I am considering furthering my study to obtain 500 hours. However I am wondering if I should just take another 200 hour training in another lineage of yoga, or if I should just take workshops that interest me instead of undertaking a formal study.
Well there are several factors in this as I see it.
First I have to presume you are teaching or intending to teach or are asking about enhancing and refining your abilities to teach (as opposed to deepening your own practice, which of course is not steeping your teaching but IS a prerequisite to that).
To me a sound answer to this comes from a clarity of your intention. And while you may have that brewing inside of you, we are not privy to it.
Workshops are fun but they are, typically, not designed to enhance your teaching. They are not constructed for teachers and they are not exclusively attended by teachers. There are some exceptions, of course. We have done a few workshops for teachers and much of our time gets spent covering rudimentary things astonishingly omitted from previous training.
As for lineage, I find that too many cooks spoil the stew. Through my experiences, training, study, observance it is clear that students are more deeply served when they unearth a practice that speaks to them (inside) and commit themselves to that in order to go deep into the practice. There’s nothing wrong with diversity and sampling and in fact there is a time for that too…but that is not a pathway to depth. It is a pathway to breadth.
Perhaps it’s much like dating. You go out with several people, get an idea what pushes your buttons, what you need to work on, what butts heads with you and what doesn’t but eventually you deepen a relationship with one person rather than flitting to different relationships and only swiping your toes through the topsoil.
are there any yoga teaching programs that you can take that don’t get too heavily involved in the meditation/spiritual aspect of yoga? Just wondering. . .
Yes, Yogafit.
I am looking to enhance and refine my teaching abilities. Will an additional 300 hours of study do that?
Depends on the “study”, as I believe I’ve eluded to previously.
What I have found is that some trainings teach the practice while other trainings teach teaching. The former is very common. The latter, very rare.
Go to North Carolina (Clayton) and spend some time with Catherine Eberhart
[QUOTE=Dabbadooey;45377]I am looking to enhance and refine my teaching abilities. Will an additional 300 hours of study do that?[/QUOTE]
I did the 300 hours and I am truly glad that I did. After 200 I felt still like I knew so little. Now, I still think that there is much more to learn but, I feel that I have a larger base to draw from. It really enhanced my teaching in ways that I really didn’t think possible. The school I went to taught both philosophy and a deeper understanding of the poses.
I also think that it is important to teach classes during the time that you go to 300 teacher training. It compiments the training so much. I learn from my students everyday.
Thanks very much for the link.
[QUOTE=Dabbadooey;45332]I am considering furthering my study to obtain 500 hours. However I am wondering if I should just take another 200 hour training in another lineage of yoga, or if I should just take workshops that interest me instead of undertaking a formal study.[/QUOTE]
If you are interested in taking your discipline to a totally different dimension, then no workshops or formal study is needed. Just practice everyday unceasingly and take the methods to their very roots. Yoga is not something that can be learned through going to classes or reading books, it is a phenomenon which is entirely experiential. On the contrary, the classes that are given these days are likely just to create a bondage out of one’s understanding. Because what is being transmitted is not yoga at all - just just a distortion of it which has been manufactured for commercial purposes. Nowadays, you can just enter into a program for one month or one year and then start teaching, when in essence one should not even consider a shadow of the idea unless one has traveled the whole path thoroughly, unless one has come to one’s enlightenment.
[QUOTE=sweetpea;45343]are there any yoga teaching programs that you can take that don’t get too heavily involved in the meditation/spiritual aspect of yoga? Just wondering. . .[/QUOTE]
That will not be difficult to find.
Well said.
Yes we are being palmed off here in the west at least with a dilution of yoga namely asana.And it’s not really possible to learn so well all of yoga in it’s breadth in these kinds of training programs.Here in the UK where i live you get training programs for traineee teachers.You have to start somewhere though.Most folk possibly attend an asana class but don’t return.And i think it is alot less accessible for males because it is een as a thing that women do and this can dissaude men from trying it out.I had to force myself to attned a yoga class and then i still felt self-conscious and still do given the typical ratios involved.Most men would’nt gie it alook-in because of the distortions you speak of some cultural, religious and spiritual.
It is experiential though.
Because you could go from one training program to the next but not really practice anything.By that i mean develop a deeper personal sadhana.That is probably best done either at home or on retreat or both.
