If you enjoy doing marketing, or have a friend who owes you a metric crapton of favors, then you have a little more flexibility in what sort of organization you work for/with/at: somewhere you just pay rent and are responsible for all your own PR, for instance. Alternately, you can start buddying up to folks at your fav yoga places (keeping an eye out for those who don’t offer hot yoga, but are equipped to do so).

I’ve watched so many gung-ho, really good- but just starting out- teachers burn out because they went it alone (i.e. in a place where they were needed to do ALL the work themselves) when perhaps a better match would have been to work for an established center who helped with the business end of things, so that they could focus on becoming great teachers and establishing regular clients.

Just a little help, FWIW, since you have the time to plan and network early.

BTW, Bo is kinda-sorta correct — in a sense, vinyasa and Bikram are both branches of Hatha yoga. But as far as “crass commercialization,” well, Bo, you know that Krishnamacharya took moves from British gymnastics when he invented vinyasa yoga in the 1930s and taught it to the Indian royal family? I actually like that yoga is something that continues to evolve and adapt. For some people yoga is a deeply spiritual practice, and for others it is just asana. Neither is correct — there is no one “right” way to practice…

Oh, and Bo, regarding the tone of your post, I say to you, Sutra 1:33. Maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhka punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatah chitta prasadanam.