Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome and welcome back to Pilates Teachers' Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia. You get the latest updates when you join my community at BuyMeACoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts or follow along on Instagram at @PilatesTeachersManual.

The Book is available for purchase as both an EPUB and PDF file at shop.OliviaBioni.com, and on Kindle on Amazon. Fun fact, you can convert the EPUB or PDF version you buy from me into a Kindle friendly file by visiting amazon.com/sendtoKindle. Just a reminder that that EPUB format is the most like an ebook with page turning and text, filling the page, everything like that. Today's episode is about the art of auditioning to teach at a new Pilates studio. I have another episode about choosing studios to teach at from way back in 2021, but I wanted to revisit the process of auditioning to teach. Auditioning to be a Pilates teacher is really common, if not the standard practice for hiring at studios. If you don't have a connection to the studio, this is a way that they can see your personality, your skills as a teacher, and decide whether you would be a good fit on their team. Sometimes if you go through a studio's teacher training program, you may not need to audition because your practical test out may count as an audition. But if you move to a new place, or you wanna teach at studios that you did not do your teacher training at, feeling comfortable auditioning is such a valuable skill. I know that auditions can be intimidating and it can be stressful to teach and perform and be judged, but the fact is this is how studios are likely to hire you. They're looking at your audition to see how you act as a teacher, as well as how you act under pressure. So let's get comfortable with the discomfort and take control of what you can control when you audition. I want you to show your very best teaching self when you're auditioning, whether it's just a 10 minute snippet of a class or a full length class. My top tips for being your best are setting yourself up for success, starting and ending strong, and keeping the class simple so you can focus on teaching. First off, when you're auditioning for a studio, sometimes called trialing for a studio, you wanna set yourself up for success. This means a few different things. In my opinion, you want to have taken at least one class at the studio where you're auditioning. Taking that class will tell you what the vibe was. Is there music? Was there specific lighting or atmosphere? What was the class like? Did it follow a certain structure? All of those things will inform your audition and allow you to teach in a way that you know already exists at that studio. Hopefully your vibe is already a good match for their vibe because you enjoyed the class and now you're auditioning to teach there. Even if you aren't exactly like the teachers whose classes you took at that studio, you can always augment parts of your personality to fit in. You can dial up the charisma, you can dial up the warmth or the connection or the challenge in your class so that it seems that you're a good fit. I also really recommend asking the studio owner or manager or whoever you're talking to who's scheduling your audition, what they are looking for in Pilates teachers. Then you can check those boxes when you audition. If they want you to use a certain piece of equipment or a microphone or to play music or teach a certain level of class, ideally they will tell you what they're looking for so that you know how to teach in the way that they want. By taking a class at the studio and getting those criteria from the person who's organizing your audition, you are setting yourself up to meet the expectations of what they're looking for in their teachers. Lastly, setting yourself up for success looks like being prepared. Not only is the class you're teaching intentionally programmed, and you've practiced it a million times and polished your delivery, but you're early to your audition. You've familiarized yourself with the studio layout. You've set up the equipment or props the way you'll be using them in your class. All of those things that show that you are prepared and professional. Remember that different studios use different brands of reformers and they have different spring colors and spring tension. If you aren't familiar with the equipment, ask about it when you ask about that audition criteria. You wanna know how the reformer or how the equipment at the studio works in advance. You don't wanna be scrambling right at the start of the audition to figure out what the springs mean. Next, you wanna start your class strong. Starting strong looks a lot like the pre-class work that I described in the previous podcast episode. It means you're on time and ready to teach your class. You're confident, you're engaging with the people who are attending your audition. You're introducing yourself, you're asking their names, if they have any injuries asking about hands-on corrections, you're making eye contact and smiling and making that really positive first impression on everyone who attends every single time you audition. You also wanna start the class itself strong. Once you begin teaching, command the room with a loud, clear voice, strong presence, and confident queuing. There should be no question that the class has started. A lot of reformer classes start with footwork, which is probably one of the easier exercises to cue. Come out of the gate teaching in a really strong and clear way. I don't care if you're faking it, just pretending to be someone who's confident auditioning is key. When you're actually teaching, my best advice is to keep the class really simple so that you can demonstrate your teaching skills. Too often instructors are undermined by their creativity. Don't get bogged down in unnecessary fancy transitions or overly complex setups for exercises. Instead, focus on fundamental exercises, the ones that you teach almost every single class, and teach them really well. Really clear setup cues, offering modifications and progressions, checking in with attendees individually, providing suggestions based on the injuries or other limitations that they shared at the start of class, and giving corrections, either verbal or hands-on if you have consent, to show that not