Sage Rountree - The Professional Yoga Teachers Handbook

Acclaim for The Professional Yoga Teachers Handbook

This incredibly useful handbook covers every facet of yoga teaching, from landing your first teaching job to refining your yoga-teaching language. Whether youre an aspiring yoga teacher or have years of experience behind you, this guide will help you level-up your teaching craft and career within the current landscape of the modern yoga world. Jenni Rawlings, pioneer of science-based yoga, movement, and instruction

Dr. Rountree incorporates her wide-ranging experience as a dedicated yogi, author, business owner, athlete, and master teacher to enhance and support the careers of yoga instructors at any stage of their professional journey. She offers advice with a practical workbook that allows the reader to ask thoughtful, self-reflective questions. An invaluable addition to any yoga teachers library. Ingrid Yang, MD, JD, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, author of Hatha Yoga Asanas and Adaptive Yoga

No one can predict how the pandemic will continue to impact local yoga communities and the yoga industry at large. Yet Rountrees book is the business-of-yoga book that every 200-hour training program needs to have as required reading. Clear, practical, well-informed, and an honest peek behind the curtain of being a yoga professional, this book is a game changer for yoga teachers who want to teach in an impactful, purposed, and far-reaching way.

Octavia Raheem, co-owner of Sacred Chill West, author of Gather, and yoga teacher

How I wish I had this book when I first began teaching! Asana knowledge and yogic philosophy will only get you so far. This book points the way to the next level of your aspiration to teach, walking you through a truly integral strategy for the business of teaching yoga. A teacher training without this book is like buying a new car but failing to fill up the tank.

Josh Summers, Yin Yoga trainer and host of the podcast Everyday Sublime

Whether youre embarking on your first teacher training program or youve been teaching for a decade, this book strikes every essential chord while providing a dose of real talk. Relevant to todays yoga culture, this book is an indispensable companion for anyone on the path of teaching yoga. Terry Cockburn, owner and director, Freeport Yoga Company

The Professional Yoga Teachers Handbook is an excellent guide to teaching yoga successfully. It includes sage advice on offering the best quality instruction in todays climate, while setting up healthy boundaries to enjoy the rest of your life. Michael Johnson, founder, Clearlight Yoga

Also by Sage Rountree

The Athletes Guide to Yoga

The Athletes Pocket Guide to Yoga

The Athletes Guide to Recovery

The Runners Guide to Yoga

Racing Wisely

Everyday Yoga

with Alexandra DeSiato

Lifelong Yoga

Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses

For Martha Harbison

I Hated The First Yoga Class I attended. It was harder than I expected, there were manual corrections and confusing Sanskrit, and savasana was bizarre to me, especially because I desperately had to pee but, unsure of the protocol or how long wed be lying still, was afraid to leave the room. If Id felt neutral instead of negative about the experience, you wouldnt be holding this book. My intense aversion led me to go back for more, to get at the root of what made yoga challenging and to see whether I could change my reaction. As I dug deeper into yoga, I garnered the tools to investigate my early response to the practice.

Prenatal yoga was a bridge for me. During my first pregnancy, I found that I was more open to the sense of connection and union that yoga offers, and I was eager to watch what changed in my body and mind moment to moment. Then, during my second pregnancy, I felt the call to be a yoga teacher. Every class Ive takenespecially that first onehas shown me something new about the practice and taught me how to be the best version of myself, both as a practitioner and as a student.

Looking back, I can see that my previous experiences had also set me up to be a yoga teacher. Both my parents are educators, and I didnt stray far from the cozy nest of academia, going straight from college to graduate school, where I eventually earned a PhD in English literature. During graduate school, I came to running as a stress release, and my running led me back to yoga for good. After graduation, I realized that I could use the skills Id learned in graduate school in the yoga field. Id spent my educational career learning how to teach, how to help my peers grow as teachers, and how to research the subjects that interested me, like the intersection between sports and yoga. Eventually, I was able to use my experience writing to share my research with readers. This is my ninth book.

I entered yoga teacher training in 2003. Though Id only been out of the classroom for a few years, it was wonderful to get back into concerted study. Teacher training gives you a chance to explore things you wont get in a regular class and to pursue your special interests. In teacher training, we have a special opportunity to form friendships in a group of like-minded people. This is how we spent our childhoods and young adulthoodsstudying alongside classmatesand it feels like coming home to get back to it. If you havent already taken teacher training, I know this communionhaving colleagues who are interested in the same things that youre passionate about, and growing togetherwill be a special part of your experience.

The more I practice yoga, the more I depend on the simplicity of the basics: breath, awareness, easy movement. The same goes for teaching. Coming back to the basics will keep you professional. I am still learning in every class. I pick up a new use for a prop, admire a new turn of phrase, or hear an old lesson imparted in a way that gives it new relevance. Whether you are new to the practice or have decades of experience, if you are an aspiring teacher or have been doing it for years, I hope this book will be useful. Much of what we cover is basic. But being a professional is about covering the basics: establishing clear communication, following through on what you promise, and holding yourself to high standards.

Yoga Teacher Trainings have proliferated in America and around the world in the last decade, with only nominal oversight and inconsistent standards from one to the next. If youre going to spend thousands of dollars and lots of your energy on a teacher training, you probably want to be sure its worth your time and money. This laxity of oversight may soon change with the imposition of new standards for the Yoga Alliance, but many trainings dont operate under this umbrella, some for good reason and while maintaining their own high standards.