Every day, I would arrive at 7am ready for my session with the other eager apprentices.  Romana would teach us after which we would embark upon our teaching hours.  Since Romana ended her days at 1pm – so did we.  In those days, there were no formal requirements for completion.  When you were ready, you were done.  And the investment was less complicated too.  Each day, I would pay Drago at the front desk $45 dollars.  That was it.

Some time later, Sean Gallagher and the Pilates Studio Inc. came into the mix.  Some time after that, they left the picture.  But in between those two events, a plethora of teacher training programs opened up across the country.  Seemingly overnight, small programs, large programs, specialty programs and modular programs afforded the Pilates teacher wanna-be more options than they ever thought possible.

Fast forward to 2009.  The economy is in the toilet.  Pilates studios are struggling nationwide (along with the entire industry of Personal Training) and yet these teacher training programs continue to sprout up.  Just this week a major acquisition was announced which effectively catapults the country’s biggest certification program into the realm of corporate monoliths and big box businesses.  A far cry from our humble beginnings indeed.

While I don’t object to the formal or organized or even big certification camps – I have to wonder, where are all these teachers going to teach?  Shouldn’t we be guided by simple supply vs. demand guidelines here?  How many more teachers are really necessary to satisfy the market?

This summer at my Tribeca studio is the slowest we’ve seen in years.  And yet, I recieved no less than 10 resumes from instructors looking for work.  And while many of them were new graduates, a fair amount were from very seasoned teachers.  From where I’m standing, this doesn’t bode well for our industry.

Consider this: flooding the market with teachers will likely have the effect of bringing pay rates down for instructors.  As competition stiffens, jobs will often go to teachers who ask for lower salaries.  Is this what we’ve worked so hard to achieve?

What are your thoughts?

~alycea