Prep Overview
Two Week Prep Overview:
Yoga Teacher Training 200 Hours
No matter if you've been practicing yoga for decades or recently fallen in love with it, many people approach yoga training with a mixture of excitement and concern.
Maybe you aren't sure you are ready... this two week prep will give you a bit of the parts of training you are likely to go encounter from anatomy, to cueing, to philosophy.
Maybe you already signed up! Congrats! If you signed up for a compressed course, you may be looking at the scheduled and wondering how you can do yoga for four hours a day... will your body hold up? will you be able to quiet your mind for those scheduled blocks of meditation?
If you signed up for a longer course--usually on weekends and a few weeknights over the course of a little less that a year--you might be worried that you won't be able to devote the time necessary to study since you'll be juggilng the training with other commitments.
The best thing you can do is express these concerns to your yoga teachers. Yoga teachers were all newbies themselves at some point. They survived. They florished. What they tell you will carry more weight than anything else. Stay after class, linger a bit and the best teachers will witness this and move towards you to see how they can help.
This guide is another way that you can put some activities towards calming your concerns. Designed to be completed in short bursts over two weeks, each day there is a reading component, a study component and a physical practice component.
In addition to these three tasks each day, it will be helpful to go to as many yoga classes as you can and give yourself a few minutes to take notes. After class, write down one thing that was said that was memorable, some insight that you had, or anything really. I've had classes that impressed me because of their sequence of postures while I've had others that sparked new understanding in myself.
So, assuming you already have a mat, and maybe a strap or some blocks at home, let's talk about supplies that I've enjoyed (and will be referencing) in this two week prep.
(By the way, these are amazon affliliate links so if you do use them, I may give a few coins.)
Reading: Prepping the soul
One Simple Thing: A New Look at the Science fo Yoga and How It Can Transform Your Live by Eddie Stern
One of the surprises for me of yoga teacher training was that there was this spiritual practice with sacred texts that was secretly fueling my yoga classes. As a yoga practictioner in New York City, these texts were never mentioned in my weekly classes which had been more focused on the physical parts of the practice.
Having grown up in the Bible belt, I have a bit of an allergy to organized religion. So, it is best to approach sacred texts with a bit science thrown in for me. Thus, One Simple Thing. Stern is a yogic scholar who came to the science of well-being late in his practice. He interweaves the two beautifully.
Each day of the two week plan, we will be reading from this book.
Mouth Warm-up: Pose of the Day
Each day of the two week prep, we will focus on a certain pose. Many of these poses you will already be familiar with as a student, but to try to experience them as a teacher is a new challenge.
The Yoga Bible by Christina Brown contained beautiful, clear step-by-step cueing of the poses. Becoming a yoga teacher is about finding your voice, but language is always borrowed. Until you find your unique yoga voice, borrowing Brown's voice will strengthened your own.
Each day, I will ask you to read aloud the step-by-step sequencing for a pose from this text. Then, practice it in your own body. And then, read it aloud again. This may seem silly, but many actors/singers/teachers know that getting your mind reader to project/sing/teacher is really mastered only through practice. Consider this a mouth warm-up.
Mind: Understanding Anatomy
Anatomy is not only about learning the names of the parts of us, but developing an understanding of how everything is connected. This starts with the names.
The Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book is a fun way of starting to commite those names to memory and beginning to understand how the parts of the body are under the surface of each pose.
Each day, when we focus on the pose of the day, we will also color the corresponding page in this book. We will then return to the pose and take our mind on a little imaginative journey naming/visualizing the anatomy we just colored.
Bonus: In the back of this book, there are removable flashcards to review!
Fun Stuff:
Colored Pencils: These are the one's I used for my coloring. They are double-sided. Twice the color for the same amount of space!
Spiral Notebook: Find one you like, but I suggest spiral bound, with lines and a hard-cover. This is something that has helped me take notes while on my mat.
My favorite strap: Super sturdy & Many Colors!
Super travel-friendly mat: I have a nice, think yoga mat for home or for the short walk to my neighborhood yoga studio. But, I also love this thin mat that folds up for on-the-fly yoga. It is super light-weight. If you've ever wished you had your mat with you, but you didn't carry it because it was too big/heavy, this is for you!