If you’ve got the higher limbs and the lower limbs then the stuff in between, the asana and pranayama should come more easily and naturally.
You could go for workshops or one-to one tuition.I don’t think it matters as long you continue to learn and expand your knowledge and deeepen your own practice.
[QUOTE=core789;50620]The idea of non-spiritual yoga is oxymoronic.It does’nt exist.[/QUOTE]
. . . yoga has its roots in Hinduism. I’d like to deepen my understanding and practice in terms of the asanas as well as how to teach others. . . without steeping it in Hinduism which is antithetical to my belief system.
Hi sweet pea,
I see where you are coming from.And i used to feel the same.An uneasiness about yoga’s religious associations principally hinduism.What i have come to believe is that yoga is a science which is not dependent on any religion.It has it’s own authority which comes from within us all.The greatest spiritual scriptures are found within the human nervous system and not within a bible or any other book or external guru .In the west we expect authority in an outisde figure. The real authority is in you.So let’s for the sake of discussion say you’re a christain…well you should find that it suports your chirstainity rather than undermines it.Also like i say you will find yourself lessloking to others for spiritual validation or a moral compass.
I had very similar ideas to you. They went when i acknowledged that yoga is a science… worshipping ganesha or shiva or Jesus is not mandatory.All these serve some folk are as points or symbols of devotion.It is hwere they focus their emotional devotional energies.But they can use these as fuel for practice.
Think of it as a science experiement. And you are your own subject.The data is your own experience prinipally as well as that of thers. You do the experiements and you get properly awakened eventually.
You can still do asana and teach and gain great spiritual benefit but once adequately immersed you may be interested in more.Your consciousness will expand. And you may think,hey,what if i keep doing this… with sound & good proper direction & guidance.
There is nothing to worry about honestly. There is nothing dark about yoga or sinister unless you look for it perhaps or you’re misguided perhaps.You can get or so i’ve heard latent powers that are developed that are often banded about as an advertisement but i bellieve they are a distraction but the scare-mongering that yoga is satanic for example is largely borne out of ignoracne,fear and superstition.Nothing to worry about there.You don’t have to believe anything.In fact non-belief may mean you may learn more easily.
You’re misinformed. Yoga does not have its “roots” in Hinduism. Yoga predates Hinduism. Hindus “claim” yoga, though Hinduism initially rejected it. Some of Hindu background have delved in to Yoga, shared it, written about it (codified it) but it is not Hindu.
Yoga doesn’t conflict with any organized religious belief, again despite what some others would have you believe. And you may believe that, just as you may believe a golden statue is the devil or that the divine power is vengeful. You may believe whatever you’d like. But it is simply grossly inaccurate to call yoga Hindu or assert it conflicts rather than enhances one’s personally held beliefs.
thanks
In “The Wisdom of Yoga - A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living”, the author Stephen Cophen says that yoga started as spiritual inquiries taken place “outside established religious hierarchies” by those “sramana” meaninng “Striver”, who turned to teachers that insist that realization of of the true Self could be developed, not through external religious ritual, but through direct and persistent inner investigation of the body and mind.
Also in “Eat Pray Love” the author Elizabeth Gilbert claims (based on what she studied, I believe) yoga is not religious, but if you happen to be religious, you can use yoga because it helps you to sit in the same posture for a long time during the prayer or calm the mind so you can contact your god more clearly.
These references helped me to explain yoga to my Christian friends. Some started yoga, and some started considering to have their children take classes.
To sum up what most of you have said, “yoga is in religions, religion is not in yoga”. Yoga has such an old and powerful legacy.
Contrary to the excessive arguments made elsewhere on this forum, I want to assure that as a born Hindu, we were never taught yoga as a Hindu-alone discipline even in India. Later, after studying Yoga-Sutra for years, there is no doubt in my mind that the philosophy and the practices are addressed to the whole humanity, perhaps even beyond this planet.
Unlike all systems of belief, the authority of yoga lies within each of us, since it is here that the ultimate truth is delivered. Confined only to asana, we tend to be concerned more about tools and techniques and we find certain similarity with rites and rituals of the religions. However, techniques are like scaffoldings, and must be retired when the core strength builds up. Rest is all in the inner domain that knows no color, caste or creed.
Bravo!