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Dream Jobs: Yoga Instructor
Stretch Beyond Your Limitations "God closed a door, truly He did," she said. "And He opened a window." The door that slammed shut on her life was being diagnosed with a severely debilitating case of rheumatoid arthritis. The window that opened before her showed her the path to reclaiming her health…and finding her dream job. In 1997, the disease was at its most painful, and for all their efforts, Fawcett's doctors could do little to put it into remission. She was taking heavy doses of several medications, all of which did little to alleviate her aching. Before long, she turned to acupuncture, massage therapy, advertisement and "everything you can imagine in addition to the medication" to stave off the pain. She even tried several different kinds of yoga before stumbling on a method called Bikram. It was a discovery that would change her life.
Not your grandmother's yoga "You're working when everybody else is playing - nights and weekends," she said. "The big time is when people get out of work." Most nights she doesn't leave the studio until nearly 10 p.m., only to return at 8:15 the next morning. "It's the toughest job I'll ever love," she said, almost as if she were a volunteer for a spiritual version of the Peace Corps. There is an array of different yoga methods out there, with names like Ananda, Jivamukti, and Kundalini - from the sedentary and introspective to the strenuous, there's a style for everybody. "The thing is that people say it's a fad," complained Fawcett. "It's not a fad, it's a 5,000-year-old practice. It works." But Bikram yoga is not your grandmother's yoga. Before every 90-minute workout, Fawcett, 30, cranks the thermostat in her studio up to 104 sweltering degrees to limber up the body's connective tissues and help it sweat out toxins. "From the minute you walk in that door, it's pretty much hard work," she said. Fawcett charges $10 per class and offers private lessons for $75. And since she only opened her doors six months ago, she wasn't sure how much she would make as a full-time instructor. "I estimate that the full-time yoga teacher teaches 14 classes a week," she said. "That instructor will earn about $29,000 a year. A fair range would be $30,000 to $40,000." Four careers in one Make no mistake, though, yoga's no panacea, and she still must take a daily cocktail of medications to help keep her life pain-free. The 15 to 30 people she leads through any given class are a mix of men and women, fit and fat, young and old. Fawcett said at any session she'll have a buff triathlete, someone with a back injury, a completely inflexible neophyte, and an overweight person in her studio. "I should charge you to be a therapist, a nutritionist, a masseuse, and a liposuctionist," she joked, laughing. No longer interested in the family business and suffering unexpectedly from arthritis nearly a decade ago, Fawcett would be the first to admit that she never imagined she'd find such a physically and spiritually rewarding career path. So, if you feel the need for a healthy and potentially lifesaving job of your own, grab a towel and a yoga mat. It's never too late to learn your locust pose, tighten up your toe stand…and dream on! |
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