What is AcroYoga?
If you’re an insurance agent or broker with clients who teach AcroYoga, you should understand what AcroYoga is to offer the best tips for AcroYoga Instructors.
AcroYoga is a specialized style of yoga that combines standard yoga poses with gymnastics. The practice relies on two or multiple people working together through several yoga sequences that utilize yoga, Thai massage, and acrobatics.
Though the practice can be challenging, the level of difficulty will depend on the skill and experience of the individual. Practicing this style of yoga requires a lot of flexibility, physical strength training, especially core training, as well as trust and cohesion between all parties involved. Accidents happen, and that’s where you come in as an insurance producer, keeping instructors covered.
Each AcroYoga practice involves a base, flyer, and spotter. The base is the person at the bottom of the pose responsible for carrying the flyer, who will stretch and set themselves in different positions. The spotter ensures the base and flyer remain safe.
As challenging as this might seem, the potential benefits of AcroYoga have led to it slowly growing in popularity all over the United States. This increase in popularity has, in turn, led to the need for liability insurance for AcroYoga instructors to protect themselves and their businesses.
If you’re an insurance producer with clients who teach this amazing practice, share with them the following tips for AcroYoga instructors.
Five Tips for AcroYoga Instructors
Do you have clients who want to practice and teach AcroYoga? Help them along their professional and physical journeys by sharing the following AcroYoga tips for becoming an expert in the practice:
1. Find a Studio or Instructor to Learn AcroYoga Basics
Before becoming an AcroYoga instructor, your client will first need a strong foundation in yoga techniques and practices. They do not need to be a seasoned yogi with incredible strength and flexibility or a master acrobat or gymnast. However, having a solid foundation will go a long way in helping them handle the intense physical and mental exercises AcroYoga involves.
Current AcroYoga instructors will provide them with the knowledge needed to build skills that will make intense daily practices and more challenging sequences easier to do. This knowledge will help your clients actualize their AcroYoga ambitions and maximize what they will offer their own future clients.
2. Complete a 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training
After gaining confidence in yoga knowledge and physical ability, the next step is receiving 200-hour yoga teacher training from an accredited instructor or studio. While there are several online teacher training programs, we recommend in-person training. This option allows your clients to benefit from a more hands-on approach with personal adjustments from the instructor.
The 200-hour yoga teacher training is vital for registering with the Yoga Alliance, an organization that ensures yoga studios provide accessible, high-quality, and safe spaces in which people can practice yoga.
Though some places do not require the completion of teacher training or registration with the Yoga Alliance, these credentials will help your AcroYoga instructor client to create a business built on trust and credibility.
3. Complete an Additional 500-Hour Yoga Teacher Training
AcroYoga incorporates a series of stylized postures and sequences that require extensive knowledge of human anatomy to perform without injury.
Considering how vast yoga and AcroYoga are these days, the initial 200-hour training will not be enough to go over everything your client needs to become a specialized AcroYoga instructor. As such, it is essential for them to seek an additional 500-hour training where they will receive more hands-on instruction.
This training will focus on the more challenging poses, techniques, and sequences. The process will refine their yoga knowledge and help them gain more confidence in their ability to conduct AcroYoga classes for students with varying experience levels.
Besides having completed the initial 200-hour training, some current AcroYoga instructors might have additional prerequisites, including experience in massage, acrobatics, and teaching in classroom settings, so they have a lot to offer.
4. Complete the Necessary Teaching Prerequisites
After completing the 200-hour and 500-hour training programs, your client will need to teach a specific amount of hours before registering with the Yoga Alliance as a full-fledged, certified AcroYoga instructor.
Before becoming established as independent AcroYoga instructors, your clients may consider interning at studios as substitute teachers or assistant instructors. Interning will allow them to refine their knowledge further and get the experience necessary to run an independent practice successfully.
5. Get AcroYoga Insurance and AcroYoga Instructor Insurance
Though usually overlooked, getting insurance is often one of the most essential tips for AcroYoga instructors. A key component of AcroYoga is acrobalance since participants are often suspended in the air and utilize core strength and balance to perform physically demanding poses.
Due to the increased risks involved, AcroYoga instructors often experience significant personal liability and are more vulnerable to lawsuits.
While most traditional insurance companies consider AcroYoga as extreme and exclude it from coverage, Prime Insurance Company can provide your AcroYoga instructor clients with the protection they need against potential liability claims in the event of an accident.
Why offer a Prime plan to your clients? As a financially stable business that emphasizes a partnership approach, Prime has an in-house claims team of skilled litigators and adjusters to manage claims and achieve excellent results. Prime Insurance Company is rated “A” (Excellent) rating from AM Best, a credit rating agency specializing in analyzing insurance entities’ viability and financial strength.
Reach out to Prime Insurance Company at 1-800-257-5590 or email quotes@primeis.com to learn how our acroyoga insurance plans can protect your clients.
In Conclusion
Though becoming an instructor might be challenging, your clients’ connections with current instructors, partners, and students will make it an enriching experience.
Share these five tips for AcroYoga instructors with your yogi clients to help them make the right first steps towards discovering the power of AcroYoga and its positive impact on their personal and professional lives. You can confidently offer your clients Prime insurance plans to keep them protected when they’re ready.
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Authored by Rick J. Lindsey, CEO, President, and Chairman of Prime Insurance Company
Rick J. Lindsey hails from Salt Lake City, Utah. He began working in the mailroom of his father’s Salt Lake City insurance firm, getting his introduction to the business that became his lifelong career. Lindsey quickly rose through the ranks while working in nearly every imaginable insurance industry job. As an entrepreneur, specialty lines underwriter, claims specialist, risk manager, and a licensed surplus lines broker, Rick Lindsey is highly skilled in all levels of leadership and execution. As he progressed on his career path, Rick discovered an urgent need for insurers willing to write policies for high-risk individuals and businesses. He was frequently frustrated that he could not provide the liability protection these entities desperately needed to safeguard their assets. He also formed the belief that insurance companies acted too quickly to settle frivolous claims. Lindsey decided to try a different approach. He started an insurance company and became the newly formed entity’s CEO. This opportunity has enabled Rick to fill a void in the market and provide a valuable service to businesses, individuals, and insurance agents who write high-risk business. Prime Insurance also specializes in helping individuals and businesses who live a lifestyle or participate in activities that make them difficult for traditional carriers to insure. If you’ve been denied, non-renewed, or canceled coverage, don’t give up quite yet. Chances are Prime Insurance can help.