Mara Colbert - How to Become a Great Yoga Teacher Without Spending a Dime on Teacher Training

How to Become a Great Yoga Teacher

Without Spending a Dime on Teacher Training

By

Mara Colbert

www.yogateachertraining4free.com

Copyright 2012 by Mara Colbert

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

www.yogateachertraining4free.com

There is no doubt about it, yoga changes peoples lives for the better. People who practice yoga report less stress and anxiety, relief from physical symptoms including back pain and arthritis, faster recovery from injury, and increased connection to their spiritual life. And if you are like me, you love your experience of yoga so much that you desire to share it with others by becoming a teacher. But as you may have learned, yoga teacher training is expensive! Teacher training courses can run anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000, and for a fledgling yoga teacher who may not even know where their first job will come from, this can be daunting. Many teacher training courses claim to provide you with a certification or prepare you to claim the designation of a Yoga Alliance Registered Teacher at 200, 300, or 500 hours. But I am here to share with you everything you need to know to become a GREAT yoga teacher, without attending an expensive teacher training course, and without registering with the Yoga Alliance. In the following pages I will share with you:

I have studied and practiced yoga since 1998 and have made a life of teaching yoga for the past decade. My interest in the full and varied tradition of hatha yoga has always led me to pursue studies in many forms and lineages, including ashtanga, vinyasa, Iyengar, Anusara, and Bikram. I am an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance (YA) at the 200-hour level (E-RYT) having received a certification with a concentration in ashtanga yoga at Yoga Yoga Teacher Training in Austin, Texas.

Aside from my teaching certification, I have attended teacher trainings with Shiva Rea and Baron Baptiste and have had the good fortune of learning from many master teachers, including Rodney Yee, Ana Forrest, Seane Corn, John Friend, Desiree Rumbaugh, Christina Sell, John Shumacher, Aadil Palkivala, and Tias Little.

After teaching at several of the best-known yoga studios in Austin, I moved to my hometown of Kansas City in 2004 and opened a yoga studio called Inspire Yoga. Over the next few years, Inspire Yoga became one of Kansas Citys most well-loved and respected yoga studios with some of the best instructors in town. In 2010 I merged Inspire Yoga with another great yoga studio, Yoga Gallery, and am now happily teaching classes to an amazing group of dedicated students alongside the best teachers in the area.

I teach what I consider eclectic hatha yoga, and depending on the class, it may be called yoga, yoga flow, hatha yoga, hatha flow, or vinyasa flow. While I have studied many of the major yoga styles in depth, I am not married to any one style, and I use what speaks to me and has worked for me over the years. My teaching is informed by the wisdom imparted from the teachers I have learned from, and from my own practice. My in-depth knowledge of various styles of hatha yoga, as well as a thorough understanding of anatomy, physiology, and the strengths and limitations of individual bodies, allows me to tailor each class to suit the participants. Students in my classes receive individual attention, as well as the respect and space they require to discover themselves through the practice of yoga.

Yoga instructors do not necessarily need to be certified or to have any particular credentials to teach yoga. Unlike massage therapists, chiropractors, or public school teachers, there are no licensing requirements to practice. Therefore, it is not required to have a particular certificate or even to have gone to an organized teacher training program in order to be a successful and even a great yoga teacher. Dont get me wrong, I am a huge fan of teacher training. I am by no means suggesting that one should not attend teacher training IF their lifestyle and finances support it. I have the utmost respect for quality teacher training programs. I attribute my teacher training at Yoga Yoga in Austin, Texas, for a large part of my ability to be a great teacher. And if you are passionate about a particular style of yoga, such as Iyengar, Ashtanga, Anusara, or Bikram yoga, to name a few, and if you want to specifically teach that style of yoga, then you will need to attend their rigorous teacher trainings and receive a certification from that school to teach in their style. However, if you, like me, have an eclectic approach to yoga, and you want to teach classes called yoga, hatha yoga, vinyasa, yoga flow, power yoga, basic yoga, etc., then you do not need a certificate from a particular school. And you do not need to be registered with Yoga Alliance (YA), or have the letters RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher) after your name.

Yoga Alliance (YA) is the national education and support organization for yoga teachers in the United States. Their stated intention is to ensure that there is a thorough understanding of the benefits of yoga, that the teachers of yoga value its history and traditions, and that the public can be confident of the quality and consistency of instruction.

In September 1999, YA established a national Yoga Teachers' Registry to recognize and promote teachers with training that meets their minimum standards. Teachers who meet these standards are eligible to register as Registered Yoga Teachers (RYTs). In 2005 they began recognizing and registering teachers with significant teaching experience in addition to training. These teachers can register as Experienced Registered Yoga Teachers (E-RYTs). (see https://yogaalliance.org)

So you can see here that YA does not certify teachers, but allows teachers to pay money to register like a directory.

I am not knocking YA, I respect what they do, and I proudly display their letters after my name (in the years that I have chosen to send in my payment to be in the registry). But the vast majority of yoga teachers I know do NOT have the letters RYT after their names. And they are some of the best and most well-respected teachers, both in my local community and nationally, and truly some of the best in the world. Over the past eight years I have lived in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, and for six of those years I owned and ran a yoga studio. I can tell you that of the dozen or so yoga teachers I employed over that time, less than one-third of them were RYTs. Of the master teachers listed in my bio, Im fairly certain none of them register with the YA. Most of the well-known yoga teachers that you see gracing the covers of yoga magazines also do not display the letters RYT after their names, as they do not need them. Their teaching and experience speaks for itself.