Yoga Teacher Training
Showing posts with label Yoga Teacher Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yoga Teacher Training. Show all posts

New and Improved - Becoming a Registered Yoga School 2025

 


The first time I wrote about becoming a registered yoga school with Yoga Alliance, it was me writing the content and creating the curriculum, but I was not in charge of filling out the online application with Yoga Alliance. I am now going through the process of becoming my own registered yoga school and as a result, I have new information on how the process works and how I can make the process easier for you in your journey towards becoming a registered yoga school.

The first step is to ensure that your total number of hours is 200. The Yoga Alliance outline omits 15 hours from its calculations (as you can see below from its guidelines). I assume they're leaving this block of time for you to put toward your Elective subject? I can't say for sure.

Yoga Alliance Core Curriculum Competencies

TECHNIQUES, TRAINING, PRACTICE – 75 HOURS  

  • Asana: Historical context
  • Asana: Poses specific to RYS's lineage—must include sukhasana and savasana
  • Asana: Complete sequencing (asana, pranayama, meditation) to achieve particular effect safely
  • Asana: Shared anatomical and alignment principles plus contraindications
  • Pranayama & Subtle Body: Historical Context
  • Pranayama & Subtle Body: Effects of pranayama on anatomy and subtle body
  • Pranayama & Subtle Body: Complete sequencing of pranayama safely, including alternatives and adaptations
  • Pranayama & Subtle Body: Ujjayi, Nadi Shodhana, Kapalabhati, among others
  • Pranayama & Subtle Body: Koshas, kleshas, chakras, nadis and prana vayus
  • Meditation: Key Meditation terms
  • Meditation: Meditation methods by lineage
  • Meditation: Ability to practice school's chosen meditation practice
  • Meditation: Chanting, mantras, and mudras
  • Elective

ANATOMY & PHYSIOLOGY – 30 HOURS (20 of which can be online)

  • Anatomy: Major Bones
  • Anatomy: Types of Joints
  • Anatomy: Major muscles involved in asana
  • Anatomy: Types of contraction
  • Physiology: Nervous system, incl. ‘fight, flight, freeze’ stress response, vagal theory, overall mind-body connection
  • Physiology: Cardiovascular/circulatory, endocrine, digestive systems as they relate to yoga practice
  • Physiology: Respiratory system, incl. muscles that affect breathing, involuntary vs voluntary breath, how air enters and leaves body
  • Biomechanics: Types of joint movement
  • Biomechanics: Joint stabilization
  • Biomechanics: Safe movement as it pertains to balancing, stretching, awareness, and physical limitations
  • Biomechanics: Contraindications, misalignment, adaptations
  • Elective

YOGA HUMANITIES – 30 HOURS (20 of which can be online)

  • History: Term 'yoga'
  • History: School's lineage, style and methodology
  • History: Dates and key ideas such as the Vedas, Vedanta, Hatha, Colonial, Modern
  • Philosophy: Definition of yoga and key terms
  • Philosophy: Relationship between asana, pranayama, meditation per school’s approach
  • Philosophy: Familiarity w/ major yogic texts (i.e., Yoga Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Hatha Yoga Pradipika)
  • Philosophy: Self-reflection on how philosophy relates to practice
  • Ethics: Awareness of Yoga Sutras or similar yogic ethical precepts
  • Ethics: Relationship to Yoga Alliance’s Ethical Commitment
  • Ethics: Comprehension of and responsibility to increase equity in yoga
  • Ethics: Accountability measures
  • Ethics: Self-reflection on how yoga ethics relate to practice and teaching
  • Elective

PROFESSIONAL ESSENTIALS – 50 HOURS

  • Professional Essentials
  • Teaching Methodology: Sequencing
  • Teaching Methodology: Pace
  • Teaching Methodology: Environment
  • Teaching Methodology: Cueing (verbal, visual, physical)
  • Teaching Methodology: Class management
  • Professional Development: Yoga-related professional organizations, including the Yoga Alliance Credentialing Process
  • Professional Development: Ethical Commitment, including Scope of Practice, Code of Conduct, and Equity Position Statement
  • Professional Development: Lifetime of learning and continuing education
  • Professional Development: General professionalism, including timeliness, consistency, cleanliness
  • Professional Development: Marketing and promotion
  • Professional Development: Liability insurance, waivers, invoicing
  • Practicum (Practice Teaching): Knowledge, skills, experience across 12 key competencies
  • Practicum (Practice Teaching): Mentorship component, incl. apprenticeship, feedback
  • Elective

I added 10 hours to TECHNIQUES, TRAINING, PRACTICE and 5 hours to PROFESSIONAL ESSENTIALS to get a total of 200 hours.

