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ECA NEWS FOR FITNESS PROFESSIONALS ECA News Taking YogaFit Global By Beth Shaw I believe that the most challenging jobs and most obscure positions can help you prepare to start and grow your own business. Through your past experience, you gain the opportunity to think from the mind of an employee, see things from diverse perspectives, incorporate your past skills and learn many, many lessons. I share this story because even if you get fired from a job, you can be successful in your own business. This is the story about how I transformed my passion for yoga into a profession. I have been working in the business realm since I was 15 years old. When I was in high school I worked after school every day doing collections for a giftware company. Throughout college I worked a multitude of food service jobs and after completing a four-year honors degree in Business Marketing, I moved back to NYC. In the late 1980’s the job market in New York was gloomy. Taking and failing several typing tests left me working as an assistant at a media buying firm. I developed great envy for the women who were in their 30’s and had successful careers - I wanted to be just like them. But, I also wanted to excel at a pace too quick to fit the company’s needs. I soon found myself out of a job--fired! At that point, I moved to California where I worked in advertising sales for many years, first for a militant company where I kept hours from 6:45 am to 5:00pm. I was written up every time I was late and tapped on the shoulder every time I was not on a sales call. So, once again I found myself out of a job. I was then offered the position of Western Advertising Manager for a trade magazine based of out Ohio. My discipline was tested since, for the first time, I became MY OWN BOSS. Of course, I had to answer to a manager in Ohio, but like any salesperson, my income and job depended on my productivity and sales. It was at this time that I became more involved with my yoga practice by taking certifications, teaching and creating concepts for YogaFit. Yoga was simply taking up too much time. So when YogaFit started to grow, I lost my corporate job along with its six-figure salary, medical benefits and expense account. Naturally, I was scared. But, I did not love advertising sales. I loved yoga. I figured I could always get another job. In late 1994, Sport Center Fitness in Redondo Beach approached me to create what would become the first "yoga center within a health club." The club owner was a huge fan of mine and felt that creating an in-house "yoga center" would really be a great outlet for member retention and to attract new members. We converted a former golf room into a yoga center that I ran and staffed. By 1996 it was wildly successful and became the model for many other clubs in the country. Especially when we started getting press. I started writing articles about bringing yoga to the fitness industry for trade magazines. In trade for a "homemade" ad, my article appeared in Recreation Resources Magazine and got 250 responses. From those responses, YogaFit produced its first training in Fargo, ND, and trained 26 fitness instructors from four different YMCA's. The YogaFit Training Program was born. Today, YogaFit has trained over 90,000 fitness professionals and yoga instructors at facilities in the U.S. and internationally. YogaFit has played an integral role in the practice of yoga and has become a primary part of health club, gym and spa programs around the world. Taught by YogaFit-trained instructors with in-depth experience and skills in both yoga and fitness, the YogaFit method is the only nationally recognized CEC partner for ACE, and been a member of IHRSA since 1997. It is also the only yoga instruction program certified by TSI (NYSC, WSC, BSC, PSC) Fitness Clubs. Team YogaFit currently has 50 national trainers. |
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