or pain, and to build resiliency in a fatphobic, ableist world. Her virtual studio All Bodies Welcome Yoga centers folks who are fat, chronically ill, disabled, and/or looking for an accessible yoga class outside of diet culture and fitness spaces. Emily invites students to explore with gentleness, empathy, fun, and patience, and to shed body shame and comparisons.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what led Emily to want to be a teacher and her journey from student to teacher

• what it is like to train to be a yoga therapist and Emily’s teaching schedule

• how Emily got established in her local community and created her own teaching opportunities

• the kind of business education that is missing from foundational teacher training

• how Emily supplemented the missing business education with her own research

Learn More From Emily + Resources Mentioned:

• Emily’s website

• Emily on Instagram

• Small Business Development Centers

• SCORE Mentors

• Emily’s Marketing Coach

• Inner Peace Yoga Therapy

• A video of Emily’s first yoga teacher, Arthur, and his journey to regain mobility (tw: some weight loss talk)

• Joseph Le’s Yoga Toolbox