What is a Yoga Teacher Training Course ? (TTC)

The TTC is a 200 hours training that can be done in parts, or in one month-long residency program. It consists of 100 hours of training, techniques, and practice, 25 hours of teaching methodology, 20 hours of anatomy and physiology, 30 hours of yoga philosophy, a 10-hour practicum; and 15 additional hours spread across the above categories. If you want to become a certified yoga instructor it is usually the pre requisite for most studios.

When should you take a TTC?

There is no minimum amount of experience before entering a teacher training

That means it can be as little as none theoretically. But experience is key to guiding students in poses, a good yoga teacher can teach embodiment, encouraging students to inquire in every pose, to choose the option that beat suits their needs without injuring themselves, and this is an ability that comes from years of practice, not necessarily training.

Also as a teacher, I teach only what I know and have experienced myself, whether it is asana, breath exercise. So one of my advise is that you should have developed a wide range of physical abilities in order to teach more advanced poses or breathing exercises.

Why I decided to take my training after I gained a strong personal practice

I never thought of doing so nor to become a yoga teacher if circumstances wouldn't have pushed me in that direction. I was surely unhappy in my job, when one day my friend, knowing my passion for yoga, asked me why I wouldn’t teach yoga. I remembered laughing , thinking “making a living from teaching yoga, really ?"

I never felt really ready to take the training because I thought I had to have a perfect practice in order to become a teacher, like being able to do handstand etc. It was a mistake, you don't need to be able to master all the poses to be a good yoga instructor, as yoga is NOT a practice of perfection or attainment. 

On the other hand, you cannot aspire to be a good teacher if you don't have a consistent and strong practice and for each person, this will require a different amount of time. I have practiced consistently for three years with various teachers and styles so I already had pretty strong foundations when I went on my training. 

 

Why should you do a TTC?

You don't have to become a yoga instructor after your TTC

Most of the students actually don't and a lot of them didn't have this intention in the first place. The training can be a great way to deepen your personal practice and go beyond the physical practice as you dive deeper in the immersed part of the what is behind the vast world of yoga with a strong focus on breathing, meditation, chanting, karma yoga, diet etc.

It can be a challenging one life time experience, where you fully immerse yourself. it requires commitment, dedication and discipline.

But you need to have done a 200hour TTC at a bare minimum to be hired as a yoga instructor by most studios.

Where should you do it ?

First you need to decide if you want to do a residential one or not

When I decided to do my yoga teacher training, I knew for sure I wanted to do a residential one. I thought of it like a way to immerse myself into a new culture, to create a strong bonding with the fellow students. Some schools offer a training separate into different parts during the year.

Other courses offer training during the weekend which can be a good option for people who work.

Three crucial things to consider to chose the school : your budget, the country, the lead teachers

The question of the budget will help to eliminate a lot of options. For example, in the West a TTC will cost in average 3,000- 4,000 UDS without accommodation, this can be the same in “trendy” place like Bali or Thailand. In comparison, in India, a TTC can start as low as 1,000 USD full board (training + accommodation + three meals a day).

I was strongly considering India to do my YTTC, the very birth place of yoga, to get the “real” experience. I have asked around me before deciding and one of my teachers in Hong Kong, an Indian teacher advised me not to take my training in India, saying that the most professional trainings would be in the West or in Hong Kong). I

In the end I didn't follow his advice but, when I look back, I understand why he gave me that advice. I didn't think about picking the best school with the best reputation because I was looking for an experience, not a name on my CV.

Trust your instinct

I spent days looking on the internet about schools in Rishikesh or Mysore, reading blogs and reviews. And as you can imagine there were tons of schools offering more or less the same program. There were so many schools, looking for the right one behind the screen of a computer was just helpless.

Then I remembered when I traveled to India the year before, I had taken a yoga class in Hampi, an antic town surrounded by green rice field and rocks in Southernf India. The yoga teacher had left his contact details to me, saying that he was also offering TTCs. As I believed everything in life happens for a reason and since I had no any rational reasons to choose one school or the other, I decided to go with him. The venue of the training was not in Hampi but in Dharamsala, in Northern India. I had never heard about this place before but I just decided to give it a try.

I have never regretted this choice as I fall in love with Dharamsala and even after I travelled extensively in India, has remains my favorite place in the whole country. I got to discover the rich Tibetan culture, volunteering to work with Tibetan children and had the immense chance to attend the Dalai Lama’s public teaching three times during my TTC.

