Yoga Centers & Teacher Training

Yoga Centers are larger Yoga studios that offer a full complement of Yoga and sometimes also additional alternative health services such as therapeutic massage, Ayurveda services, along with health and nutrition and other kinds of counseling services.

Yoga Centers sometimes embrace one particular style of Yoga, for example a Bikram Yoga Center would only offer Bikram style Yoga classes taught by certified instructors. A more general Yoga center might have several different styles of yoga classes, and other services taught by instructors versed in many different styles and approaches to the practice of Yoga.

Many of these Yoga Centers also offer Yoga teacher training as one of their services. Yoga teacher training programs should offer at least 200 hours of instruction, and some centers offer instructors the option of choosing an area of specialization such as pre-natal Yoga, Yoga for Kids, etc.

Some Yoga centers offer an intensive or accelerated yoga teacher training program where prospective teachers learn about how to teach beginning, intermediate and advanced asanas, they learn how to correct student's alignment. They will learn about meditation and pranayama techniques. Some classes also offer students the opportunity to travel to India to study with a yogi.

If you are looking for Yoga instructor training in PA, you might try the YogaLife Institute. They offer a one year Yoga Teacher training program, which is personalized to help students gain a more in-depth knowledge of Yoga, and then go on to teach Yoga classes. The YogaLife teacher training center features individualized mentoring, exposure to the internal workings of Yoga poses, development of the mind, parnayama, relaxation techniques, and the art and business of teaching Yoga. The YogaLife Institute is affiliated with the Yoga Institute of India.

The teacher training program progresses in two phases. Phase one helps students develop their personal Yoga practice. Phase two guides students towards deepening their practice through teaching Yoga. The following is required for the Yoga teacher training course: attend 12 monthly group workshops, twelve months of weekly attendance at a Yoga class, 72-page research paper, and monthly individual sessions with a trainer, one weekend YogaLife retreat.

The Sivananda yoga teacher training course is based on a program designed by Swami Vishnu-denananda and later refined by Swami Sivananda with the goal of both developing Yoga professionals, and give Yoga devotees the skills and discipline of a deeper personal Yoga practice. The course is based on the ancient gurukula teaching system, which integrates the student's daily life into the Yoga training program. The goal of the four week program is to give the student a strong foundation in teaching others. This course has graduated more than 11,000 students in the last 30 years.