It is not that easy becoming a yoga teacher and your yoga teacher deserves a lot of respect for how far they have come. To become a professional yoga teacher you have to go through a series of yoga teacher training courses and you have to have done a certain amount of yoga teacher training and yoga teaching before you can have your own classes. Yoga teacher training is intense and it requires both physical and emotional stamina. With yoga teacher training you are not only learning the different yoga poses and how to do them and how to teach them. You are also learning the names of each yoga pose, in English and Sanskrit, you are learning what the pose means, and you are learning how to share information on the pose. You are learning the different kinds of yoga, and there are many, and you are learning how this all benefits a person.
Mindful training
A yoga teacher learns how to give yoga classes in a safe and nurturing environment. They learn the premise of yoga, they know how and where yoga started, they know and they have benefited from yoga so they know what the benefits are, and they can gently talk to a student about yoga, asking any questions they may have. Yoga is a gentle practice and a yoga teacher learns about gentleness and peace. Yoga classes, whichever kind of yoga it is – hot, calm, restorative, slow, stretch, Yin, Vinyasa, Hatha, Ashtanga – is always taught with mindfulness. And that is something else that a yoga teacher has to learn. They have to learn how to still their own mind and how to help you still yours. Yoga teachers need to learn chants and meditations and prayers. It is hard work to become a yoga teacher but it is incredibly mindful work.
Yoga and safety
Yoga is not a dangerous practice but a yoga teacher must gently demonstrate poses to their students. If, for example, the pose is a neck stand, the yoga teacher must stress for a person to keep their neck perfectly still during the pose, not to look left or right. A yoga teacher can move around a room, helping people get the pose right, without disturbing the class. Yoga classes have a nice flow to them, even the slower classes, and the yoga teacher is important in the way they lead the class from one beautiful pose or posture to another.
Yoga certificates
To run a yoga studio a yoga teacher must have the right amount of yoga teacher training under their belt. Not just anyone can be a yoga teacher, even if they are a brilliant yoga. Being a great yoga teacher and a good yogi are two totally separate things. When you choose to do yoga, choose a studio where you feel comfortable and welcomed, safe and secure and where you connect with the teachers and feel that the yoga teacher is fully committed to the class.
