5 Good reasons to consider taking a Yoga Teacher Training Course

5 Good reasons to consider taking a Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) course

1.       You have been practicing yoga for a very long time and believe you have learned as much as possible from taking local yoga classes and you wish to go deeper and learn more about the practice, about your own practice and about yourself.

You have been taking yoga classes for at least 6 month, hopefully a year or more at the point where you decide you might be interested in taking a teacher training. If you have been practicing for 5 or 10 years, even better! The better developed your own practice is, the better chance you will have of being an effective teacher. Like most of us, you probably started out with one class a week for a while, and then gradually stepped it up to two, and then three, and started to really see things happening and changing. Maybe you have even realized that a daily practice with one rest day a week is the best yoga schedule if your time and money situation has permitted for that. What next? The postures and the breathing seem to be coming along well, but what are all of the other elements of the practice? You might be wondering, “How do I truly immerse myself in the practice of yoga and develop myself as a person committed to this lifestyle?”

2.       You have practiced yoga for long enough to realize the benefits and positive changes in your life and feel like you must share this with others.

You tell all of your friends and family members how great you feel thanks to yoga. Your body is strong and lean and healthy. Those aches and pains are gone. You sleep well and have loads of energy. You have changed the way you eat because after all of the hard work you do on your yoga mat detoxifying your body, you can’t imagine putting garbage into it anymore. Your mid is calmer and your thoughts are more positive. You have developed patience and compassion and really listen to people now when they talk to you. Your goals are better defined and you know what makes you happy. You can’t believe how yoga has changed your life for the better and imagine if you could help others find this path as well? Maybe being a yoga teacher is just the way to do this, making the world a better place one yoga student at a time.

3.       You feel like you can successfully do most yoga poses but want to understand more about them and why you are doing them.

You feel good and you know you are getting more flexible and balanced. But what are all of these yoga postures all about? You wonder who made them up, what their names mean, is it just gymnastics? Where do these movements come from and what is the point? You are curious about the energetic effects, and the connection to come concepts you have heard your teachers talk about like chakras, kundalini energy, bandhas and so on. And when all of these yoga postures have been attained then what next? Are there other yoga postures that are more advanced? Or are there ways to go deeper into these seemingly simple yoga postures? A good yoga teacher training program can definitely lend answers to these questions.

4.       You know that there is more to yoga than just the physical postures and wish to learn about the other elements such as history, philosophy, theory, chanting, breathing, meditation.

You recently learned about the yoga sutras and wonder if there is information in that treatise that would benefit your yoga practice or wonder if it’s all just mumbo-jumbo. You also heard that “Ashtanga” means ‘eight limbs’. Eight? Like an octopus? Or like a tree? What are all of these limbs? And how about those little statues and paintings around the yoga studio, who is that elephant god and what is the significance to yoga? You are curious about the roots of yoga and its links to the religion and culture from whence it came. You find chanting pretty scary since you have no idea what you are saying when you repeat after your teacher and you feel like you sound foolish. What is this OMing all about anyways? And meditation is a whole other story. You are pretty sure you have never sat still long enough to quiet your mind properly, but you would really like to learn how because you are aware of its rewards.

5.       You love practicing yoga and feel that a career serving others and making the world a better place would be fulfilling and is the path you want to go down at this point in your life.

If you are thinking about becoming a yoga teacher, you need to surrender to the fact that it is not a career path that will bring you fame or fortune. Unless having a few students truly appreciate you is what you consider fame, and having the ability to potentially change a few peoples’ lives for the better, to you, is fortune. You are someone who feels content just making other people happy as an end in itself. You are prepared to be a positive healthy role model for others and put your students’ needs before your own every time you teach.