What Timothée Chalamet Accidentally Taught Me About Being a Yoga Teacher

Over the past week there has been a small but interesting conversation happening in the arts world.

Actor Timothée Chalamet recently faced criticism after remarks suggesting he wouldn’t want to work in ballet or opera because they are art forms that “no one cares about anymore.”

The comments sparked a swift response from dancers, singers, and arts organisations across the world. Opera performers and ballet companies pointed out the obvious: these art forms require decades of discipline, training and dedication and more importantly, they still deeply matter to the people who experience them.

What interested me about the conversation isn’t really about one actor’s opinion.

It’s about how we measure value.

The criticism many artists voiced was that the importance of an art form can’t be measured purely by popularity, ticket sales or mass appeal. Art isn’t only valuable when it fills stadiums, dominates the box office or becomes a water cooler moment.

Its value lies in something harder to quantify.

Art sparks imagination.

It opens conversations.

It offers solace.

It gives people space to feel something.

It exists and is created on its own terms.

Perhaps most crucially, you don’t have to be an artist to benefit from it.

A person can sit quietly in a theatre, watch a ballet, listen to an aria, or attend a small local performance and leave feeling lighter, calmer, or inspired. Moved. Changed. Touched. Something was felt.The impact of that moment might never show up in a spreadsheet or a marketing report but it still matters.

Reading these discussions, I couldn’t help thinking about the yoga industry when yoga teachers today are surrounded by a very particular message about success.

That we should be scaling.

Growing.

Building six-figure businesses.

Selling out retreats.

Packing out classes.

Without this, it can feel like we’re somehow doing it wrong.

Classes don’t always fill.

Workshops sometimes have a handful of people.

Events occasionally flop.

Then when we see other teachers posting sold out rooms online, it can quietly chip away at our confidence even when deep down we know popularity isn’t the same as value.

Just like opera and ballet don’t become meaningless because they aren’t mainstream entertainment, yoga teaching doesn’t become less meaningful because your class has six students instead of twenty.

Those six people still practised.They still breathed.They still left with a nervous system that was calmer than when they walked in.

You may never fully know the impact that hour had on their day, their week or their life.

I’ve recently seen an event pushing to sell let’s say 80 tickets. All their promo has been around this number and how many are left, how many just sold etc and it’s mad that I can probably tell you the venue, the cost and number of sales but cannot for the life of me remember the content of the event because the numbers were pushed so heavily.

Much of the most meaningful work in the arts and in yoga happens quietly. Not on stages,viral videos or perfectly curated marketing posts but in small rooms with small groups. With people who needed exactly what you were offering that day.

The truth is that even those people we perceive as “successful” are rarely free from doubt or criticism. Visibility doesn’t remove vulnerability and creative path comes with moments where someone questions its worth and of course we all question it when faced with peoples edited highlight reels of success then often add to that noise ourselves believing it’s the blueprint.

What matters is whether you still believe in the value of what you offer.

The world doesn’t only need things that are big, it also needs things that are careful, thoughtful and sincere.Yoga, like any art, isn’t measured solely by numbers just like it can’t be captured in an image.

Sometimes its greatest value lies in the quieter places where it reaches a few people deeply rather than many people briefly.

This is probably why pressing the button on the teacher Zoom sessions I’m offering from April this year feels a little more exposing than I expected it too even after donkeys years of providing teacher trainings, continued professional development courses, workshops, mentoring and small group education for my peers. We never feel ready or big enough or popular enough but sometimes knowing you can ease the way or offer clarity outweighs the doubt. Sort of.