Teachers..Are they fully qualified? Are you safe with them?
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There are
virtually thousands of yoga teachers there but how do you know that
he/she is the right one!! How do you know that he/she is fully qualified??
That she/he properly trained? I personally know teachers who cannot
do a basic headstand…I know teachers who don’t practice
regularly... I know teachers who practice may be once in a month…
And worst, I know teachers who don’t know the basic yogic philosophy!
Teachers who smoke, drink, party and are non vegetarian. Are they teachers?
Is not yoga spiritual? Are they qualified to teach? And what type of
qualification(s) do they have?
The answer is that you don’t know until you go to his/her classes for a while committing your hard earned money and valuable time!! The sad truth is that yoga has become so commercialized that every body involved in teacher training is more interested in making money than making good teachers. I’ve seen advertizements for one week teacher training courses!! So after that week you could be a teacher!! Great!! How can a person who has not (necessarily) done yoga before become a yoga teacher within a week or two? It is beyond my imagination… but these are the facts!! To their credit the Iyengar
Institute insist that to be considered for their teacher training you
should be practising for at least two years. Aspiring teachers need
to be recommended by a Certified Iyengar teacher; holding a teacher
diploma from the Ramamani Iyengar Institute in Pune (although they might
never have been there), and should be able to produce it on request. |
The
Sivananda organisation has a one-month, very intense, course which prepares
future teachers comprehensively. Their courses are usually run in ashrams
around the world and their teachers are qualified to teach anywhere
in the world.
The authority on Ashtanga yoga is Sri K Pattabhi Jois in Mysore. The only official qualification is approved by Sri K Pattabhi Jois, himself, and is a certificate to teach. To obtain this certificate, one is required to study with Sri K Pattabhi Jois directly for a number of years and to complete the Primary, Intermediate and Advanced Series. As this is a very high standard, there are very few Certified Teachers in the world. But now these Certified Teachers are providing teacher training courses and producing “authorized teachers” in the Primary Series. The problem comes when these authorized teachers (who are not Certified Teachers) provide in teacher training programs, and these new teachers have no proper certification. So check out to see whether your Ashtanga teacher is directly trained by a Certified Ashtanga Teacher or authorized (non Certified) teacher. A complete up-to-date list of certified and "authorized" teachers can be found on the official Ashtanga site: http://www.ashtanga.com/ If you are serious about learning yoga don’t hesitate to ask questions… See if any of your friends have been to different classes since nothing beats a good recommendation. Remember you are as good as a good teacher. |
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