I loved the fact that my training has been authentic, raw, simple, without any frills. It was the perfect place to be for what I was looking for : leave my comfort zone and a spiritual retreat that would challenge all my beliefs and fears.

Of course not everything was pinky during my training. I choose the wrong season to go there: it was in November and it was incredibly cold at that time of the year. There was surprisingily almost no other travelers and many shops and restaurants were closed. Also, we were only three students in the training which was sometimes a bit awkward but on another hand allowed to get a lot of attention from all the teachers.

Check the seriousness of the anatomy part of the training, especially if you chose to do it in India

The anatomy course of my training was very limited: our teacher was an Ayurvedic doctor and his class consisted mainly on reading a book about Ayurvedic principles for the entire hour.

It was quiet boring and not practical at all. I don’t remember anything of this course. We haven't been through body anatomy in the Western definition of the word and after my training, I felt a real lack in that field after my training.

Yoga Alliance or not ?

Today Yoga Alliance has become a business as any schools basically can get the label if they pay

I saw many schools in India that were certified Yoga Alliance including the school where I was trained. Yoga Alliance is the first to admit the system’s shortcomings and recognized that not all Yoga Alliance Registered 200-hour trainings are created equal and the current registry allows for bad teachers to lead trainings, and for students with zero yoga experience to become teachers after just a month. 

YA has no power to audit, nor does it enforces its standards. 

I am not registered with YA and it has never been an obstacle for me to teach in so far in India, Tel Aviv and Hong Kong.

 

What should you expect after a TTC ?

It is common to hear students saying after their training, including myself, that 200 hours is definitely not enough to be a skillful teacher

A lot of graduates actually leave the training without feeling ready to lead classes, read bodies, and help other students. Most 200-hour YTTs don’t cover enough in terms of anatomy to keep students safe. There is no doubt that 200 hours is not enough but it is a minimum standard and we need to start somewhere.

Taking this training will not turn you into a great yoga instructor but will give you the tools to start your journey and then it is up to you to keep learning to become an experienced yoga instructor.

As the best way to learn is to practice, if you can start teaching straight after the training

You can then reapply what you have learnt and make the connection between the theory and practice would be ideal.

The second crucial element to be a great yoga instructor is continuous learning

This will allow you to deepen your knowledge by taking additional training online or in person, attending workshops, reading, etc. In my case, I have built the foundation of my practice during those three years of regular practice and the 200 hours TTC has helped me to dive deeper into the yogic traditions and self-experimenting discipline. But I must say that I have kept learning so much after it. Yoga is an endless apprenticeship.

My personal TTC experience was a life changing experience. It was just the beginning of long journey, as after my training I decided to stay in India to travel and teach. I had the immense chance my teacher offered me to lead classes every morning in his studio in Hampi then in Dharamsala. It was the best way to use my newly acquired skills, in a relaxed environment with little expectations as most of the students were travelers.

I was then teaching in every place where I was traveling for six months, from the beach of the Andaman Islands, to rooftops of guesthouses in Pushkar.

Accept the idea to start small

After my training and 8-month travel in India, I decided I didn't want to go back to the corporate life and decided to become a full time yoga instructor. I moved to Israel (to know more about why you can read here). 

When I arrived, I applied to teach at the biggest yoga studio in Tel Aviv. They refused to give me a chance to teach as they didn't know the school where I had done my training and where I had taught. And I would have had the same problem back to Hong Kong I guess.

It can be, for example, teaching community classes in park and on the beach, on donation. But slowly word to mouth started to spread and the classes were becoming quiet popular. I started to have inquiry for private classes, then a hotel hired me for some rooftop yoga for the summer, and I finally made it to a yoga studio. I also started to do corportate yoga in some co-working spaces shortly after and some of the biggest hi-tech companies of the country.

I became full time after one year and was able to make a comfortable living. I was teaching about 20 hours per week but I was flexible to arrange my schedule as I wanted. Most of the studio or students never asked me where I did why training or if it was YA certified.

To conclude I really don’t think that where you do your TTC will be determining the rest of your carrier as a yoga instructor

It’s like academia and school diplomas, it can play a small role at the beginning when you started your career and don’t have much experience. But I would emphasize the important to trust your instinct and what resonate with you in order to chose what will probably be a life changing experience.

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