A Conversation Worth Revisiting — Yoga Teacher Training Best Practices With Leslie Pearlman

Wellness travel is growing, retreat culture is expanding, and a lot of yoga professionals have had the fantasy of hosting one — Rebecca included (she once rented a castle in England that COVID cancelled, and yes, she mentions it). Manu Molina joins the podcast to talk about what it actually takes to build a retreat offering that stands out in a crowded market, starting with the thing most people skip: getting clear on your identity before you build the offer. They also get into the marketing piece — the uncomfortable truth that we are so inside our own brands that we assume people know what we’re doing when they absolutely don’t — and how to build evergreen systems that capture emails and keep working while you’re not. And then there’s AI. Manu brings a genuinely global perspective to the AI conversation, including the notable difference in how AI-generated content lands in Asian markets versus Western ones, and a practical breakdown of how to use AI for pattern recognition, planning, SEO, and reflection without letting it flatten your voice. One of the more wide-ranging and fun conversations of the season.

Institutions change when the people funding them stop, or when they start asking hard questions before they pay. In Part 2 of What Now?, Rebecca looks at the money yoga professionals spend every year just to feel legitimate: registry dues, association memberships, continuing education credits, and the next training that's supposed to finally make you employable. She offers three questions for auditing every one of those expenses, compares yoga's credentials with the way massage therapists and personal trainers handle theirs, and makes the case that your money is a vote. This isn't a "cancel everything" episode. It's a "decide on purpose" episode, with one clear move to make this week. RESOURCES Working In Yoga Website Working In Yoga Newsletter The Back Room Inside Yoga Magazine

We talk a lot about what gets lost when yoga moves online. We don't talk nearly enough about what becomes possible. Becky Aten — back on the podcast after her earlier conversation about yoga and neurodiverse populations — joins Rebecca for week 4 of the online teaching series to make that case clearly. Online yoga is often wildly more accessible than in-person, and the yoga world needs to stop treating that as a footnote. For neurodivergent practitioners especially, the ability to go at their own pace, adapt to their own capacity, and participate without the sensory and social demands of a studio environment is not a consolation prize — it's the whole point. Becky and Rebecca also get into the sustainability side: sliding scale pricing and what it quietly does to both teachers and students, the cooperative culture fantasy vs. the reality of doing things yourself, and why building something slow and loving online might be the antidote to the hustle culture that the online space tends to produce. There is no one right way to build online. This conversation is proof.

"Okay, but what now?" It's the question Rebecca hears more than any other. After months of looking at what went wrong in this industry, from Yoga Alliance's leadership to the organizations that stepped back to the career path nobody built, it's time to talk about what comes next. In this first episode of a five-part series, Rebecca starts with an honest admission: she doesn't have all the answers, and she doesn't think any one person should. Instead, she makes the case for the move underneath every other move: finding each other. You'll hear why organizing almost always starts local, what ten teachers comparing notes can change, the objections that keep us isolated, and exactly how to start a network with one message this week.

A lot of yoga teachers still have real questions about how an online membership works in practice — and Keri Marino has the answers. In week 3 of the online teaching series, she and Rebecca get into the mechanics and mindset of building a membership that actually holds people over time: email touchpoints that keep students engaged between sessions, the case for adding a live component, how to film in a way that feels authentic and connected even when nobody's on the other end of the camera yet, and why giving yourself full permission to enjoy the practice while you're recording changes everything about how the content lands. They also get into something Rebecca thinks about a lot — how legacy teachers can use online platforms to preserve and transmit their bodies of work, and what gets lost when that work stays locked behind high-ticket offerings that most students can't access. Plus a conversation about AI, agency, orientation emails, and why membership models take longer than people expect — and are worth it anyway.