Becoming a Yoga Instructor
If you are passionate about teaching others how to live a healthy and balanced life, you may want to consider becoming a certified yoga instructor. Becoming a yoga teacher is a rewarding journey for many people. In order to become a yoga instructor, you are required to go through yoga teacher training. A good yoga teacher training program will not only prepare you to teach yoga but it will also allow you to grow further in your own health journey. In this article, you will learn all about yoga instructor courses, from how to sign up for the courses, how to be a successful yoga instructor, how to start teaching your own classes, and how to find yoga instructor training near you.
Yoga instructor courses
If you have been practicing yoga and emerging yourself into the culture of yoga lifestyle over the past few years, you might feel like it is time to take your yoga skills to the next level. Luckily, you have the opportunity to do that! All you have to do is simply register for yoga teacher training classes. Once you become a yoga teacher, you can pass on your knowledge to others and grow the yoga community. It might feel intimidating at first; but, once you get further along into the course and become a full-fledged yoga instructor, you will be glad you went through all of that training.
Read these helpful tips in order to prepare yourself for your yoga teaching journey.
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You don’t need to be an expert
It has already been briefly mentioned before; but this is a crucial point. Becoming a teacher might seem scary and intimidating at first; however, don’t stress about it. Most likely you have been practicing yoga for quite a while if you are considering yoga teacher training and how to become a yoga instructor. This most likely means you have been to many yoga classes throughout your yoga journey.
Don’t let the word “teacher” scare you away. You probably know more than you think you do. The important thing is that you can effectively use your voice to guide people along throughout the yoga class. Lastly, remember that it is okay to make mistakes. No one is perfect. No doubt about it, you will make a mistake here or there. Mistakes are just a part of the learning process. As you get further into your yoga teacher training and teach more yoga classes, you will gain hands-on experiences and learn from them.
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Yoga Certifications
You can think of earning yoga teacher certification as being similar to how a medical doctor earns an “MD” to show that he or she has graduated from an intensive training program to prepare them for the medical world. Similarly, a yoga teacher must also graduate from an intensive training program to teach yoga. Similar to how the American Medical Association sets the standards for a Doctor of Medicine, the Yoga Alliance has their own standards that yoga teachers must follow.
Quality yoga studios only hire teachers who have received their yoga certification. Going through a yoga certification course is not about becoming better at practicing yoga. On the contrary, completing your yoga certification course will teach you how to safely lead a group of students in a yoga class. You can be extremely talented at yoga; however, the true test is whether or not you can effectively lead and teach a yoga class.
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Finding a yoga teacher training program
In order to become a yoga instructor, you will want to go through some form of yoga teacher training. The most common type of yoga instructor training is the 200-hour teacher training. The class is a commitment, so you want to make sure you are fully ready and able to complete this extensive yoga training. If you do choose to move forward in your yoga teacher training, you will definitely be happy that you did. Through this 200 hour long training, you will learn a lot of information.
You will learn how to effectively teach a yoga class, the anatomy and philosophy of yoga, and so much more useful information for teaching a yoga class. According to Yoga Alliance, this 200-hour yoga instructor teaching consists of at least 100 hours of technique, training, and practice, 25 hours of teaching methodology, 20 hours of learning about anatomy and physiology, 30 hours of the philosophy of yoga, 10 hours of applying what you have learned by teaching yoga classes, and the remaining 15–20 hours are for other classroom work, reading and written assignments. Some of the more common yoga practices are Vinyasa yoga and Hatha yoga. However, there are many other yoga instructor training programs to choose from. In other words, choose the program that you want to focus on. There are many yoga instructor training programs out there. After doing your research and learning more about the various yoga teacher programs, make sure to pick the best training program that will work best for you and your learning style.
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Practice your yoga teaching skills
Of course, once you learn how to be a great yoga instructor, you are going to want to apply that knowledge and start teaching classes. As mentioned earlier, Yoga Alliance requires you to go through 10 hours of actually teaching yoga to students.
This idea of “learn by doing” is incredibly important to your yoga instructor training. It’s one thing to sit in a classroom and learn all about yoga and how to teach others yoga. And it’s another thing to apply what you have learned to the real world by actually teaching a group of people yoga. You are still learning as you teach classes. The more classes you teach, the more comfortable you will become with being in front of a yoga class.
In addition, as you teach more and more yoga classes, you will gain more confidence in your teaching abilities and learn what works best for you while communicating to your students. No matter how long you have been teaching yoga, you will always learn something new every time you get in front of your class. Essentially, you want to gain as much real-world experience as possible.
Yoga instructor training near me
Before signing up for yoga instructor training, you definitely have a lot of factors to think about. You need to make sure that you are passionate about yoga and have the time to go through the intensive yoga training program. If the answer is yes to those questions, you can start to seriously look into joining a yoga instructor training program near you. Yoga Now offers a yoga teacher training course which takes place over 28 weeks for 200 hours of training. Before starting a yoga instructor training course, it is recommended to have practiced yoga for at least one year. The Yoga Now instructor training program includes the following topics: training technique, teaching methodology, anatomy and physiology, yoga philosophy, lifestyle, and ethics, practicum, and an introduction to Mysore Style Ashtanga. Once you decide that you want to begin your journey to become a yoga instructor, reach out to us here at Yoga Now today to begin your yoga instructor training.