TECHNIQUES, TRAINING, PRACTICE – 85 HOURS  
ANATOMY & PHYSIOLOGY – 30 HOURS (20 of which can be online)
YOGA HUMANITIES – 30 HOURS (20 of which can be online)
PROFESSIONAL ESSENTIALS – 55 HOURS 

Then I took the content Yoga Alliance indicates can be done online (remotely) and used that block of time to create a video conferencing schedule during the week, totaling 40 hours over the course of the YTT, and then worked out the Saturday & Sunday start/end times to get to a total of 200 hours of training.

For the coursework to be done online via video conferencing, Yoga Alliance requires this content to be led by the trainer. This means giving your students a YouTube video playlist does not meet this requirement. I plan to use the time as an open discussion to cover these topics:

ANATOMY & PHYSIOLOGY – 20 hours online

  • Physiology: Nervous system, incl. ‘fight, flight, freeze’ stress response, vagal theory, overall mind-body connection
  • Physiology: Cardiovascular/circulatory, endocrine, digestive systems as they relate to yoga practice
  • Physiology: Respiratory system, incl. muscles that affect breathing, involuntary vs voluntary breath, how air enters and leaves body
  • Biomechanics: Types of joint movement
  • Biomechanics: Joint stabilization
  • Biomechanics: Safe movement as it pertains to balancing, stretching, awareness, and physical limitations
  • Biomechanics: Contraindications, misalignment, adaptations

YOGA HUMANITIES – 20 hours online

  • History: Term 'yoga'
  • History: School's lineage, style and methodology
  • History: Dates and key ideas such as the Vedas, Vedanta, Hatha, Colonial, Modern
  • Philosophy: Definition of yoga and key terms
  • Philosophy: Relationship between asana, pranayama, meditation per school’s approach
  • Philosophy: Familiarity w/ major yogic texts (i.e., Yoga Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Hatha Yoga Pradipika)
  • Philosophy: Self-reflection on how philosophy relates to practice
I will be structuring the training around the Pilgrimage To Power asana sequence and as such, I will be focusing on the sequence in sections, building the training layer by layer of the sequence.  Practice teaching, feedback and mentorship is a large portion of the training I'm outlining. The students will have ample practice leading Pilgrimage To Power, learning how to offer hands-on assists and how to lead specialized classes like the "Block Class", "The Blindfold Class" and how to lead a physical focused class like "The Drishti Class."

The most challenging part of filling out the online Yoga Alliance form is having all your data in one place so that you can copy/paste it in quickly and easily and know that your hours add up before you begin the application process.

Make a copy of this Google sheet and begin filling out the explanation for your RYS. How will you deliver the core competency information to your students? What is the content you're covering? 


For example: Core Competency Poses specific to RYS’s lineage—must include sukhasana and savasana. What poses specific to your lineage (in addition to sukhasana and savasana) will you cover? How will you cover these poses?

I took the list of all the poses in Pilgrimage To Power, removed the redundant ones, and created a comma-separated list of the poses that will be taught as part of my YTT.

We will cover the following poses by practicing the shape of the poses, discussing the anatomical alignment of the poses and training the students on how to offer hands-on assists during the yoga practice. List of poses: Child’s Pose, Ragdoll, Extended Mountain, Forward fold, Half Lift, High Plank, Low Plank, Upward Facing Dog, Downward Facing Dog, Chair, Warrior 1, Flip Dog/Side Plank, Eagle, Standing Leg Raise, Airplane, Standing Splits, Half moon, Dancer, Tree, Triangle, Side Facing Wide Leg Forward Fold, Goddess Squat, Skandasana, Tripod Headstand, Pyramid, Twisting Triangle, Revolved Half Moon, Locust, Floor Bow, Half Bow, Upward Facing Dog, Camel, Half Camel, Bridge, Wheel, Reclined Butterfly, Happy Baby, Scissor Legs, 60/30 Lift, Abdominal Twists, Boat, Half Pigeon, Lizard, King Pigeon, Mermaid, Double Pigeon, Easy Seat, Seated Figure Four, Frog, Half Frog, Seated Single Leg Extension, Seated Forward Fold, Reverse Table Top, Reverse Plank, Fish, Waterfall, Headstand, Shoulder Stand, Plow, Ear Pinning Pose, Supine Twist, Reclined Butterfly, Savasana.

