NYMag

Indeed, as in so many other fields, yoga in America is increasingly a superstar economy, with a few lucrative positions at the very top, many struggling aspirants down below, and a hollowed-out middle where people like Elliott used to reside. “Me and my strata have worked really hard for a long time. We laid the groundwork,” she says. “And we’re being obliterated.”

Yet even as more and more people are doing yoga, the business model of the independent yoga studio has started breaking down, particularly in expensive cities like New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. While boutique fitness studios like SoulCycle cost upwards of $30 per session, prices for yoga classes have remained closer to $20. There’s too much competition to charge more. According to Yoga Alliance spokesperson Andrew Tanner, there were 818 registered yoga schools in the U.S. in 2008. By 2012, the number grew to 2,500, and today there are 3,900.

This, increasingly, is what a successful American yoga teacher looks like. “Yoga became an industry by merging with the fitness industry,” says Kaminoff. “Now it’s merging with celebrity culture.”

Some can, but not many. The new yoga ecosystem values social-media savvy over the types of skills longtime teachers have honed — hence all the gorgeous yogis and yoginis contorting themselves into astonishing poses on Instagram. “We’ve definitely seen the phenomenon of Insta-celebrity, and they’re getting real deals,” says Taylor. “Once teachers can get their following up to a certain size, their business reality really, really changes.”

This may not have anything to do with their teaching skills. “A pretty picture doesn’t necessarily mean a great teacher, but it doesn’t have to,” says Taylor. That’s because a big part of the business of yoga these days is entertainment, not instruction. “Yoga now is where the Food Network was 15 or 20 years ago,” she says. “There’s both, ‘Let me teach you how to cook,’ and, ‘Watch me cook.’”