| IHRSA Report | Member News Value Proposition YogaFit Training
Beth Shaw’s brainchild has already had a dramatic impact on yoga’s presence in clubs, and she’s just getting started!
over the past decade. The surge in popularity is due to a number of factors, including the distinct benefits that yoga offers, but it also owes much to Beth Shaw, the founder and president of YogaFit Training Systems Worldwide, Inc., of Torrance, California.
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In 1994, Shaw introduced her unique fitness-oriented brand of yoga to the world … and, well, things haven’t been the same since.
Shaw took up yoga as a child, earned several certifications, and, eventually, began teaching classes at fitness facilities in Los Angeles. As an instructor, she soon discovered that, while standard certifications taught much about the philosophy and history of yoga, they were oblivious to the challenges of teaching it in a modern health club— challenges such as cold rooms, bright lights, and bodies of all types and levels of flexibility.
Recognizing a need and an opportunity, Shaw created her own style—one that reflected current trends and expectations —by combining fitness moves, such as push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, with traditional yoga postures. The two were linked together in a seamless, flowing format. To make her program even more user-friendly, she eliminated the traditional Sanskrit names for postures, as well as the chanting and “ohming” that are sometimes associated with traditional yoga practices.
In late 1994, SportCenter Fitness, in Redondo Beach, California, gave Shaw a chance to show what she could do. It
114 Club Business Internat ional | APRIL 2012 |
he discipline of yoga has experienced significant and somewhat surprising growth within the health and fitness club industry
asked her to develop what was possibly the first yoga center inside a health club. Together, Shaw and the club’s manage- ment converted a former golf training room into a yoga studio, which she then staffed and ran—quite successfully. The concept of pairing fitness and yoga moves proved remarkably popular. In 1997, Shaw’s fit version of yoga was
incorporated, and her new company, YogaFit, conducted its first training in Fargo, North Dakota, certifying 26 fitness instructors from four different YMCAs. The YogaFit Training Program—designed specifically for health clubs, fitness facilities, and other group exercise venues—was born.
Since then, the business and its
training program have evolved and expanded in impressive ways. The company, which currently has 60 master trainers, has taught more than 200,000 instructors and other fitness professionals in the U.S. and abroad. Last year, it generated $5 million in revenues. YogaFit has also diversified, and is now involved with the YogaFit Proud Warrior clothing line, Mind/Body Fitness Conferences, and community service programming.
Yoga meets fitness
What distinguishes YogaFit from other programs and certification providers, notes Shaw, is that the company’s roots are solidly planted in fitness—it’s about yoga aligned with fitness, rather than about a standalone yoga concept. “The YogaFit approach is based on the traditional group exercise mode of warm-up work and cool-down,” she explains. “But we’ve shifted the psychological dynamic by letting go of expectation, competition, and judgment.
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“I’D LIKE TO SEE MORE DESIGNATED YOGA STUDIOS, DESIGNED AND STAFFED BY YOGAFIT, WITHIN FITNESS FACILITIES. EVENTUALLY, WE’D LIKE TO GET INTO THE LICENSING OF YOGAFIT STUDIOS IN CLUBS.”
Beth Shaw
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