For each of the files in the YA RYS Application Template 2023, fill it out with an explanation for your RYS. You can copy this information and paste it into your online application as you fill it out.

When you create your online application, you will need to upload the following documentation: Save yourself time by creating it ahead of time and having it ready to upload. The Guidebook to RYS Application PDF has samples to pull from.

Anti-Harassment Policy.pdf

Anti Retaliation Policy.pdf

Attendance Policy.pdf

Code of Conduct.pdf

Grievance Policy.pdf

Sample YTT CERTIFICATE.png

Required Reading List YTT.pdf

Tuition and Refunds.pdf

Yoga Alliance Letter of Intent.pdf


As you build your RYS online, you add Training Areas for each of the four major Core Curriculum Competencies. I recommend titling each Training Area with the Title of the Core Curriculum Competency. I see no reason to name it anything other than the competency being conveyed. I think the Training Area Title is redundant, and the YA should just have you select which core competency you're inputting the "how and why" instead.


Fun fact: The formatting for the amount of time you're submitting for each Core Competency is in HOURS DECIMAL. There is a minimum requirement of .50 hours for any/all Core Competency subcategories. 

You will also need to write up an explanation of how you intend to verify that your trainees have learned what you've taught:

Please select the assessment method(s) used to test trainees’ competency in this Educational Category. Check all that apply. 
Written Assessment
Oral Assessment
Final Project
Other (Please Explain Below)

Describe how you assess trainees' competency in this Educational Category.

I created a plain text document (Notepad [Windows] / TextEdit [Mac]) and had it populated with all of the written content (the explanation of my RYS, how I will verify the information has been learned) and simply copied and pasted this content into the online Yoga Alliance form. 

I pulled the HOURS DECIMAL time from my spreadsheet, uploaded my pre-made policies, letters, and sample certificates, and was able to complete the Yoga Alliance online RYS application in about 40 minutes from start to finish.
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Yoga Alliance Aligned Baptiste Power Yoga Teacher Training Manual Template

 

If you've been following along, you'll know that my yoga studio will be holding our first yoga teacher training in March of 2023. As part of the process of becoming a registered yoga school recognized by Yoga Alliance, I purchased a teacher training manual template from a mutual friend. I spent six months rewriting, reorganizing, redesigning and collaborating with our YTT team to create a document meeting the current Yoga Alliance curriculum requirements and reflecting the training we will be delivering.

All Y'All Yoga's Yoga Alliance registration process is now work in progress.

With that process started and that manual "completed", I set to work on this template which aligns to the Yoga Alliance 2023 curriculum guidelines and encompasses Baptiste Power Yoga teaching methodology, ready for anyone to edit to reflect the mission and ethos of their studio. 

This template is ready for you to edit, reorganize or rewrite to meet your yoga teacher training goals. I have reformatted this document into four different file types:  

  • Adobe InDesign 
  • Microsoft Word 
  • Google Documents
  • Canva Template

The images used within this template were created by me or taken from Wikimedia and used under Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution. The document color palette was designed to be readable when printed in black and white or color and the yoga postures are represented by gender neutral stick figures.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of this YTT Template, please reach out to me.

 JenTechYoga 2023 YTT Template Inquiry

 Here are thumbnails of the pages and the table of contents and sections in the manual. Click to see them full size (readable).


 
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Becoming a Registered Yoga School



I'm the kind of person who has to actually see the 'big picture' before I can break things down into a logical arrangement according to a calendar based time line. This is a long way of saying I have to write down all the things that are required before I can figure out how to convey the requirements.
Starting in August of 2020, All Y'All Yoga started on the path to becoming a Registered Yoga School. This starts with becoming familiar with the Yoga Alliance Requirements, the Lead Trainer requirements, and the documentation required when applying to become an RYS.

  • TRAINING MANUAL
  • DAILY SCHEDULE
  • POLICIES (6 IN TOTAL)
  • LETTER OF INTENT
  • SAMPLE CERTIFICATE
  • BACKGROUND/EXPERIENCE FOR LEAD TRAINERS AND FACILITY
  • TRAINEE SELECTION PROCESS
  • TRAINER:TRAINEE RATIO
  • CURRICULUM & HOURS ALLOCATION
  • ASSESSMENT METHODS
I achieved the Yoga Alliance YAECP® credential in August 2022 after completing Fit To Lead with the Baptiste Institute and clocking 1000 hours teaching, after becoming registered with Yoga Alliance in November of 2015. Having this step completed, I embarked on digesting all the content Yoga Alliance requires as part of a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training program. I wrote it all down on my home office whiteboard so I could look at it every day and slowly begin to formulate a process for turning these topics into a daily schedule, training manual, curriculum & hours allocation and assessment methods.

