Honest Yoga Teacher Training Advice (200 and 300 Hours Program, India, Abroad, Immersion, USA)

Transcript

hey y'all my name is Miranda Peterson I am a 500-hour certified yoga instructor and I wanted to share a little bit about my yoga journey and my training in hopes that it will help you decide if a yoga teacher training is right for you so technically my yoga journey started in college around 2006 or 7 I'm not sure exactly the year but I took a class called stretch and relaxation I didn't really know what it was at the time but now I can see the teacher was really trying to get us to be mindful and do yoga long story short I did not take this class seriously and I got a C this was the lowest grade I ever got in college which is kind of hilarious and I wish I could find that teacher now no idea who she was or if she still lives in Tampa Florida but if you're out there the seeds you planted grew it just took a really long time so I would sporadically do yoga over the years since then if I had a Groupon or if they had to go to class on my gym again just kind of saw it as exercise and it wasn't until 2015 I was always focused on my career but I was starting to get burnt out in the corporate world I also had a really toxic relationship and I just felt like I needed to hit the reset button so again long story short I ended up breaking up with my boyfriend and quitting my job and somehow I ended up at a yoga studio I found that practicing yoga made me feel better physically and mentally and emotionally and I was enjoying yoga so much that I decided I wanted to do a teacher training and I'll be totally honest here I had no idea what was involved in yoga teacher training I googled online some different programs and I had already decided that I wanted to travel I felt like I hadn't really seen the world and I researched some programs in India and Thailand and Bali so my first training was a 200 hour Yoga Alliance certified training at Eyre yoga Eco ashram in southern India and I had no idea what I was getting myself into this was 2015 and I was planning on backpacking for about six months through Southeast Asia and my yoga teacher training was about a month of that it was four weeks in India and I will say the visa process was not easy there's a couple options for India specifically either a 30-day visa which is challenging if you're doing a program that's around 30 days the 10-year visa where you know you're good to go there for 10 years as long as it's you know three months at a time you can Google more about that online and so when I did my yoga teacher training I had to pay a deposit and my parents and I were terrified that it was gonna be a scam and that they were just gonna take my money and run but that didn't happen so in the end price was definitely a factor the program in India was more affordable than a lot of the programs I found in Thailand in Indonesia and I figured I might as well go to the source so I flew into Bangalore and then it was about a five-hour drive in the middle of the night to our ashram which was kind of in the middle of nowhere between Mysore and Kerala I almost think of it as like a yoga summer we had cabins and we were kind of isolated in nature and we had amazing Ayurvedic vegetarian food I really enjoyed my training it I just like didn't even know what I didn't even know and I thought we're just going to be practicing the over the whole time but we learned a lot about anatomy and about philosophy and history and I did a traditional hatha yoga training but I didn't even know what the word hatha meant I was like I'll find out when I get there honestly so I'm glad I did that it wasn't with any specific lineage or teacher or guru Krishna and Vinod and Satish taught most of our classes and I really enjoyed the experience or we had about 16 people in my program and we are from Europe and Australia and the US and I learned so much and really really enjoyed that experience so that was the foundation for my yoga training and that's what we call an immersion so it was the entire 200 hour training at once which of course there's immersions all over the US many studios do them they make more money than yoga classes so just kind of do your research and make sure it's the right fit for you 200 our yoga teacher training it's gonna be a few thousand dollars anywhere from you know a couple thousand to even up to like five thousand even more if it's a specific or famous teacher or guru or location and the reason I really enjoyed doing an immersion for my two hundred hour training was I was just fully immersed into yoga I wasn't working like I said I'd quit my job I didn't have to worry about anything else or do anything else at the time and it was really great to just really cram in all of that great yoga teaching and philosophy and practice all at once I understand this is not always an option for everyone some people need to do it over time over several weekends there are also programs that you can do over a longer period of time that happen on specific days usually weekends over several months or maybe a year and that is a great option for people especially if you have to keep working or you have a family and you just can't take a month off three weeks four weeks to do an immersive yoga teacher training but I really enjoyed it and I'll leave information and links below if you'd like to check out that program as well and so the other thing I particularly enjoyed about this program was not only meeting people from all over the world and having teachers in India and being in India for my training but also it was you know kind of a broad brushstroke of yoga there's other programs that are very specific with teachers or lineages and kind of say one way is the only way and that didn't really feel right for me so I liked getting kind of a broader perspective and so that was 2015 and then I was I was backpacking for awhile through Southeast Asia I carried a mat with me at all times and continued my own personal yoga practice and tried to take yoga class yoga classes in each country that I went to and I came back to the u.s. honestly I wasn't even really planning on teaching yoga even though I did yoga teacher training but I was in my hometown in South Carolina and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next and I ended up being approached by a yoga studio owner who asked me if I would like to teach and it was kind of hard to say no I mean I did just get my yoga teacher certification I needed experience I did want to make a return on that investment and so I agreed even though I was terrified y'all I was so scared to teach my first few yoga classes and I would put people and forward folds a lot so I could check my notes I didn't want people to see me checking my notes now I'm ready note notes to class like it's no big deal and I've been teaching for for several years anyways I was just really scared that someone was gonna get injured and scared that people weren't gonna like my class and you know just all those fears of a new teacher but I taught pretty consistently at the studio for a year in South Carolina and then I moved to Asheville