One of the main things that yoga teaches us is that things change. Change is the only constant in this world. Of course, this is also true for the yoga and fitness industry. That is why Yoga Teacher Continuing Education is important.
The Yoga industry has changed in many ways. Our knowledge of the human body continues to evolve. We continue to grow in understanding the best methodologies to teach and guide our students.
Lastly, as teachers, we continue to develop and change with experience. This growth and change are healthy and important. If we, as yoga and fitness teachers, do not stay current in our training, we get left behind. Our ‘knowledge’ becomes dated, and we risk injuring our students and becoming irrelevant.
I am sad to say that I know instructors who took their 200-hour yoga teacher training several years ago and haven’t done any other continuing education since. Training to become a yoga and/or fitness teacher is much like taking a shower. If you shower once, you cannot assume you are clean forever… you have to continue to take showers! Similarly, doing teacher training once doesn’t make you a teacher forever…. You have to continue to learn, evolve and grow!
Based on my experience with continuing education in yoga and teaching, I wish to share my philosophy on continuing my education and the top four things I do regularly.
Of course, I understand that yoga teachers aren’t the wealthiest people in the world… I struggled from pay cheque to pay cheque for many years. Luckily, there are some wonderful and relatively cost-effective ways to continue education.
This seems obvious, but it can be challenging. A unique and helpful way to expand your knowledge is to take classes from many different yoga lineages and types of fitness/movement. This keeps our knowledge fresh and helps to keep us motivated.
Also, doing your practice alone is SO helpful. I can’t express enough how much I learn when I just get into my body and move.
Another important tip is to take classes from instructors with much training and experience. Don’t assume that every other teacher knows more than you. I hear a lot of nonsense from class instructors, so if you hear something in class that you aren’t sure of, do some research before you automatically believe it as truth. Ask your mentor or a Yoga teacher with much experience and education, or look online at resources you trust (like Asana at Home Online Yoga).
There are many informative and inspirational books on yoga these days. Taking time to dive into a good book can expand your mind in many ways. Any book by the following people will be a wealth of knowledge: a few of my favorite authors are Michael Stone, Donna Farhi, Leslie Kaminoff, T.K.V. Desikachar, Ray Long, and Gary Kraftsow.
If you are lucky enough to live in a city with weekend Yoga workshops, take advantage of this! Here in Vancouver, we have several workshops every weekend. I feel so blessed to have this resource available to me.
My personal goal is to do a BIG Yoga training every other year. Of course, big is relative, but for me, that usually means at least a month or two of continued education. For the last two years, my wonderful hubby has bought me trips down to the States for my birthday to do training with some of my favorite yoga teachers. And I’m now researching what training I’m going to do next!
Are you a Yoga Alliance Teacher and wondering what the continuing education requirements are? Here is a snippet from their website.
Yoga Alliance believes continued learning and growth is paramount to the maintenance of high standards in yoga instruction. For this reason, all Registered Yoga Teachers (RYTs) must meet the following Continuing Education (CE) requirements in order to maintain their Yoga Alliance credential(s).
RYT CE Requirements
RYTs and E-RYTs must complete 75 hours of CE within three years from the date of their initial registration. This total number of hours must include:
- 45 hours teaching yoga; and
- 30 hours of yoga training that is directly related to one of our Educational Categories. All 30 hours may be achieved via distance learning.
- All teaching and training hours can be documented within Yoga Alliance membership accounts and displayed on members’ directory profiles.
Additional Details
- Teaching or training hours completed prior to Yoga Alliance registration do not count as CE.
- Additional hours accumulated beyond 30 hours within a three-year period may not rollover into the next three-year period.
- Yoga Alliance recognizes CE hours as time spent learning something new through research, study, or experiential learning, rather than synthesizing or processing prior knowledge.
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