Does CPY Offer Teacher Training?
CPY supports the yoga teacher community, but we are not a training school. There are several approaches if you are considering teaching yoga from a Christian perspective. You can explore these on this page.
Becoming a yoga teacher is a wonderful way to deepen your yoga practice and deepen your career. Even if you don’t plan to teach yoga full-time, you’ll find that you will use your yoga teaching skills in your workplace professional development, in your churches, even in your parenting.
On the other hand, yoga teacher training is not for everyone. Yoga teacher training does not make anyone’s practice more “authentic.” Some people who serve as resources in our community have not completed a formal 200-hr YTT.
CPY offers a gathering for teachers once every 2 years. Our next retreat will be in summer 2024. If you are a yoga teacher and are looking for rest and community, please reach out to retreat@christianspracticingyoga.com to learn more.
Approaches to Teacher Training
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Within our community directory, we have many Christian schools of yoga teacher training that are registered with either Yoga Alliance or Christian Yoga Association (please note that we do not verify listings or certifications). Yoga Alliance is a yoga teacher directory started in 1999 by a group of yoga teachers who wanted to establish a baseline for what a good yoga teacher training should look like, and it has grown into the largest registry of yoga teachers. The Christian Yoga Association was started in 2018 by Derek and Michelle Thielen, founders of YogaFaith, as a registry for specifically Christian teachers of yoga.
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In addition to Christ-centered yoga schools, a Christian, well-rooted in one’s own faith tradition, might choose to train in a traditional, non-Christian teacher training program. (Many of us behind the site have chosen this option!). Non-Christian yoga schools are varied in their approaches and lineage, and too numerous to list on this site, but you can locate schools in your area through the Yoga Alliance site. We suggest supplementing this training with additional reading and study from the Christian tradition. Visit the Research section for a variety of resources. Also, Yogadevotion offers a 20-hr online course in teaching from a faith-integrated perspective to supplement your traditional training.
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Our directory listings on our website are not an endorsement. Finding a good fit for your own path takes research, real experience with the school and the trainer, and discernment. Any yoga training, Christian or traditional, can be a life-giving experience. We encourage you to find a school—Christian or traditional—that you trust: have a conversation with the lead trainer, attend classes through their school, be certain that this is a program you want to develop you—body, mind, and spirit. Yoga training is, at its essence, spiritual direction. Ideally, we suggest spending at least 6 months practicing with any teacher or school before committing to a training, although we recognize this might not be possible in long-distance training relationships.
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Explore Teacher Training and Trauma Informed Yoga with our writing community
Cindy speaks about the value of silence alongside words and asks the questions, “do I talk too much in my yoga classes? Do we collectively try too hard to drive home our own personal theology?”