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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Nnnnnnnnnnnamaste!

I love yoga. No, you don't understand. I loooooooove it. Doing yoga is like giving yourself a full body massage. Whenever I come out of a class, I feel relaxed, loose and fluid. And when you are doing the same parallel routine in a room full of people, it creates a peaceful, communal energy that just can't be achieved when you do it by yourself.

The problem is, it's so damn EXPENSIVE. The cheapest unlimited 3-month pass I can find is $200 (fortunately at a studio down the street...holla!), and I've seen as high as $300. You can drop in at most places for around $10-15 a class, and most studios have a pay-what-you-can class once a week, but those tend to be too crowded for the individual attention that I demand. And I feel justified slightly in paying so much for it because I could potentially hurt myself if I don't have the proper supervision, I appreciate the group dynamic, and the scheduled classes keep me committed.

However, I still don't quite get the cost. Most yoga studios are in gutted out buildings and they look like the insides of Chipotles. To my knowledge, there's not much equipment maintenance, unless the studio provides mats, blocks, straps, and balls (for which they charge rental fees). Further, the AC just doesn't seem to work well in most of the studios I've visited (and no, I didn't accidentally go to a bikram class), so it doesn't seem like there's much overhead. I would think that if the prices were lowered, more students, young moms, and frugalistas like myself would participate. Has yoga reached the point of negative returns? No really, I would like someone to explain it to me. I'm not asking this rhetorically, because I really just don't understand the economics of fitness.

2 comments:

  1. Here's the economics: Charge as much as people are willing to pay.

    ReplyDelete
  2. and clearly I perpetuate that by paying what they tell me to.

    ReplyDelete