After many months of attempting to transform topics into a timeline, I came upon a formula for slicing the buckets of hours YA assigns to each major topic. I took the hours tied to each major topic and divided them into what I felt might be an appropriate distribution of time for each topic, weighting the topics and sub topics according to my perceived importance and complexity.


Our yoga studio will include training in Yin and Yoga Nidra as well as Baptiste Power Yoga, therefore the YA major topic of "Techniques, Training, Practice" got further divided into sub topics: Asana (Baptiste Power Yoga), Pranayama & Subtle Body, Meditation, Yin/Restorative and Yoga Nidra. 

Color coding the major topics and sub topics helped me see how the topics link to one another while I was working out how to distribute these major topics and sub topics over the course of the 200 RYT program.
 
Working within the constraints of when the studio has classes already on the schedule, and when we could have the studio space available to lead the RYT curriculum within an agreeable frame of time, we reached this scheduling conclusion. This schedule would allow us to deliver the YA content over the course of 7 weekends in 2023. Creating a YTT schedule where the days of training are long but not egregious was the goal.



Working with graph paper, I arbitrarily picked a small "bucket of time" to be represented by a single square in the graph paper notebook I was working in. This single bucket of time ended up being a 15 minute block of time, since 15 minutes is easy to work with in the context of hours of training and breaking up training vs teaching vs assessing over the course of a day.


Working through the major topics and required sub topics with colored pencils and graph paper allowed me to see how many "buckets" of time each day of training would have available through the 7 weeks. Once I had the major topics laid out in color, I began to lay out the sub-topics such as Skeletal System, Physiology, Bio-mechanics, History, Philosophy, Ethics and so on. Using Friday Evenings for the sub-topics that lend themselves well to lecture-based teaching seemed an ideal path. Once I'd set the Friday night schedules, the Saturday & Sunday schedules began to become clearer. 

I'd created a bulleted list of topics, sorted by importance, which I want to impart to our trainees regarding how to lead Baptiste Power Yoga. Using this bulleted list, I began to divvy up the large time buckets of Teaching Methodology and Practicum into smaller slots of time. Doing this will allow me to teach a concept, have the students practice the concept and then we can discuss how the practice went and receive feedback. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Looking at the bulleted list of prioritized topics in a spreadsheet format allowed me to build the Leader's Daily Agenda documents which we will use to keep us on time while delivering the training. Topic documentation, prioritization, and daily scheduling was also used to define the portions of the YTT dedicated to Yin/Restorative and Yoga Nidra.
 
I bought a copy of a YTT manual from a fellow Baptiste Power Yoga Studio owner to use as a template for the All Y'All Yoga YTT manual. I've edited, rearranged, removed and adding content to it since August and I have learned a lot about working with Adobe InDesign to create CharacterStyles, ParagraphStyles, Color Swatches, edit Anchor Options to keep images anchored to text fields. Working from an actual YTT manual gave me a foundation to start from, the confidence to strip away and add in content currently required by Yoga Alliance, as well as the content specific to All Y'All Yoga.

If you are also on the path to becoming a Registered Yoga School, perhaps this post will be helpful for you to organize your YTT weekends to meet the content requirements of Yoga Alliance. I know it is unlikely that your weekend start/stop times will be the same as those at All Y'All, but the concepts I've laid out for a way to organize the major topics, sub-topics and then divvy them up into a timeline will possibly be of use to you.

This Google Sheet will help you formulate your responses to the Yoga Alliance Application. Once you've completed the "Explanation for your RYS" for each of the core competencies, you'll be ready to copy and paste this content into the Yoga Alliance website when you are completing your Yoga School Registration application.
 

I created an offline template which can be used to pre-fill out your Daily Scheduler data. The Yoga Alliance website for creating the Daily Schedule doesn't allow for submitting this data and saving your progress. It's entered all at once. The spreadsheet I made will help you organize your data in such a way that you can enter your data into the YA website and know that you will be uploading your complete schedule content. This document is an Excel spreadsheet and not a Google spreadsheet, as I couldn't figure out how to create dependent drop down lists in a Google spreadsheet.

 
If you found any of this useful and you feel called to contribute, here is my PayPal account information. (click below)

 
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