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I’m deeply committed to high quality yoga teaching. It’s been my life, my passion, and my reason for getting up in the morning for over 25yrs. But I’ve been listening to a number of yoga teachers in recent months who would love to undertake advanced teacher training, but find the barriers insurmountable.

Good yoga teachers never, ever stop learning, but high quality yoga teacher training isn’t accessible to everybody. That’s a problem for both the yoga teachers who are deprived of the opportunity for professional development and their students – everybody deserves access to a well trained yoga teacher. So why isn’t it happening? I've identified four key barriers to quality yoga teacher training:

I've been training yoga teachers for fifteen years, and I can guarantee one thing. About two thirds of the way through their  yoga teacher training, most students have an ‘I’ll never be good enough to teach!’ moment. In fact, I worry about the ones who don’t. 

Teaching yoga is a big responsibility – students trust their yoga teachers with their bodies and their minds so it’s no wonder new teachers can feel a little overwhelmed.

Congratulations! You’ve decided to take the plunge and become a yoga teacher. With new yoga teacher trainings popping up each year, all you have to do is sit back and choose the right course for you, right? But hang on a minute. Do you really know what you’re getting yourself into? It’s time to get behind the marketing hype and discover some home truths about becoming a yoga teacher. Here are 5 things you need to know before you sign up.

I’ve been privileged to work as a yoga teacher trainerfor more than 12 years. It’s rewarding work that is both challenging and exhilarating and I’ve met some extraordinary people along the way.

However, about 3 years ago I started to notice something different about the students signing up for the trainings. The broad diversity of ages and body types that I had encountered in the early days of my teacher-training career had almost disappeared. The people signing up now were overwhelmingly young, bendy and body-conscious. 

To be fair, the vast majority of trainees have always been female. But within that population, there were people of different sizes, ages, backgrounds and experience. In recent years, that profile has changed.