Why take a yoga teacher training? Well the obvious is to become a yoga teacher. But for me that is the last reason why. In 2009 I decided it was time to start sharing what I knew about yoga, the body, fitness, yogic living, and well life (lets just say I got thrown a lot early in life) with others beyond just a yoga class.

When it was suggested to me that I take a yoga training it was because my teacher thought I was good, and I’d be a natural at teaching it. But upon that suggestion I decided to take the training because I was praying that it would help me forge into recovery from an eating disorder that had been strangling me for years.

Now mind you I did in fact become a yoga teacher, open a yoga studio, and yes even start teaching teachers, but all fo this happened not because I wanted to become a yoga teacher, but rather because yoga changed my life!

Let me say that again…YOGA CHANGED MY LIFE!

Yoga gave me hope when I didn’t have any, yoga showed me little by little how to love myself again, yoga helped me learn how to feel again, how to learn to separate my thoughts, how to breathe, how to see the world through different eyes. Yoga gave me a new life!

So when I interview potential yoga teacher trainees one of the first things I ask them is why they want to take this program. I love hearing the answers, and funny thing is I tend to attract the people who are looking for a life change, to find purpose again, to learn more about their body, to enhance their career and to enrich themselves. And oh yeah, maybe become a yoga teacher.

I let all those potential yoga peeps know that the program I run is a personal growth transformation program with a side effect of teacher training. That you will become a great yoga teacher, one your students can relate with and connect with when you fully and completely take yoga into your life. You let it be the mirror, you truly allow yourself to see things from a new light, and over and over again you ask yourself why.

Honestly, anyone can learn how to memorize yoga poses and sequences. And this is not to degrade any other program but rather to remind those reading this that there is more to yoga than memorizing put right foot here and left arm here. Why do we put our body in this position, what is the purpose? And since we are talking about the body, I have done something risky and completely changed how I (and my students) approach and look at yoga asana.

You must understand the body and how it moves, and why things happen the way they do and how to read a person’s body (body mapping) in order to truly help people seek out poses safely.

But none-the-less yoga has to be applied at a deep level, we must take into accounts all aspects of our lives when we embark on a yoga teacher training. I have to be honest (again) and say that I have had a few people consider dropping the program because it pushed them to grow so deeply they were pinned up against the wall-grow and step into the unknown or stay stuck, stay in the safety zone, stay in the familiar. And happily all but one have pushed through and now they not only are amazing yoga teachers, but they are living their lives in a way that they never thought possible!

And as for that one, well letting go of the control in life is hard and you can only lead a horse to water, you can’t make them drink.

But if you are looking for a change, if you are in need of a soul shift, if you have a desire to learn about the philosophy of yoga in a now-a-days off the mat kind of way, then step aboard.

Embarking on a yoga teacher training and upon that first day making a soul commitment to fully and completely, each and every day be willing to open and truly listen, challenge your ways of thinking, living, breathing, I promise you your life will change.

If you deeply desire to find more clarity on what your purpose is in life, if you are seeking to find peace for any reason-it’s not a training it’s a personal growth transformation program.

If you want to learn more about yoga asana, meditation, pranayama (breathing) and what yogic text could help you uncover-then this could be your next step on your journey.

If you live in my neck of the woods then I want to invite you to my next Yoga Alliance approved 200 Hour Personal Growth Program & Yoga Teacher Training. If you don’t in SE Wisconsin-then do your homework before you enlist into that next program. Talk to past students, interview the director (yep you ask them questions) and don’t just jump at the quickest program because you are so eager to teach yoga, you could be end up missing some vital aspects of that personal growth side of the story, because remember change doesn’t happen in a day.

Even after seven months in the HOPE Yoga Training it’s just the beginning, but now they have a solid foundation, not just in yoga teaching, but for life!

Blessings!