Yoga teacher bios are a nightmare to write. How long should it be? What should you say? Should you even be teaching yoga? (Your mind goes to dark places, seriously!) This guide tells you how to write a yoga bio with minimal suffering.
The short answer: Keep it simple. Tell people why you practice yoga, and why you like teaching. But don’t sound too academic, or try to impress everyone with your special interpretation of the meaning of yoga.
What Do I Know about How to Write a Yoga Bio?
Honestly, bios are an art, not a science.There are a million ways to break all the rules and still produce an award-winning bio.
However, I do have a lot of experience working with yoga teacher bios for my job. At Yoga Outreach I promote all our events on Facebook and Instagram, so I’m always copying yoga bios into captions. As well, I have to read a lot of yoga bios aloud, when I introduce facilitators at our workshops and events.
So this article is based on my observations about what reads well aloud, transfers well to social media and entices people to sign up for your class.
Okay. Pick up your shovels. It’s time to dig in.
How long should a yoga bio be?
Look at all the other instructor’s bios at the place you’re submitting to check the norm.
Highlight the text and check the word count so you can offer something similar.
You won’t look smarter with one that is double the length of everyone else’s. You’ll look like you can’t reign in talking about yourself. Too short and you’ll look a bit lazy, like you misunderstood the assignment.
Word Counts for Yoga Bios
Basic Bio
Keep it short. 100 to 150 words or about 4 to 6 sentences is ideal.
This length is perfect when your bio will be accompanying a class description in a community centre or yoga conference guide where space is tight. It’s easy to copy into an Instagram caption and short enough that potential students will read it.
Long Bio
You can stretch to two paragraphs, or about 200 words if your yoga bio is appearing on a studio website, or you’re promoting something more expensive like a day-long workshop or training.
The only place you can be more wordy is on your own website, on your About page.
Social Media Bio
Rules are rules. Instagram bios can only be 150 characters or about 25 words.
What To Include
Here’s the breakdown for a basic 4 to 6 sentence yoga bio that you might include next to a class description.
Include one to two sentences on each of the following:
- What you or your classes are known for
- Your former career/identity (if interesting) and journey to yoga.
- Your intention or motivation for teaching yoga
- Your credentials.
- Other roles, identities, or hobbies, outside of yoga class.
I recommend that you include at least one vulnerability, or a trait that makes you relatable to your ideal students. For example, perhaps yoga helped you cope with an injury, depression or a loss.
What goes first?
The order is flexible. You could start with what I’ve listed above, but expect to change it, according to what flows.
Essentially, you should lead with the most interesting, eye-grabbing trait.
What’s interesting to one group will be boring to another.
If yoga helped you recover from an injury you sustained competing for the gold medal in boxing, then lead with your yoga journey.
Typically, I’d mention being a mom toward the end because it’s not the first quality potential students will care about. However, if you’re teaching prenatal or postnatal, it might be your lead.
I don’t suggest putting credentials first. Everyone has a 200 or 300 or 500 RYT, so it’s boring reading. Dropping names of famous teachers will impress other yoga teachers, and potential studio employers. But most students will not know the difference between Shiva Rea and Susanna Barkataki.
Of course, your training is important – just recognize that most potential students will be skimming through this section so give more real estate to an interesting story about your journey or who you help.
Teaser Bios
Some studio’s use software that shows only the first two to three sentences of a bio next to the teacher’s picture or name. You have to click to see the rest. So think about what would be most interesting, or useful for a student to know.
Deciding what to cut
Don’t overlap
The list I gave above is just to help you get started. There’s no need to include a separate sentence on each if your intention, another identity and specialty all coincide.
Perhaps you’re a former addict who shares grounding practices with people going through recovery. That’s a single sentence that transfers well to a social media caption.
On the other hand, if you need a longer bio for a website, this would be a good bit to expand into two to three sentences IF this is your intended audience.
Make it interesting
This is the most important! Don’t talk about your journey to being a yoga teacher if it’s boring! Same goes for your specialty or intention, and hobbies. If it’s dull, leave it out.
Adjust details to fit your audience
Depending on the audience, you’ll need to emphasize different experiences and traits that might make students relate to you. For a baby yoga class, share that you’re a mom. For a corporate class, share that your first career was in banking.
A Yoga Bio that Does Its Job
Remember that your yoga teacher bio does not need to summarize your entire life. It doesn’t even need to include all your experiences as a yoga teacher.
All it has to do is set expectations about what to expect from you in a specific class, studio, or conference. So think about what that audience would care about. Tell those people that you are the type of yoga teacher to understand where they’re coming from.
Your credentials are important. But credentials don’t make your ideal students feel seen. Neither does your high-falootin’ vocabulary about philosophy. They want assurance that you are a real and flawed human, just like they are.
Still Feeling Icky about Writing Your Yoga Bio?
Outsource! I write yoga bios and class descriptions for yoga teachers that just want to teach yoga. Book a time in my calendar for a free 30 minute consult.
And don’t forget to download the free guide I use to make sure marketing materials and yoga bios are focused on the right people.
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