steps to becoming a yoga teacher through a yoga instructor certification

You may have noticed how good you feel after yoga. Yoga may have improved and may have saved your life. The idea came up, “How can I share it with others? How can I get yoga instructor certification? ” This is a story that I have heard countless times. When one realizes that yoga can have a profound impact on our life, it is not uncommon for one to explore and share these benefits with others. If you feel this call, you may want to know how to become a yoga instructor, how to help others and how to change your life, just as your own life has been changed by yoga. In this article, we cover the ways and considerations when your love of yoga becomes a profession, and hope to answer the question of how to become a yoga teacher.

Why train to become an instructor and get a yoga instructor certification

Even if teaching yoga is not your career goal, you may want to explore how to become a yoga instructor, so as to have a deeper understanding of yoga and why yoga has such a profound impact on people’s lives.
When you learn to be a yoga instructor, you will explore topics rarely covered in yoga classes, such as the history and philosophy of yoga, yoga anatomy and detailed routes. Two important pillars of yoga, such as pranayama and meditation, which rarely appear in yoga courses, are often prominent in the training of yoga teachers.

In addition to acquiring the skills of becoming a yoga instructor, receiving training from a yoga teacher is a profound personal change.

How to become a yoga instructor in the traditional way

Formal yoga schools only appeared in the last century. Before that, for 5,000 years, learning how to be a yoga instructor was similar to apprenticeship. Students will follow their guru or guru for many years, absorb their knowledge and follow their teachings, until one day, guru will send them to the world to start spreading their knowledge.

In addition to Ashtanga Yoga, you can follow the teaching of expert coaches or masters for several years, and learn to be a yoga instructor through apprenticeships of any yoga style. Learning how to become a yoga instructor through this model can provide in-depth study of practice and teaching methods by imitating coaches.

However, it also involves some key challenges. The required training time may take many years, which means that it takes time to teach yoga to bring you income. According to the instructor you follow, you may not be able to get education in some key fields, such as anatomy and physiology. If you choose this path to become a yoga instructor, consider supplementing your apprenticeship with supplementary training.

How to become a yoga instructor in the 21st century

To understand how becoming a yoga teacher developed from years of apprenticeship to one month of training, we need to look at the evolution of yoga in the last century. In the first half of the 20th century, two key changes have taken place: Yoga has become more focused on asanas. At the same time, this new “body” yoga went to the west and gained a rapid growth in popularity.

In order to meet the increasing demand of yoga teachers, yoga schools began to appear all over the world, and developed a large number of projects to produce yoga instructors. In 1990s, a group of coaches began to discuss the necessity of establishing national standards for yoga instructor training, and thus the American Yoga Alliance was born.

Nowadays, the typical way to become a yoga instructor is to follow famous yoga schools for 200 or 500 hours of yoga teacher training. These services are provided in various forms and last for several weeks to several years, and are provided face-to-face or online. Choosing the right training includes considering the yoga style you want to learn, the time you are willing to give, and the learning environment you want to be around.

Should my first training be 200 hours or 500 hours for my yoga instructor certification?

When you want to know how to become a yoga teacher, the first choice you may face is to do 200 hours or 500 hours of training.

Nowadays, 200 hours of training seems to be the minimum requirement of yoga instructors recognized worldwide. After 200 hours of yoga instructor training, some yoga teachers will decide to pass an additional 300 hours of yoga instructor certification to continue their studies. The 500-hour yoga instructor training is only a 200-hour course plus 300-hour yoga instructor certification, and sometimes 500-hour courses are provided together. Confused? Not exactly …

You can take your 200-hour yoga teacher training as a basic course for you to become a yoga instructor. With a diploma, you can start teaching and accumulate experience. 300-hour yoga instructor certification is a bit like doing your master’s degree; It can expand your knowledge, or let you specialize in a specific style or method, but it is not necessary and not needed by everyone.

My advice to students all the time is to start with 200 hours of yoga instructor training, then accumulate at least one year of teaching experience, and then consider 300 hours of courses. Why? Because the experiential learning gained by teaching yoga courses will allow you to narrow down the skills or majors you want to focus on, and choose the appropriate 300-hour training.