Melissa Dribben, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Sunday, June 23, 2013, 3:01 AM

While yoga is intended to quiet the mind and reveal strength, peace, and sanctuary within, it has become a large and lucrative capitalist enterprise.

Since 2008, national spending on yoga classes, equipment, clothing, retreats, and advertising has nearly doubled, reaching an estimated $10.3 billion in 2012. An estimated 20.4 million Americans practice yoga, up 29 percent in five years.

"The flashy kind of yoga studios like you have now didn't exist when I started," said Joan White, 70, the doyenne of Philadelphia yoga. "Yoga got taken over by businesspeople."

Despite the dramatic growth, yoga teachers as a group struggle to make a living. Classes generally cost about $15, and studios frequently offer reduced rates. At best, most teachers receive half the fees paid by their students.

Running a successful studio is a constant challenge, says Theresa Conroy, owner of Yoga on the Ridge in Andorra.

"It's really difficult to hold on to good teachers, to pay them enough, to market the studio enough," says Conroy, 51, a former journalist who started teaching in 2005 and opened her studio three years later.

Part of the problem, Conroy says, is that yoga is not meant to be a capitalist venture. Even studio owners sometimes have trouble reconciling the lofty idealism of yogic culture and the practical demands of the bottom line.

"A lot of teachers feel embarrassed charging for what they do," she said, recounting how she once returned from vacation to find a curious drop in income because "my teachers had been letting their students take classes for free."

Many studios are trying to create their own niche.

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