Thread: Teaching in Private Gyms

Hi.

I recently have come on a possible opportunity to teach in a privately owned gym. I don't know, there may have been a thread related to this earlier. I have a specific question.

I have not been in touch with the owner yet. I have spoke to the contact who goes to this gym who suggested belly dance classes to the owner.

I am just looking for any advice on what to ask the owner once he does contact me. What sort of deal should I agree to so that I am not getting ripped off?

Any thoughts, ideas, and/or opinions would be greatly appreciated!

:cr:

http://www.bhuz.com/forum/business-b...gym-rates.html

This is a link to a thread on this topic earlier. IMO: Try and find out the demographics of the gym first - lots of women=excellent opportunity. I would suggest sticking to being a private contractor, some gyms shy away from it cause you end up making more money for it. Some gyms will try and get you to get an aerobic certification, which is expensive, and then want to pay you a cheap hourly rate. Best bet is to charge per head. If the gym is always packed and they just don't have enough awesome classes to keep folks happy, charge a higher price, they will usually pay it. If the gym has a mediocre attendance, keep the figure on the smaller end, when your classes go to bursting (and I'm sure they will), ask for more. Remember, the more people in the class, the harder it becomes to teach. If you do decide to go this route, make sure to have the gym advertise well and promote yourself heavily outside of the gym.

Thanks Amaryllis! That helps alot.
This is a case where I really will have to step up and put my foot down. Something that I really have to work at because its not neccessarily my strongest point. I can tell you right now, unless they paid for me to take the aerobics training I wouldn't do it. Being a full-time nursing student and pursuing my own dance training sucks up my money. So there will be no argument there. Either they pay for it, or I won't do it...lol. Hopefully that doesn't come up.

I guess I won't worry too much until I hear from the owner, but its good to have an idea of what I should be thinking about before hand.

And yes I would try to stay as a "private" contractor because I teach my own classes and pay rent at studios, so I am not about to "work for someone". Well I will see what happens. I'd like to get this experience as I see it as a slightly different learning environment for belly dancing and a new challenge in that I'd have to think about how to give people the best fitness benefits out of bellydance (safely and effectively), which is sort of what I do in my other classes, but my other classes I am more concerned that people actually learn what things are called and background etc.

We shall see what happens..g.:
THank you.

I'm taking a class that is at a private gym, and although they have it in the gym, you don't have to be a member of the gym to take a class, and we pay the instructor directly. I don't know if that's the way private contractor always is, or if it is a particular variation, but it seems to work well. I don't get the impression that it is more fitness oriented: so far (I've only been to two classes), we've gone over choreography for the performance they're doing in another city in a week and a half.

I found out about it due to a newspaper ad done by the teacher, and I picked this particular class over other simply due to scheduling conflicts. I work until 8 two nights out of the week, and all the other classes are on one of those two nights. I personally wish there was more of the background. It doesn't seem to be mostly fitness-oriented, though. So far, in both the classes I've been to, we've gone over the choreography to the performance they're planning for a week and a half from now. Yes, there's some instruction on how to do particular moves, but the focus is on the choreography and putting the moves together (though I've been promised that we'll get back to drills and things where I can actually learn how to do things better).

In any case, good luck with it!

Hi Varuza,

Thank you for your post! That helps to to get another perspective.
In that case I will just teach the way I teach my other classes, because now that I think about it, it wouldn't be fair for the students in the gym not to have an opportunity to perform as well!

Ideally that is what I'd like, to just have the people that come to me in the gym pay me directly. I guess we'll see what comes of it. The owner has to contact me first. haha ..l;,

One other thought is to consider whether the intent of the class changes. For examples I took a yoga class at the gym and it was different then I expected. I expected yoga that was about streching and movements. I got an aerobic workout. Now I'm taking Yoga at another location where is stretching, movement, poses, and mediation. So make sure you, the owner, and the students are clear on what you are teaching - is it a dance class or an aerobic class?

Thank you Laura.

Be careful with getting a "per student" rate at a gym - usually that means that the class will be a pay class (even gym members will need to pay to take it, but it will also be open to non-gym members). I've found that gym members would rather take another class that is free to them, than pay for a bellydance class. I had a "per student" pay at a gym that was charging for my classes, and the turn out was so bad I had to cancel the class. It was a shame, too, because I had previously taught a non-pay-per-class at that gym that had a great attendance. But the owners got cheap, and the students suffered. :-(

If you do do a per student rate, set a minimum. Eg $35 minimum for 0-5 students, for every student over 5 $5 bonus or something (you can set a maximum if you are feeling generous)

There is a belly dance class at the gym I'm at. It is semi-aerobic and almost all about losing abdominal fat (which depresses me). The women love the really pharaonic poses and gestures. The also love buying hipscarves and veils from the teacher (a few even wear FULL costumes to class)

There is a wide range of music lots of Indian fusion and almost all of it is really techno stuff.