Hello everyone,
I am not new to Yoga but am new here. I have a question on studying to become a Hatha Yoga teacher via a distance learning course. Ideally I would like to take a course with more contact hours and hands on training but at the moment nothing is running near where I live and the intensive residential courses are far beyond my means.
I have been thinking about training to teach yoga for some time now but it always comes down to the fact that for me at the moment the only path to teaching is via distance learning and I am worried that any “distance” qualification I was to gain would not actually be considered good enough to teach.
Here in the UK there seems to be quite a lot of debate over who is the “governing body” of yoga in the UK and who can and cannot teach and I think that unless I complete a course of study which is recognised by the BWY I would not be able to work in gyms etc but that I would still be able to hire a hall and put my own classes on and teach privately.
At the moment my main concern is not to make money but to see if I could be a good teacher and I would be happy to teach yoga voluntarily. I would also like to do a course which will make yoga a much bigger part of my life and that will take me deeper into my own personal experiance of Yoga.
Anyway these are the courses I am looking at:
British School of Yoga: Yoga Teacher (Hatha Yoga) Course:
You complete the 15 lessons as home study and then do one days practical training on site. You must also complete 150 hours of logged yoga classes, the whole course takes around 9 months to complete.
This is the course I am leaning towards as successful completion means you would be able to apply for insurance also it has the practical day. It also allows you to apply to become a member of the Independent Yoga Register.
Or:
Stonebridge Asc Colleges: Yoga Teacher Course
There doesn’t seem to be any practical element to this course but the syllabus looks good and the qualification is good. I am still waiting on further details about this course.
Or:
Aura (Paul Jerard) Yoga Teacher Training Camp-in-a-Box
The content of the course looks good with some really great materials supplied. Written work in completed at home and emailed to your tutor, you have to attend weekly yoga classes and for your final assessment send in a video of yourself teaching a class. However I am not sure if this course would be enough for me to apply for insurance to teach.
What do you all think of these courses? Do you think that it would be worth doing one? While I am not looking to make money from teaching yoga I still want to be taken seriously enough to be allowed to teach and to not have other yoga teachers be saying that I am not qualified.
Anyway, thank you all for reading. I very much look forward to reading what you have to say about this.
Many thanks again.
Anne