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Do you know what the world doesn’t need right now? More RYT200 yoga teachers. I don’t know about your town, but Sydney is awash with them. So I’m not going to be responsible for producing any more.

How many hours yoga teacher training have you done? 200hrs? 350hrs? 500hrs+? There is a seemingly endless array of post-graduate yoga teacher training options. How about a 40hr yin training? Perhaps a weekend course on how to teach kids yoga. What about prenatal, somatics, fascia, acro yoga, adjusting, alignment or a course to help you market your classes? With such a dazzling variety of trainings, there’s one question I’d like to ask. How much yoga teacher training is enough?

I’ll follow that question up with another one. How much of the training you’ve already undergone do you use in your everyday teaching? Actually, how much of it do you even remember?

What's wrong with this pose? Nothing. Nothing at all if you are super flexible. But there are many people for whom practicing this pose is unhelpful (and, depending on your spinal health, dangerous). That's why we don't include this pose (it's called Kurmasana) in our 200hr yoga teacher program. We don't teach it in our studio classes either. 

So what DO we teach?

I recently ran into Joanne, an old friend and an experienced yoga teacher. She wasn’t feeling very yogic.  “Why can’t yoga teachers just teach from what they know?” she said, exasperated. “If one more teacher quotes Rumi at me, I’ll scream!”

Now, Joanne wasn’t suggesting that we have nothing to learn from Rumi or that yoga teachers shouldn’t find inspiration in spiritual texts. That’s clearly not true. Her problem, as she explained, was the use of cookie-cutter scripts in yoga classes.

I’ve been practicing yoga for over 25 years and teaching for 15 years. And I’m a long way from being a guru.

I’ve got plenty of diplomas, degrees and postgraduate qualifications as well as many thousands of hours of experience. But the gaps in my knowledge are as wide as the ocean.

And that’s a good thing. For two reasons...

Once upon a time, prospective yoga teachers practiced and studied under master teachers for several years before becoming teachers themselves. Today, may yoga teacher training courses will accept students with little or no experience of yoga. Which is best?

While I don’t believe it’s necessary to have decades of advanced practice under your belt before becoming a yoga teacher, there are three yoga basics that I’d recommend you refine prior to jumping in to yoga teacher training.

I didn’t want to be a yoga teacher. I just wanted to learn more about the thing I loved. Yoga had made a big difference to my life at a time when everything seemed to be falling apart. I was depressed, anxious and facing many challenges that seemed insurmountable. As my yoga practice developed, my fractured, confusing existence began to evolve into a rich and full life that was filled with hope and opportunities. Once things were back on the rails, I wanted to learn how and why yoga had made such profound changes to my body, mind and relationships. After signing up for a few short workshops, I realised that teacher training would be the best way of getting a thorough and deep understanding of yoga.