North Carolina so I freelanced for a company and continued to go to yoga classes here there if you've been to actually you know there's no shortage of yoga here so one of the reasons I started my business was because actual is such a saturated yoga market and I personally found so much healing from yoga and hiking and meditation and being in nature so I decided to combine those things and created my business namaste in nature in 2017 and I combined yoga hiking and meditation with what mountains and waterfalls here in Western North Carolina and I started experimenting in 2017 and then 2018 I started acquiring a team more people said they loved this idea and they wanted to do it as well and fast forward to now 2020 I have a team of several other yoga guides and I love doing it they love doing it I've had so many happy customers and amazing experiences doing yoga in nature and like I said it's helped me make a return on that investment of yoga teacher training and helped me differentiate from all of the other yoga studios and yoga teachers in Asheville so that was my personal journey I did also start teaching at a studio once I had a little bit more control of my schedule and could commit to teaching a weekly class and I started teaching at Asheville yoga center I was teaching one class a week I was so surprised that I even got hired there because this is one of the oldest most prominent yoga studios in Asheville they've been here for 22 years and it is one of the most well known studios and yoga teacher training programs in the southeast if not the whole East Coast and maybe even the country so I started teaching there and we have such great workshops and trainings and classes and teachers there that I decided to do my 300 our teacher training and I'm really glad I had a few years in between 200 our and 300 our teacher training so just a refresher I did my 200 our teacher training in India and 2015 and then I taught for a few years kind of got my confidence and got my style down and went to a lot of classes and really discovered the kind of teacher I wanted to be in the kind of yoga that I wanted to teach and then I started my 300 our teacher training in 2018 and just full disclaimer I did it at Asheville yoga center and since I already taught there I got a discount but that's not the only reason I did my teacher training there it's a really renowned program and we just have amazing teachers like Michael and Shayla and Ciara and Libby and Joe and Kimberly and everyone that I did classes with was just amazing they also bring in teachers from other parts of the country and it was just an incredible experience and so this was different I did my 300 our teacher training over time so I really like the way the 300 our teacher training program is structured at Asheville Yoga Center you can pick and choose the modules that work best for you so I did a lot of restorative and relaxing yoga training I did some yoga nidra training with India Aurora and I did yoga and neuroscience with Michael I did the routes of yoga where we learned about Sanskrit and sutras with Michael as well I did restorative and yin yoga training with Kimberly I did hands-on assist class with Shayla and there's all kinds of amazing modules they're usually three four or five days and you need to register in advance because they usually fill up oh another great one was the business of yoga with Bruce that one was fantastic and totally changed my life you have five years to do I think it's about 11 modules within that time so if you live outside of Asheville and actually most of the classes I did there I'd say about 80% of people did not live in Asheville that we're doing these workshops and trainings but of course I'm an overachiever so I got my 300 hour training done in about a year and Asheville yoga center does offer 200 hour and 300 hour yoga teacher trainings that are yoga Alliance certified so my advice if you are thinking about doing a yoga teacher training program whether you want to teach or you just want to learn more about yoga or deepen your own practice I totally recommend doing it if you feel like it's the right time for you step 1 I would say do a lot of research and find the program that's right for you and the location that's right for you and the style that's right for you and you might not answer all the questions or you might still have some unanswered questions when you go into the training but those will likely be answered as you're doing the training so before committing to a 200 our teacher training I would suggest trying some workshops or retreats first to make sure that this is something you're really interested in and want to invest in and I would definitely recommend doing your 200 hour first and then getting some experience teaching and finding out you know what resonates with you and resonates with the populations that you want to teach and then I would do a an advanced 300 hour yoga teacher training later so I kind of thought of my 200 hour as the bachelors in my 300 hours the masters another great resource that I can recommend is the yoga teacher resource podcast this is a free weekly podcast so you can get on Spotify or Apple or go to teaching yoga net and look up those episodes I've been on a few episodes because the hosts Madoka's link is my personal yoga business coach and she's fabulous another great resource is to join the yoga teacher resource Facebook group and there's a lot of people there who are teachers new teachers seasoned teachers and it's just a great resource to connect with other people and ask about their experiences and connect with other yoga teachers that might be in your area she does have a global following and medow also does a lot of great workshops and trainings and podcast episodes everything from Anatomy to philosophy to marketing and branding and promoting your classes so I highly recommend that podcast and face book group if you are thinking about becoming a yoga teacher again my name is Miranda and I'm based in Asheville North Carolina I teach regular classes at Asheville yoga center and I am the owner and founder of namaste in nature if you have any other questions leave them in the comments I'm happy to answer them I think yoga is doing so much to make people happier and healthier and believe the more people who do this practice and help others do this practice just really makes the world a better place so if you found this video helpful please give me a thumbs up and share this video with anyone you might know that's interested in doing a yoga teacher training again I'm happy to answer any questions you have in the comments and would love to see you a Nashville some time to join me for a yoga hike with namaste in nature oh and I'll put links below for everything I mentioned here Iove eco Ostrom ashley yoga center namaste nature and the yoga teacher resource podcast and Facebook group and to this channel I have other yoga videos and yoga nidra videos and I'm gonna be releasing more videos like this where I'm kind of more rambling as I like to call it so I really appreciate you watching this video namaste and have a great day [Music]