When I opened applications for our first teacher training earlier this year, I said it was for anyone who was ready to deepen their practice or share yoga with others. I meant both halves of that sentence. This post is about the first half.
If you’ve looked at our training and thought, “That sounds amazing, but I don’t want to stand at the front of a room,” I want you to know you’re not disqualified. You’re actually a pretty good candidate.
I was a student long before I was a teacher
I started practicing around 2003 or 2004. My first class was a hot yoga class and I fell in love. I got my 200 hour certification in 2008 in Arvada, Colorado, and I’ll be honest, the training was hard on me in a way I didn’t expect.
I’m 5 foot 10 and I’ve been that tall since I was pretty young, so I’d developed the slouch of a taller person. I was also a new mom, which meant a lot of hunched-over baby holding and car seat carrying. Then for 200 hours I had to sit on the floor, upright. That was the hardest part of my whole teacher training. Not the poses. Sitting up straight. I tell that story in my Yoga for Better Posture class, because if you’re struggling to sit tall, I feel for you.
After that I taught at my neighborhood studio for years, and eventually Matt and I started filming my classes. But I never stopped being a student. I went back for more training in Playa Negra, Costa Rica in 2015, and again last fall in 2024.
Training changes your practice, whether you teach or not
Here’s my favorite example. In the very first hatha class I ever took, the teacher showed us peacock pose. I remember thinking (and possibly saying out loud) that it would never, ever happen in my body. So I never tried it again.
Then last fall, at that teacher training, peacock came up. We talked through the pose, then we did it, and I could do peacock. I tell the whole story in Soaring & Expanding, but the part I want you to hear is this. It didn’t come from practicing peacock. It came from building body awareness and understanding the mechanics of how my body moved and worked.
That’s what a good training gives you, and none of it requires a class of your own. You stop copying shapes and start understanding them.
What you’d learn that’s just for you
Our 200 hour training covers everything Yoga Alliance requires and then some. A lot of it pays off on your own mat first:
- Anatomy. Muscles and joints and posture, so a cue like “stack your shoulders over your hips” finally makes sense.
- Physiology. How breathing and the nervous system work, and what’s actually happening when you stretch. This is where safety lives.
- Breath and meditation. Pranayama and other breathing techniques, plus meditation you can take home.
- Humanities. The history and philosophy of yoga, along with some Sanskrit.
- Sequencing and themes. How a class is built. Once you know that, you can build your own home practice instead of always pressing play.
Hands-on adjustments are part of it too. In my Warrior & Sun Salute tutorial I had my friend Carrie model so I could show you some of the adjustments I can’t give you through a screen. In a training you get to feel them, and learn them, in person.
How our training works
It’s a hybrid. You start at home with about 50 hours of online learning, mostly anatomy and the humanities, plus some of the physiology. You study on demand at your own pace, and we meet four times on Zoom for two hours on Sunday mornings. Those sessions are optional and recorded, because we know people have lives.
Then we finish with two weeks together at Casa Colorado in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, for about 150 hours in person. It’s the same place I film so many of my classes. We keep the group to 12 students, so there’s real time with me and real feedback. A typical day looks like this:
- 7:00am morning yoga
- 8:30am breakfast
- 9:30am classroom time
- 12:00pm lunch
- 2:00pm classroom time
- 4:30pm sunset break
Evenings are dinner on your own and study time, with an extra practice a few evenings. We ran our first training this spring.
You don’t have to decide today
Graduates earn a 200 hour Foundations certification through Five Parks School of Yoga, a Yoga Alliance registered school. Whether you teach right away or years from now (or never) is completely up to you.
If you already teach and you mostly need continuing education hours, our retreats count toward those, and you can read more on our school page.
Practice with me while you think about it
- Soaring & Expanding, Air Animal Yoga (1h 0m 57s). The peacock story, and the peacock.
- Yoga for Better Posture (26m 34s). The one where I confess about sitting up straight.
- Warrior & Sun Salute Yoga Tutorial (30m 57s). Alignment and adjustments, broken down.
- Strength & Balance Yoga, Steady and Calm Flow (1h 4m 59s). Built around a theme, the balance between effort and ease.
- Power Yoga Practice, Full-Body Strength & Endurance (50m 48s). A strong one, for when thinking is done.
Everything about the training is on our teacher training page, including how the application works. Not everyone is accepted, and that’s partly why the group stays small. If any part of you is curious, I’d love to read your application. You can tell me in it that you’re not sure about teaching. That’s a perfectly good place to start.
Practice it with me
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