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SCMP Reporter

All In A Day's Work:
Ongoing training, a passion for teaching and a love of yoga are the building blocks of Maggie Tan's career as a programme manager at mYoga
I got into this business  by accident. I'd given up my original job as I wasn't happy there and started  doing Pilates. I'd done some ballet in my youth and initially started teaching Pilates at California Fitness. In terms of alignment and what my body could do, this fed into yoga.
I started doing yoga about five years ago as a casual student. I got interested in it and did a certification course through one of the teachers associated with California Fitness.
I started teaching at the gym and continued my yoga training with Michel Besnard, a teacher associated with Sravaniya DiPecararo, one of the early yoga teachers in Hong Kong.   I'm now training with a yoga guru from Australia.
As a yoga teacher, learning is ongoing and self-practice is a vital part of the learning process. I manage the yoga programme at mYoga  on a typical work day.
I start at about 8.30am or 9am. If I'm not teaching in the morning, I'll check my e-mails and do administrative work. Usually, I have classes in the morning or in the early afternoon, then fit in a two-hour practise session, before doing some more administrative work, or attend meetings, meet up with my staff and so on. Then I go home and get to be a  mother. Over one week I probably teach from 10 classes to as many as 15, if I have to cover for someone. Most classes are an hour long, but some last  11/2 hours. The number of students ranges  from six to 20.
I love teaching. You get the chance to meet and interact with all types of people and help develop their practice.  These are the most rewarding parts of my job.
The most challenging part of my job is doing the administrative work, but someone has to do it. It's very hard to make a recommendation to other people thinking of joining the yoga business.  It depends on where you teach, or on what style of  yoga you want to do. If you're looking at teaching at a big studio, such as mYoga, where you teach big classes you need to learn how to communicate effectively with a large group of people. Yoga enthusiasts can take certification programmes if they want to be yoga teachers. The type of teacher training really depends on the person, time, cost and style of yoga.
However, the general way for people to get into the business  is to consider the 200-hour yoga teacher certification, which provides a good start.
Integrity, compassion and a love for the practice of yoga make a good yoga teacher. You also need to believe in yoga and should be interested in sharing this with people. You need to care about what the student does and to be interested in teaching, rather than acting like a star on stage.
There's a shortage of yoga teachers thanks to the expansion of yoga studio operators in Hong Kong. There are definitely  increasing opportunities in the mainland if you look in the newspapers as new centres are always opening up with a need for good teachers.



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