Not Everyone Can Disappear to an Ashram

Why flexible 200 hour yoga teacher training matters more than ever

When I did my first yoga teacher training, I was in a very particular season of life.

I’d just left South Korea, where I’d been teaching at a university, and before returning properly to the UK, I spent several months travelling in India. Part of that time was spent living in an ashram where I completed my 200-hour training.

Looking back, I can see what a privilege that was.

I had time, space and relatively few responsibilities. I could immerse myself fully in practice and study in a way that would be impossible for me now, with a young family and a business to run.

Later, when I completed my 300-hour training in Bristol, life looked rather different. The course ran mostly on weekends with occasional intensive modules, and I was fortunate that my work allowed me to take the odd Friday off here and there.

But over the years, I’ve become increasingly aware that many people who feel deeply called towards yoga training simply don’t have that kind of flexibility available to them.

They’re working full-time. They’re parenting. They’re caring for relatives. They’re recovering from burnout or managing health challenges, or they’re simply trying to hold everything together whilst carving out a little space for themselves somewhere in amongst ordinary life.

And yet those are often exactly the people who bring enormous compassion, steadiness and depth into the teaching space. It also makes perfect sense to do a training that will not disrupt your life, and is relatively local to you so that you can continue the rhythms and relationships formed in training into your yoga teaching life.

Spaciousness Helps Learning

I’m not convinced that cramming information into exhausted people over long weekends is always the best way to learn yoga.

Yoga isn’t simply academic. Much of it needs to be experienced, reflected on and gradually integrated.

The Friday sessions on our 200 hour yoga training are online and recorded, which means people can revisit material, catch up if life gets in the way, and engage with the course in a more humane and sustainable way. In our culture, we are all so busy! and we don't always have the headspace to absorb the vast, sprawling and diverse aspects of yoga.

Children get ill.Work becomes overwhelming.Energy fluctuates. People need rest.

That doesn’t make somebody less committed to yoga but we all have our limits, and our brains can only cope with so much.

Saturday and Sunday training days with us are spent at the glorious Phoenix Studio in Edithmead, North Somerset (see pic above).

Flexibility Doesn’t Mean Less Depth

I think there can sometimes be an assumption that flexible learning means lower standards. But flexibility and seriousness are not opposites.

In many ways, deeper learning requires enough spaciousness for reflection and integration — particularly in areas such as mindfulness, philosophy, trauma sensitivity and embodied anatomy.

Trauma-aware teaching, for example, isn’t simply a checklist of “dos and don’ts”. It asks us to think carefully about language, power, nervous systems and the reality that human beings don’t all experience yoga practice in the same way.

Similarly, embodied anatomy isn’t just about memorising muscles. It’s about understanding movement as it moves through the body, and understanding the body in relationship to space and gravity.

Training Alongside Real Life

One thing I’ve noticed over nearly two decades of yoga teaching, and three decades in education, is that many people wait for the mythical “perfect time” to begin a training. A point at which life becomes calmer, tidier and less demanding.

But for most people with careers and families, life doesn’t really work like that.

There will be a point however, where you know it's time to go for it.

Yoga asks us to examine who we are in relationship to ourselves and others - what better time to put it into practice than in your daily life?

Saying that - many of our trainees, especially those with busy jobs or intense home situations, tell us that our weekends training together are like a retreat, where they can immerse themselves in yoga without distraction. So, when you do commit, yoga training can be something that lightens your load, rather than adding to it.

If you are wondering whether it's the right time for you and you're ready for a taster of life inside the 200 hour training, come along to our next 200YTT Taster Day. You will experience a day in the life of a yoga trainee, with led yoga practice, shared lunch, an afternoon lecture, more yoga and Q&A on the 200 hour course. Ready to find out more? we'd love to meet you.

200YTT Taster Day