Your Yoga Teacher

By Mehtab, Founder 
February 2011

There are things about your yoga teacher that you might not know. And you probably should because according to a survey, yoga students often trust their yoga teachers more than many other professionals.

Are we worthy of your trust? Here is what you should know ….

Yoga teaching as a recognized profession is fairly new in the United States. The federal government often still classifies yoga teachers in the same category as “fitness instructors.”

There is no state board to license yoga teachers and anyone is allowed to offer their services as a yoga teacher without legal restrictions or proof of education. So how do you know if you have a “good” yoga teacher, one that can keep you safe and also understands the teachings of yoga beyond what is required for a fitness instructor?

Fortunately, there are voluntary standards for yoga teachers in the United States that require 200-hours of specialized training in specific areas, such as yogic anatomy, philosophy, teaching methodology, and even a required course in ethics, as well as supervised practice teaching.

When a teacher completes this basic training with an approved yoga school, then they are qualified to represent themselves as a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT). A yoga teacher may then elect to continue with another 300 hours of advanced training at some schools and achieve a total of 500-hours of training as a RYT-500 hour teacher.

Not all teachers are registered yoga teachers and not all schools offer an approved teacher training course. Often times it is up to the facilities or businesses offering yoga instruction to determine what level of competency or training their yoga teachers have.

At Yoga Yoga, we require all of our teachers to have a 200-hour approved training to become a registered yoga teacher and we support our teachers who are pursuing their advanced 500-hour training, the highest level of training offered to yoga professionals.

Many Yoga Yoga teachers are graduates of our own 200-hour and 500-hour programs that are approved by the national Yoga Alliance organization. And our Yoga Yoga teacher training program was the first professional career school in yoga authorized by the State of Texas.

So when you are in a class at Yoga Yoga, you are in the presence of a trained and qualified professional that has demonstrated a core competency, all the way down to the particular style of yoga they are teaching.

And now you have another reason to appreciate your yoga teacher!