I won't lie: a year ago, if you had asked me what I thought of online yoga instructor training, I would have told you it wasn't a good idea. So, what can I say now? Since COVID 19, we have lived in a very different world, and yoga, like any other industry, has had to adapt and adjust to our new reality.
We've had to adapt and adjust. When the studios closed, most yoga instructors and studios didn't miss a beat in taking their yoga lessons online. I'm not just talking about pre-recorded classes on YouTube; online yoga classes have become the new trend. Teachers started broadcasting yoga classes live on Facebook, Zoom, Google Hangouts, and a variety of other video-streaming platforms.
Yoga instructors have also begun to create online yoga courses for students of all ages, providing them with a more detailed introduction to yoga that covers subjects such as back bending, inversions, and even how to use yoga to cope with trauma.
So it's no surprise that studios are now providing online yoga instructor training; it's a natural evolution of the current virtual reality challenges that yoga teachers are facing.
I've written a lot on this blog about yoga retreats and yoga teacher training, so I wanted to put together this blog post for those interested in doing online yoga teacher training to give you a better understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of making an online yoga teacher training, as well as some suggestions for the best online yoga teacher training certification.
- THERE IS NO FACE-TO-FACE CONTACT
- The biggest flaw is fairly self-evident.
There will be no physical interaction with you and your yoga teacher training teachers or other students.
One of the things I remember most about my yoga teacher training credential, and which had the greatest effect on me, was the people on my course. My group was tiny, and I'm still in touch with a few of them on a regular basis. Over the course of the 200 hours, I not only learned from my professors but also from the other students. It's all part of the appeal of learning in a community setting like this yogitimes.com
When you teach a yoga class, the other students in an in-person YTT become your yoga class students, and not only do you get input from the instructor who was watching you teach, but you also get really positive feedback from the students who took the class. Thanks to their observations and recommendations, I was able to gain respect as a teacher and change my teaching as a result of all of this wonderful input. If I were doing an online yoga instructor training certification, I think I would really miss this.
ENTIRE IMMERSION
As a result, this does not extend to everyone, as many people opt to complete their 200-hour yoga instructor training at a nearby studio for a longer period of time. I didn't because I spent over three weeks in Mexico doing my yoga instructor preparation.
For three weeks, I was able to completely immerse myself in training, with my phone switched off, my out-of-office email responder set to one, and I lived and breathed yoga. I followed a sattvic ayurvedic diet and got up at 5 a.m. to meditate, chant, and do my Ayurvedic morning ritual. It was challenging, but I enjoyed it, and I have many fond memories of that period.
NO CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE.
A big part of the course for me was learning how to improve my own yoga practice through feedback and modifications, as well as how to safely change students in my classes. For obvious reasons, this one is a bit of a mystery right now, as many yoga students would be apprehensive about touching when the studios reopen
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