Teacher Training - Discover the Yoga Teacher Within!
Introduction
In-Depth Yoga Education
Here at TAYS, we are dedicated to the ongoing professional and personal development of yoga teachers through in-depth yoga education. Yoga education involves both a careful study of yoga practices from eastern and western perspectives as well as the practical application of theories and teaching methodology presented. We have designed our program to facilitate your growth as a teacher in a way that informs your teaching and also empowers your independence as a yoga educator.
We provide a 200 and a 500 hour program designed to certify students who are interested in teaching a hatha vinyasa style of yoga. Students can complete a foundation 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training course, with the option to build on these fundamentals to complete a 500 hour certification (300 additional hours).
Most yoga studios and fitness facilities require yoga teachers to have a basic 200 hour training from a registered yoga school. When you graduate from TAYS' 200 hour YTT, you will have the skills required to develop, structure and teach public yoga classes. Our program meets and exceeds these requirements outlined by Yoga Alliance. With the popularity of yoga in the west, and the number of teachers in training, industry standards have increased. The TAYS YTT has grown and changed to meet these needs and continues to offer exceptional training programs beyond the 200 hour level. Both our 200 and 500 hour programs are registered with Yoga Alliance.
The TAYS 500 hour program consists of two segments. The first segment is the 200 hour foundation program followed by an additional 300 hours. These first 200 hours can be achieved through attending our "10 weekends program" based in Halifax or our July monthlong program.
Our backgrounds in Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Kinesiology, Psychology, Marketing and Public Relations help to keep our program focused and clear. Our inclusion of Non-Violent Communication strategies and skills benefit not only the future yoga teachers in our programs but benefit all of our relationships and situations. These skills and this knowledge allows us to stand out from other Yoga Teacher Training programs. Another distinctive feature of our YTT is the diversity of our teachers. Leslie Hunter, Jolene d'Entremont, Mike Munro, Tomomi Kojima and Maxine Jeffrey each have different educational backgrounds, yoga and life experience and skill-set. A frequent comment following our teacher training weekends is about the appreciation of our teachers and how we all work together to make the program informative and complete. Our program is a highly regarded program that graduates excellent yoga teachers with the skills, confidence and knowledge to teach yoga.
Tomomi is currently working on options for accommodations during our month-long YTT. Please contact tomomi@yogastudio.ns.ca for assistance in this regard.
For detailed information on our 200 Hour program click here.
For detailed information on our 500 Hour program click here.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. How is your teacher training program different than other YTT programs offered?
Some styles of yoga have a set series of postures that they are required to teach and are not allowed to stray from that series. Some styles discourage or do not address physically assisting of poses.
We at TAYS, teach teachers how to develop classes, based on themes or poses. We teach people how to sequence a class to a target pose (i.e. full wheel) or a general category of poses (deep backbends) to include the right kind of conditioning (or warm up) poses to prepare the required areas of the body and then how to cool down the body and bring the body back into balance.
People graduate from TAYS’ 200 hour level with skill and confidence in physical assisting poses. We teach basic assists for most poses in the 200 hour level and focus on more in-depth assists and a greater variety of assists in TAYS’ 500 hour level.
Our training includes many modifications and options for props allowing for different bodies with different abilities.
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Q. It says on the website that we graduate as Hatha Vinyasa Yoga Teachers. My regular practice here is with a different style. I'm looking for a type of practice that incorporates flows. Just from what I have read about Hatha yoga, it seems to indicate that there are no flows and it is gentle transition from posture to posture. I'm just wondering if you could tell me a bit more about the structure. Also, if I do this teacher training, does this limit me from teaching class types that incorporate flows?
No, you would definitely not be restricted from teaching classes that incorporate flow. You would learn to teach them. "Hatha Yoga" is an umbrella term that describes many styles of yoga. You will find that our style of yoga, Hatha Vinyasa, can incorporate more of a workout. Vinyasa is a flowing style of yoga that incorporates alignment and safety therefore allowing people to be able to maintain a yoga practice throughout their lives without being at unnecessary risk for injury. Through our Yoga Teacher Training and through our studio (TAYS) students know and learn how to modify the postures at various times and stages of their lives to be able to continue this yoga journey throughout their lives.
Our backgrounds in Occupational therapy, Physiotherapy and Kinesiology and our backgrounds with Iyengar, Ashtanga, Baptiste and Bikram Yoga provide the balanced practice that everyone enjoys and benefits from.
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Q. Are we going to be taught how to lead a class?
Yes. You will be very comfortable with teaching a beginner to intermediate level class by the end of the program. Practice teaching sessions will start on day one. You will ease into teaching early on and have a lot of practice and experience in this area. You will learn how to sequence a class and you will learn how to progress and develop your teaching to help your students learn optimally.
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Q. Are we going to be given information regarding opening a yoga studio?
Yes one of the talks during the YTT will be about "where to go from here", target populations, how to advertise, how to open a studio, etc.
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Q. Will the training teach us to assist and adjust students in poses?
Absolutely. We pride ourselves on this. You will gain a lot of hands on experience with adjusting and "seeing" your students. The 200 hour YTT starts students off gradually and comfortably so that you can see your students and learn basic assists for everyone. But we go beyond these standard assists and teach you skillful and artful hands-on techniques. Our 500 hour YTT contains more advanced courses in this area, if you choose to continue with our trainings.
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Q. Under the 200 hour month-long training in July, we have a led class between in the early morning hours; is this for meditation and breathing ?
This is a led asana class. Various teachers will be teaching this each morning. Depending on who teaches (Mike, Leslie, Jolene, Tomomi or Maxine) you will get a different experiences and obtain different ideas on how to teach the poses. Each of our teachers has different backgrounds and types of training and offers various foundation, breath and movement cues, various ideas in how to use props or how to use pacing and rhythm and so on. The possibilities are endless and each experience will be different...yet the same. As it is all yoga but just different ways to approach a yoga class.
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Q. What reading material do you suggest to prepare for the training?
YOGA – THE SPIRIT and PRACTICE OF MOVING INTO STILLNESS by Eric Schiffman
YOGA for WELLNESS by Gary Kraftsow
THE HEART of YOGA by Desikachar
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