Whether you are building your yoga website or teaching at a gym, studio, or festival, you will need a good biography.
Start with role models. Look online at the bios of your favorite teachers, both those with a national visibility, with whom you may have studied online or at a workshop or festival, and the local luminaries. What qualities do good bios have in common? A good biography is as much about the reader as it is about the teacher, making it clear how people will feel after taking a class or a workshop from the teacher. It should show personality rather than simply listing credentials. It doesn’t need to be cutesy, but it does need to convey the essence of the teacher.
Here’s the bio I use on my studio site:
As an athlete, endurance sports coach, and continuing student of yoga, Sage Rountree understands the trickiness of balancing training and a yoga practice. Sage’s classes emphasize intention and efficiency—using the right form and the right breath for the task at hand. There’s plenty of attention to core, the hips, and using the body, breath, and mind to focus. An Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance at the highest level (E-RYT 500), Sage has over nineteen years’ experience teaching yoga to students of all levels and backgrounds, including several UNC teams and Coach Roy Williams. Co-owner of the studio, director of our teacher trainings, and the author of nine books, including The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga, Everyday Yoga, Lifelong Yoga, Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, and The Professional Yoga Teacher’s Handbook, Sage has also written for Yoga Journal, Runner’s World, Lava Magazine, and USA Triathlon Magazine.
carolinayogacompany.com
While it ends with a curriculum vitae–style rundown of my published works, it gives an overview of what students can expect from my classes, then grounds my work in the context of our university town, where the basketball coach is a celebrity. To see other examples of a range of biography lengths and focuses, you’ll find my media kit at my resources page for The Professional Yoga Teacher’s Handbook.
These questions will prompt you. Answer them in as much detail as you like. Then cull the best sentences and phrases from your answers and distill them into a one- or two-paragraph biography.
- What first brought you to yoga? What were your revelations from your first few classes?
- What does yoga mean to you?
- Who and what have been your greatest teachers? While you may be tempted to simply list everyone you’ve ever studied with, can you think outside the box?
- How has your practice changed over the years?
- How do you want students to feel in your class? How do you want them to feel after your class? What would you like to hear them say to each other on the way out the door?
The Professional Yoga Teacher’s Handbook is full of advice and prompts like this! Pick it up from me, at your favorite bookseller, or by requesting it from your local library. It’s available in print, e-book, and audiobook editions.