only are you in the room teaching your class, you're also teaching the people in your class. You're helping them improve. You're offering refinements. You notice when something isn't quite right and you're offering that correction. Make your audition class your absolute rockstar class, and it can be a single class that you use to audition whenever you audition at a new studio. Make sure it has all of your favorite exercises, the ones that you know like the back of your hand. You know all of the modifications, all of the progressions, all of the variations. You wanna know those exercises in this class so well that you don't have to think about what comes next or what to do in this exercise. You can almost teach that on autopilot while you focus on making those connections. Use the people's names in the class. I know you've heard me talk about this all the time, but it really sets a great instructor apart from the crowd. If you don't wanna give an individual compliment to the room at large, kind of calling someone out, in a positive way, but that kind of calling out, you can use their names when you do individual check-ins or you offer an individual correction to them. I know that you just learned their name, which will make it even more impressive that you're gonna remember it and use it while you're teaching this class. At the very least, you know the person who organized the audition for you, so you know you can use their name in class. If you want additional tricks of how to remember people's names and use them, check out the episode specifically on using names in classes, and that will hopefully help you incorporate that into your audition. All of those things will help make sure that the class that you're teaching stands out not only as an excellent Pilates class, but also that you have skills beyond knowing the exercises and the equipment settings, that you're really teaching the people you have in the room. When the class is over, thank the organizer for the opportunity to audition. Because here's the bottom line, whether or not you get this job, the skill of auditioning is something that you will use and reuse over and over again in your teaching career. Every class you teach will give you feedback on how to improve as a teacher just by reading people in the room by, you know, refining the class plan potentially. So thank them for the opportunity to audition. Now, as someone who's on the management side of things at the studio, it takes a lot of time to get a bunch of people together to attend an audition or a trial for a new instructor, and you should really be grateful that they put that together for you. I would also ask if there's anything you can do to reset the studio. Can you help put the equipment back? Can you reset the room for the next class? Just offering can be a really nice touch. And tell them that you're looking forward to hearing from them. I know that every studio has a different process of whether they do a phone call or you might get an email or whatever the next steps are, but again, just making that positive impression as you leave that you're really looking forward to hearing from them, that you really appreciated them taking the time for your class. I don't wanna minimize how nervous you can be when you teach an audition. Just like when you test out, any sort of high stakes teaching where you are low key being judged is tough, but the thing is you are going to have to audition to teach unless you just teach at the one studio you did your teacher training at, and like, I don't want you to limit yourself. You should be able to teach in lots of places, and if you move, you should be able to find new studios and if you wanna add classes, you should be able to go to studios and show what an excellent teacher you are. The more you practice, the more prepared you are, the more comfortable you get asking questions, connecting with the people in the room and, being confident, even when you're pretending, just pretending to be confident, the less nervous you'll be. Auditions are not easy. I feel like sometimes when I've auditioned, it almost feels like I'm blacking out while I'm teaching. I have absolutely no memory of what's happening. So all of the work that you do beforehand, everything that you do to feel prepared, to have the criteria, what are they looking for in their teachers? Are they a studio that really values certain exercises, like, we want you to teach these exercises in this order. Awesome. I can do that. Do they really value giving corrections to the people in class? Amazing. You can do that. Do they really value an intentional program with minimal transitions? Whatever they value, just knowing what it is because you had that experience at the studio. You took a class with them, you saw what it was like. Maybe you got to talk with the teacher and ask them some questions, like I'll link the other episode because like doing the recon beforehand will help knowing what to do when you're there and then just teaching a class that's simple enough that. The class itself is solid, but then you can do all of those additional things. In my opinion, when I'm looking for instructors who are auditioning at the studio, yes, it's can they teach a Pilates class? Like that's the baseline. That's the permission to play. You have to be able to teach a good class. But when I'm looking at adding someone to the team, it's really what can they do beyond teach that great class? And so it is a lot of making those connections. Community building is huge at the studios that I teach at. So are they making an effort to connect? Are they comfortable giving corrections? Are they asking about injuries and hands-on and remembering it? And then that piece about remembering and using names is just above and beyond because when you're auditioning, you're showing not only am I a great teacher, I'm also a great person. I am a professional, and you want me on the team. I wish you all the success. You are gonna be great. Get out of your own way. Set yourself up for success. Portray the confidence that you may or may not be feeling, and know that any studio would be lucky to have you. Huge thank you to all my supporters on Buy Me a Coffee. I'm looking forward to being back with new episodes on a regular basis. I hope you have a great couple weeks. The adventure continues. Until next time.