There is a specific flinch that happens in the half second before a teacher mentions private classes. You can watch it on their face. The voice changes, gets a little brighter and faster, and whatever comes out sounds like it was read off a card.
That flinch is the whole problem. Not the offer, not the price, not the student. The flinch.
It comes from a belief that mentioning one-to-one work is a different category of speech from teaching, and that the moment you do it you have stopped being a teacher and started being something worse.
You are not selling, you are finishing the sentence
Here is what actually happens in a class. A woman has been protecting her right shoulder in every downward dog for two months. You have seen it, you have quietly given her a modification twice, and you have thought about it on the way home.
You know something about her body that she does not know. That is not a marketing insight. That is the job.
Telling her what you have seen is teaching. It would be teaching if you did it for free, and it would still be teaching if you did it and then said nothing else. Adding "and if you ever want an hour on it, I do those" does not retroactively turn the observation into a pitch. It just tells her the observation has somewhere to go.
The teachers who find this excruciating are almost always the ones who are good at noticing. They have the information and they sit on it, because sharing it feels self-interested. So the student keeps the shoulder, the teacher keeps the guilt, and nothing changes for anybody.
The three parts, in this order
Every sentence that works has the same structure, and the order matters more than the words.
First, the observation. Something specific you have actually seen, in their body, in their practice, in what they keep asking about. Not a compliment. Specific.
Second, the door. One clause, flat tone, that says the thing exists.
Third, the exit. A short phrase that lets them decline without declining, because most people will not say yes to your face and you do not want them to have to say no to it either.
"You have been working around that shoulder since the spring. If you ever want to spend an hour just on it, that is what I do one-to-ones for. No rush, it is just there."
Observation, door, exit. Eleven seconds. Then you change the subject, because the thing that turns this into a pitch is not the offer, it is what you say next.
The silence after is the whole skill
Almost every version of this that goes wrong goes wrong in the four seconds after the exit line.
The teacher gets nervous, hears the silence, and starts filling it. They explain what a private involves. They mention that they have a slot on Thursdays. They say something about how it is really good value. They add "obviously no pressure" for the second time, which reliably creates pressure.
By the end the student is managing the teacher's discomfort instead of thinking about their own shoulder.
Say the eleven seconds. Then say "anyway, see you Thursday" and walk away. That is it. If they want it they will bring it back to you, usually a week later, usually by message, and the fact that you did not push is a large part of why.
Sentences for the people you actually have
Different students need different doors. Here are the ones worth having ready.
The one with an injury or a body that needs different instructions:
"I keep giving you a different version of everything, which is fine, but you would get further with an hour where the whole thing is built around the shoulder. I do that if you ever want it."
The one who is clearly further along than the room and being polite about it:
"You are past what I can give you in a group of twenty without holding everyone else up. If you want to go further with it, one-to-one is where that happens."
The one going through something, where the class is the only hour that belongs to them:
"This has been a heavy few months for you. If you ever want an hour that is just yours, without twenty other people in the room, say the word."
The one who keeps asking about the same posture, for the third time:
"That is the third week running you have asked me about this, which I love. Honestly it is an hour of work, not two minutes at the door. Do you want to just do the hour?"
The one who is training for something, a marathon, a trek, a birth, a return to sport:
"You have got a specific thing coming up and a general class is not really built for it. I could build you something for the eight weeks if that is useful."
Notice what none of them contain. No price, no benefits, no adjectives about the transformative power of individual attention. The observation carries all the persuasion, because it is true and it is about them.
Words that turn it back into a pitch
Some phrases are poison, and they are all phrases people use precisely because they are trying to be polite.
"Would you be interested in" is a survey question, and it invites a survey answer, which is no. "I am launching" makes it about your business rather than their shoulder. "I have some availability" sounds like you need the money, which may be true and is still not their problem. "Spaces are limited" is a technique, and people can hear a technique from across the room.
And the worst one, which almost everyone reaches for: "sorry, I do not want to be that person, but..." You have just told them that what you are about to say is embarrassing. They will believe you.
Say the observation like a teacher, not like an apology.
Say it to the room once, so it is not a secret
There is a version of this that is not aimed at anyone, and it is worth doing every few weeks.
At the start of class, in the same voice you use for everything else:
"One thing before we start: I teach one-to-one as well as here. Some of you are working with something specific and that is often the better room for it. It is all on my page. Right, lie down."
Nine seconds, no one is singled out, no one has to react. What it does is remove the biggest obstacle, which is that a good half of your regulars simply assume privates are not a thing you do, or are for people much more serious than them.
Once the room knows it exists, the individual sentence gets far easier, because you are no longer introducing an idea. You are pointing an existing idea at one person.
A no is almost never a no about you
Some people will say "oh, maybe at some point" and mean nothing by it. Some will say it and mean not this year, because the money is tight or the diary is full or they are not ready to be looked at that closely for an hour, which is a real and reasonable fear.
Your job at that point is one line, and then never again:
"Of course. It is there whenever."
Do not follow up. Do not check in about it next month. The invitation stays valid indefinitely and they know that. Teachers who circle back get nothing out of it and lose the ease of the relationship, which was worth more than the session.
What does work is time. Say it once, well, and let it sit. A surprising number of privates get booked four months after the conversation, by a person who was not ready in March and is ready in July, and who remembered because you said it once and then treated them exactly the same afterward.
The test
Before you say any version of this, ask yourself one question: would I still say the first half if I did not offer privates at all?
If yes, say it. You are telling someone something true about their body that they cannot see from the inside, and then telling them where the rest of that conversation lives.
If no, you have not noticed anything yet. Go and notice something. That part cannot be scripted, which is exactly why it never sounds like a script.