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perfect_balance_uk

Good afternoon everyone!
I have introduced myself on here briefly before but have no found much time to post regularly as I have been travelling, working and of course - enjoying life in Japan!

Here is a brief bit about me for those who did not see my previous post.

My name is David and I am 29 years old, from London, UK.
I am a Level 4 Advanced Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher and Sports Therapist who has ran my own fitness and rehab businesses in the UK for over 8 years.
I am currently working and travelling in Japan with my girlfriend on a Working Holiday Visa. We have been travelling for approximately 7 months, and have been making do with teaching English online (we are both qualified English teachers) and teaching Yoga face to face when we can (this is difficult at times, as some cities we only stay in for 1 week before moving on)  as well as online.

We have finally decided that after seeing and staying in over 15 cities here, we are going to stop travelling and decide what the next step is. We are currently in Kyoto and have 6 weeks of accommodation booked here, but I have yet to be able to teach a single Yoga private session or class in person (only online) and teaching English alone is not enough to sustain us for the future, let alone enough to meet our visa requirements.

We have been offered two jobs so far which are both good opportunities, but both have serious glaring flaws. Without going in to too much detail, one of them is a well paid fitness job, teaching staff and running a rehab gym. This is my ideal kind of work, although it is in Hokkaido, and is 2.5 hours from Sapporo! Essentially there is nothing there, and very few people even. This means any form of social life would be non existent....
The second offer is in Hamamatsu and would be teaching English along with fitness work. Again a great offer, but I have heard that Hamamatsu is not a very interesting city? Along with this - the visa is not 'guaranteed' like it would be in Hokkaido. I believe we would need to confirm that we would earn over 2 million yen per year, which is difficult for our employer to 100% guarantee as the work is private. As well as this, we do not want to have to rent a property in Hamamatsu with a 1 or 2 year contract, as we feel this may be problematic if the work is not to our liking and we need to find other work. We would be tied to this city for a long time when it may be easier to move out if the work is not suitable and find a better solution in a bigger city (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto etc).

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips?

I would be interested to hear from anyone, and all of your advice is appreciated, so even if you do not come from the health and fitness field, please feel free to speak up anyway!

We love Japan and we really hope to stay here! Returning to London is of course a valid response, and we do have a property in London and businesses we could go back to, but the point of this post is to help us stay in this beautiful country.

Thank you in advance.

We greatly appreciate all of your input!

David

See also

The Working Holiday Visa for JapanProfessional visas in JapanWorking Holiday JapanConsiderations for getting married in Japan as a foreigner?Best way to get a working visa
Masha and Fonari

Hi Perfect_balance_uk,

Thanks for your post.

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