Teachers Training
Yoga Therapy Principles:
A 200-hour certification program
Extend your skills as a yoga instructor or student.
Deepen your link with this ancient wisdom.
The yoga of Krishnamacharya has flowed out in many directions through his students who are great teachers in their own right - Pattabi Jois, Indra Devi, and Iyengar, for example. In his later years Krishnamacharya refined his understanding of working therapeutically with the tools of yoga. Several teachers received this direct transmission; among them - T.K.V. Desikachar, A.G. Mohan, Srivasta Ramaswami. This coursework presents these living teachings as received by senior instructor Dawn Summers from her teacher Gary Kraftsow and others immersed in this rich tradition. Dawn Summers has been teaching since 1985 and is a primary assistant in training programs for teachers and yoga therapists conducted by American Viniyoga Institute.
If You Are A Yoga Teacher
"As yoga teachers we are constantly inquiring and refining our understanding of yoga through ongoing experience with students and our daily personal practice. What a sacred trust and delight to share the yoga we love! And at times, we yearn for the sweetness and renewal of being students - drinking the cup of inspiration and receiving loving support of a skillful teacher." - Dawn Summers
As teachers we share a goal to skillfully use all of the tools of yoga, such as:
- Postures - structural and energetic effects and contraindications
- Skillful and safe sequencing of postures, which includes movement and holding postures
- Various techniques for breathing in postures
- Adaptations to classic postures
- Choosing appropriate postures and breathing practices for an individual
- Skillful reading of a student's body and energy
- Protecting a student with a special condition from injury
- Writing a practice in a form which can be easily understood by anyone
- Appropriate preparation for a specific pranayama
- Including wisdom from the yoga sutras in our classes
- Drawing from yoga wisdom to respond to students' personal challenges and questions
- Chanting the yoga sutras to access the source text
- Chanting in a variety of languages and for various purposes
- Incorporating the power of mudra, gesture, sound, and ritual to create a deep practice
- Deep relaxation
- Meditation and silence
Through this training you will receive a transmission of these tools to extend your skills, inspire and energize your practice, and empower your teaching!
If You Are A Yoga Student
This is an opportunity for deeper study of your yoga in a focused context so that you can teach Please consider this training if you:
- Wish to deepen your physical, energetic, and mental self-awareness
- Want to better understand how to balance, soothe, and heal yourself through yoga
- Want to stimulate and challenge your intellect
- Love yoga, and want to do and learn more
- Want to help friends and family with yoga
- Want to make yoga more of a foundation for right living
- Seek inspiration and support for your own yoga practice
- Want to "own" your yoga in a very personal and more complete way
- Would enjoy sharing yoga with others through teaching and leading them
- Would benefit from additional income teaching yoga
- Wish to have nationally accepted credential for teaching yoga
Yoga Therapy Principles Syllabus
- Structural - forward bend, backward bend, lateral, twist, extension, inversion
- Sequencing and counterpose - Vinyasa krama and pratikriyasana
- Breath and movement
- Adaptation
- Intention - Bhavana
- Sources of suffering and the means to overcome - Kriya yoga and the klesas
- Memory and conditioning - samskara and pratipaksa bhavana
- Practicing one principle to reduce mental afflictions - ekatattvabhyasah
- Practice and nonattachment - abhyasa and vairagya
- Open engagement - prayatna saitilya
- Surrender to Higher Power - Isvarapranidhana
- Form and energy - prakrti and the gunas
- Fundamental causes of suffering - change, desire, conditioning, and nature
- Essential identity and relationship, the Seer and the Seen - samyoga and viyoga
- Attention, energy, breath - prana and the mayakosas
- Ritual
- Chanting and use of sound
- Teaching methodology
- Application of principles for structural, disease, and emotional conditions
- Teaching safely
Six weekend intensives, Saturdays and Sundays from 9:00 am - 6:00 pm, at the Mercy Center in Burlingame:
May 19-20,
July 28-29,
August 18-19,
September 30,
October 13-14,
November 17-18,
January 5-6, 2008
Residential training retreats at Presentation Center in Los Gatos - June 16-20 and October 20-22.
Certification
Completion of coursework will result in a certification by New Dawn Yoga Therapy or 160 Yoga Alliance (Y.A.) CEUs for yoga instructors. To receive a 200-hr Y.A. certification, the following additional requirements apply:
Four private lessons: $275
One weekend retreat of your choice (offered semianually by New Dawn Yoga Therapy): $350 - $400
Please note that this does not certify you as a "yoga therapist", but provides basic tools and is preliminary to that deeper study.
Tuition
$2,075 ($1,875 if registered by 3/18/07)
$275 nonrefundable deposit due with application. Make check payable to "Dawn Summers" and mail to PO Box 460395, San Francisco, CA 94916.
The first payment of $600 due May 19, with balance to be paid in three installments on July 28, September 15, and November 10.
To apply, please write a description of your current yoga practice, including teaching if you are a yoga instructor, and state your goals for this coursework.
Tuition includes basic coursework, but excludes accommodations and meals during retreats, private lessons, and weekend retreats. Scholarships are available.