So you are ready to become a yoga teacher! You have a dedicated and balanced yoga practice, and the heartfelt desire to share your knowledge and passion for yoga with the world. Now, how do you decide which yoga teacher training course to do? Here are a few basic guidelines to help you choose the yoga teacher certification that’s perfect for you.
Your Favorite Yoga Teachers
To help you sift through the incredible amount of choices when it comes to yoga teacher training, start by listing your favorite yoga teachers. Which classes touch you the deepest and facilitate your most joyful, reflective and transformative practice? This list will show you the teaching styles, and the yoga styles, that resonate with you the most. These are the styles which you are most likely to find passion in teaching.
Your Yoga Style
Look at your list. Is there one yoga style most common among these teachers? Which style feels right? Let your choice come from an instinctual draw, not the reasoning of your mind. From here, start talking to your teachers, your fellow yogis and let the path reveal itself.
Get the Basics
Once you have narrowed it to one, or a few schools, it’s time to do your homework. Look over their program. It should include reading the formative yogic texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads and the Yoga Sutras.
Does the program follow yoga alliance standards? Does the course have a well-rounded program including modules on anatomy, meditation, philosophy, and it does require at least 4 observation, assisting and teaching tests?
If the syllabus and ‘coursework’ is intimidating — well, it should be. This will be your induction into a lifetime of exploring a world of wisdom.
How Flexible Are You?
There are as many ways to do your yoga teacher training as there are to do pigeon pose. Some programs offer intensive courses, up to a month long, where you are completely immersed in your study and living at the ashram.
Other courses offer a more flexible training schedule, which many people prefer so they can study while carrying on with daily life. In this case, courses can run either every weekend or as little as one weekend a month. All yoga teacher-training courses, at the first level, follow the 200-hour model. What pace to adopt just depends on what works for you.
Committing to Community
Now that you have found a school, look at how long the training program has been running, and how many graduates they have. Also, check out the bios of the senior teachers, who you will be studying under, and, if possible, drop in on one of their classes to say hello.
Doing your yoga teacher training is much more than a commitment to your personal practice; it is a deep opening into the yoga community, locally and globally, so take the time to find your perfect yoga community and make yourself at home.