Posts tagged yoga teacher training ethics

Updated Conversation — Teacher Training, Online Yoga & Studio Owner Skills With Leslie Pearlman

Leslie Pearlman is back, and this update to their 2024 conversation covers even more ground than the original. Rebecca and Leslie dig into online and hybrid teaching not as a lesser alternative to in-person but as a genuinely distinct skillset that requires its own curriculum — one most YTTs still aren't providing. They get into the internal regulation work required to teach well in any format, and the largely unexamined tendency to moralize the absence of in-room co-regulation as an automatic loss. They also tackle one of Rebecca's long-running preoccupations: the difference between professional training and personal development, and why the yoga industry needs to get honest about which one it's actually offering. And they go somewhere most conversations don't — into the urgent need for yoga teacher trainer training and studio owner training, including the relational dimension of what it means to be for a community without being of it. Rich, honest, and covers a lot of ground in fifty minutes.

Rebecca SebastianJuly 16, 2026yoga teacher trainer training, online yoga teaching, hybrid yoga teaching, yoga studio owner training, yoga professional training, yoga personal development, yoga teacher training curriculum, co-regulation yoga, yoga online accessibility, Leslie Pearlman, working in yoga podcast, yoga industry self-regulation, yoga only studios, yoga teacher training ethics, yoga business skillsComment

When Yoga Studios Sell Belonging: Community, Power, and MLM Culture in the Yoga World

Have you ever felt like your yoga studio was a little... intense about getting you to recruit friends? Or wondered where the line is between genuine community and transactional belonging?

In this episode, we're going somewhere a lot of people in the yoga world aren't ready to go — and we're bringing a commercial cult expert with us.

Brandie Hadfield joins the podcast to unpack the uncomfortable overlap between MLM culture and how many yoga studios, teacher training programs, and even large chains like CorePower operate. We talk about the ethics of selling belonging, the reality of dual relationships (when your teacher is also your boss), and why yoga professionals need explicit training in recognizing power dynamics.

This episode grew out of the host's deep dive into cult documentaries, podcasts, and her article The Business of Belonging for Inside Yoga Magazine — and it might just change how you see your studio community.