About Yoga Works Teacher Training
Theory and Practice of Yoga
YogaWorks believes the path to becoming a professional yoga teacher is a unique, satisfying, and life-affirming journey.
We offer one of the world’s most comprehensive Teacher Training Programs for aspiring teachers and serious students
of yoga. Our program is rooted in our deep history as an eclectic school that embraces and celebrates many styles of yoga.
Our mission is to provide each yoga teacher with the foundation to teach skillfully with compassion, safety, and integrity,
while honoring his or her individual voice and style. At Yoga Works, our mission is to provide yoga teachers with the
foundation to teach skillfully with compassion, integrity and safety, while honoring his or her unique voice and style.
The dynamic and conscious practice of asana is the cornerstone to the Yoga Works approach to teaching. To deepen their education, students in the Yoga Works teacher training will also study anatomy and physiology, explore yoga’s philosophical underpinnings, practice meditation and pranayama as well as investigate the subtle body and the science of Ayurveda. This foundational training will emphasize deepening a student’s personal practice, as this is the source for their creative teaching.
It will also include a comprehensive study of the techniques and mechanics of fundamental yoga postures, while providing the tools necessary to teach yoga to others. To facilitate a more scientific understanding of the body, the training includes the study
of functional anatomy-including units devoted to the feet, legs, pelvis, spine and shoulder girdle as well as the physiology of inversions, breathing and the nervous system. In addition, to give developing teachers a balanced understanding of yoga, the Yoga Works training moves beyond the physical with the study of meditation, pranayama, Ayurveda and the chakra system.
Topics Include:
- Intensive asana study
- Beginning anatomy and physiology
- Introduction to meditation
- The principles of pranayama
- Understanding restorative yoga
- Introduction to ayurveda
- Overview of subtle body/chakra system
Since 1988, Yoga Works has trained hundreds of new teachers and continues to offer
on-going curriculum to its graduates. Our Teacher Training program includes a 200-hour
foundational course, a professional program for developing teachers and a certification assessment.
During your 200-hour teacher training, you will learn the fundamentals of intelligent instruction: the
cornerstone of a YogaWorks style class. We feel it is a teacher’s job, rather than just leading students
through a routine, to really teach them something in each class, using instructions to stretch students’
thinking and approach to postures and/or the philosophy of yoga. In this way we hope to offer our
students a rich, original, multi-layered experience. Within these guidelines, you will uncover your own
unique voice, style, and gifts as a yoga teacher. The YogaWorks distinctive view of sequencing asana is
inspired by three lineages: Ashtanga, Iyengar and Viniyoga. From Ashtanga Yoga comes sun salutes,
heat and breath, from Iyengar, conscientious instruction, focus on inversion and themes and from Viniyoga,
individualized modifications. From there, YogaWorks has added its own unique sequencing guidelines
based on the needs of the average practitioner and has tied these threads together into a cohesive whole.
The 200-hour program is divided into sections according to types of asana studied. We begin with
standing poses – Tadasana – the template – and the postures that are most like Tadasana – those
poses in which the femur bones are placed neutrally in the hip sockets. From neutrally-rotated
standing poses we move to outwardly-rotated standing poses. From there, we explore a new type of
asana each session: inversions, sun salutes, back bends, forward bends, twists, arm balances as
well as how to teach beginners and restoratives. Anatomy and philosophy are woven into the cloth of
the course so that they relate to the asana. Pranayama, meditation and study of the subtle body are
introduced once students have built a solid physical foundation through work in the asanas.
Once a trainee has successfully completed our basic training and professional program,
they will have surpassed the Yoga Alliance criteria for 200-hour level certification, be well on their
way toward the 500-hour level and may be considered for a teaching position at Yoga Works.
Teachers generally make their start in student-teacher classes. From there, they have the
opportunity to grow into teachers with wide ranging careers that include teaching classes,
workshops and retreats wherever Yoga Works reaches both in this country and around the world.
Yoga Philosophy
Over 2,000 years ago the sage Patanjali described the process of Yogic movement toward
higher consciousness and peace in his treatise “The Yoga Sutras.” His teachings are a living,
practical model that, once understood, can be applied to all aspects of life today. They serve to deepen
the awareness of our relationship to ourselves, to others, and to our environment. Participants of this
course will be introduced to the vast wealth of inspiration available in the Yoga Sutras.
The Theory and Practice of Teaching
The art of teaching is a form of yoga in itself requiring sensitivity, compassion and practice.
A teacher must encourage and inspire, being sensitive to both the needs of individuals as well as
those of the group. The practical and subtle aspects involved in teaching, to be addressed in this course, include:
-How to be an effective teacher
-Use of voice, body language, touch
-The art and science of sequencing
-Learning how to see and understand bodies
-The purpose and use of props: in personal practice and class setting
-Hands on adjustments
-Practice Teaching