Some of you may have noticed the price change that went into affect this weekend. We have not raised any prices, but we are not offering quite as many options. In fact, we are not going to be offering any discounts on classes at all. We know this might be shocking to some of you or upsetting, but please allow us to explain, and to give you some affordable options if you feel you cannot practice yoga at the following prices:

 

Drop in: $22

Prepaid Online Drop In: $20

Community class: $10 cash only

Monthly Unlimited Auto-renew: $150/mo with 1 year commitment

 

You may or may not be familiar with what is going on these days in the Yoga industry in New York and across the country. For many years now, Yoga teachers and studios have been offering discounts in the form of Groupon type deals as well as class cards, intro specials and seasonal specials for classes. There are a proliferation of free classes and quite frankly, an excessive amount of teachers being trained in large teacher trainings that are willing to offer their services for next to nothing. Students have the option of free yoga in the park, free yoga at Lululemon, free yoga at certain studios, free yoga at festivals, etc, etc. Here's a recent and honest article about the bigger picture that explains this further, which might be interesting to you. 

 

While the discounts might seem great from the perspective of the yoga student who wants to get a good deal, it really means that Yoga teachers are unbelievably underpaid ($20 per class in many cases at this point), independent Yoga studios are barely making it, and many studios are closing their doors in New York. Yoga High is trying to stay open, and we've made as many sacrifices as we possibly can - for example, not paying ourselves for many hours of service while also putting more and more money into the business.

 

At this point, our only option is to ask you, our community, to start paying what we deeply feel yoga is worth. We feel that $22 per class is a fair amount, especially in New York City, where you pay $22 for a sandwich or a cocktail. We LOVE teaching yoga and would do it for free (and have!) but at this point we are losing money because of our prices and this is what we have to do.

 

We sincerely hope you understand and that you continue to enjoy your practice and your community here at Yoga High. We know that there are studios in the city that will always be below market price, but we hope that you would be discerning, and understand that just like the low prices at Wallmart have hidden human costs, there is always a reason why people are able to offer you free or cheap yoga. Someone else is suffering.

 

With that said, we do understand that there are many of you who simply cannot afford $22 per class or a commitment of $150 per month. In order to serve you and make sure that everyone can have a yoga practice, we will be offering a few $10 Community classes. We feel it is important to offer these as an option, and we hope that if you are someone who can afford the higher price, that even in Community classes you will opt to pay the full price of $22  instead. These classes will not be taught by teachers in training; they will be taught by 500 Hour graduates who will be paid for the service.

 

We also have opportunities for you to earn classes by volunteering to help out around the studio, so if you are interested in trading your time for yoga, please email manager@yogahighnyc.com and Brad will be happy to help you get started.

 

There will be some major schedule changes that go into affect July 1st, so please make sure you check the schedule online as the end of the month approaches.

 

We hope you all understand our current situation. We're in this business to love and to serve, and we just want you all to continue to have a place to go to get out of your head, where you can move, breathe, and feel good. We love teaching you and hope we can continue to do so at Yoga High.

 

We'd love to hear from you. Let us know if you have any thoughts or feedback.

 

Much love,

 

Mel & Patricia

 

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