Yoga Teachers: Why You DON’T Need to Take Another Training (And What You Can Do Instead)

Over 16 years spent training yoga teachers, and 25 teaching yoga myself, I’ve noticed one mistake that most of us have made as teachers: we compare. 

Newer teachers compare themselves to more established teachers, worrying that they aren’t as skilled or knowledgeable. Older teachers compare themselves to younger ones, worried that they are losing touch with what’s popular or emerging in our field. Local teachers compare themselves to nationally famous ones, wondering what they’d have to do to rise to that level of fame and recognition. 

And the internet knows it. 

When I look at social media, I see all kinds of trainings being advertised to yoga teachers: You have a 200 hour certification? Get a 300. You have a 500 hundred hour certification? Get into the yoga therapy pipeline. And how about a somatics certification, a trauma-informed designation, a Pilates certification on the side: Just. Keep. Training!

And while I’ll never discourage anyone from getting sufficient education (I do believe a full 500 hours is probably necessary if you’re planning to teach long-term,) I also see that this industry, like so many others, is playing on people’s insecurities in order to sell them stuff. And trainings–especially online trainings with little to no human interaction–seems to be the “stuff” that gets pushed. And none of us are better teachers for it. 

In the ten years that I ran a yoga studio, I auditioned plenty of teachers, and read countless resumes. I started noticing that, over time, newer teachers were coming in with longer and more detailed lists of certifications they’d racked up, often within a short period of time. And this may come as a surprise, but rarely did the person with five certifications teach a better class than someone who had only one. And that’s because–stay with me now–a certification is not what makes someone a good teacher. 

The people I’ve seen grow in wisdom and expertise, and expand their communities and businesses, and generally become really good teachers, seem to have the following things in common: 

1.They maintain their personal yoga practice. 

This may seem obvious, but it’s not always  happening. Plenty of people get into teaching, and discover they no longer have the time for their own practice. Maintaining it takes a deliberate effort. And it should always be the source from which our teaching emerges.

2.They sit in the discomfort of being imperfect. 

The drive to keep pursuing more certifications often comes from a feeling of being “not enough” as a teacher. The promise of “once I get my next certification, THEN I’ll feel like enough” is never fulfilled, because fulfillment and confidence don’t come from certificates. They come from seeing ourselves do the hard work of making mistakes, learning from them, and growing over time. This takes patience and feeling stupid sometimes. It’s worth it.

3. They expand their definition of yoga beyond just asana. 

When hiring yoga teachers, I was always extra excited when someone said they had a committed meditation practice (*not necessarily a meditation teacher certification,) or when they were involved in community organizing, or making art, or writing. A multi-faceted life tends to translate into richer, more inspiring teaching.

4.They deliberately put themselves in community with other teachers and students. 

Being in community means being around people who are different from you, who practice in different ways, and who may question you from time to time. This is a really good thing. There have been many times in a class when I repeated something I’d learned in a training or workshop, only to have a student say “that really doesn’t work for me. Why should I do it?” These humbling moments help us grow, and show us that our authority isn’t based on our resume, but in how capable we are of serving the people we teach. 

5. They continue to seek out mentorship and collaboration with other teachers.

The teachers who endure seek out meaningful relationships, not just more certifications. It’s in the process of trying things, getting feedback, and receiving other people’s questions and insights that our skills really become our own(rather than someone else’s  that we’re merely imitating.) Think of it this way: trainings give us knowledge. But taking that knowledge into our relationships with others–including those who might offer us critique or questioning–is what gives us wisdom. 

Listen, training yoga teachers is one of the best things I’ve ever done with my time. I hope to keep doing it forever. But what matters to me is not how many certificates I’ve handed out; what matters are the relationships I get to have with people I train, and the joy of staying in touch with them and watching them grow over the years. 

This is why, instead of offering more and more types of teacher trainings, I’ve decided to offer Yoga Teacher Mentoring Program. It’s a three-month, low-in-price, relationship-based program, where teachers will get to hone their skills in creating safe, fun, appropriately-challenging classes, get meaningful feedback on their teaching, and make their practice of teaching as authentic as their practice of yoga itself. 

If you want more information, please feel free to email me at erinyogaandcoaching@gmail.com. 

Keep teaching! Keep growing! The world needs your wisdom.