Circle Yoga Shala’s Teacher Training Program is designed to give aspiring teachers the necessary knowledge, experience, and technical tools to teach a yoga practice that meets the multifaceted demands of today’s practitioners.
It is theoretically and historically coherent with the wisdom that has come through the ages, and can therefore help to cultivate a practice that addresses the human being in her entirety. Its interpretation of that ancient wisdom opens the capacity in the teacher to manage and assist the student’s efforts in the life long endeavor that serious Yoga practice is. It also cultivates in the teacher the important capacity for self-enquiry, meditation, and study, so that problem solving is not an impediment to practice or teaching.
The training program is under the direction of Matthew Krepps, a recognized instructor at the 500-hour level by the Yoga Alliance. The program meets the certification standards set by the national Yoga Alliance’s Yoga Teacher Registry. The Yoga Alliance’s minimum standards for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT) are available on their website: www.yogaalliance.org
For ten years Matt has provided quality teacher training to sincere students who desire to share yoga with others and for those senior students who wish to deepen their practice.
THE METHOD AND ITS ORIGIN
Our training curriculum is derived from the work of Godfrey Devereux. Mr. Devereux teaches something called the dynamic Yoga method. Mr. Deverux’s teaching is not to be understood as a new “style” of Hatha yoga. It is essentially a way to organize and experience the actions one takes within practice. After many years of practice Mr. Devereux has endeavored to formulate a set of basic principles that can be taught to students in the beginning of their training to give them a way to gain autonomy in their investigation of Yoga.
Within the realm of technique, trainees are taught to organize the many possible actions that the body can take within the rubric of three main areas: expanding actions (broadening actions), extending actions (lengthening actions), and spiraling actions (the basic medial and lateral rotations of the major joints). Within the realm of orientation, or how to relate to any particular technique, students are taught that Yoga is practiced as a triune system of dedication to practice, self - inquiry, and surrender. Both the technical training and the orientation are delivered to students via the five basic techniques common in all forms of Hatha Yoga.
These are:
• Asana: practice at the level of body to inquire into the tendency to live mechanically in our movements, and to free the somatic structure from restriction caused by that mechanicalness and/or trauma, so that action in the world can become free from generating tension and be released into spontaneity.
• Pranayama: practice at the level of breath, to surrender it into its own natural freedom, which is apart from conception, and physical and /or psychological imposition.
• Bandha: practice at a deep, subtle level to surrender the transformative energies of the human being into the core of the body. Bandha is the technique that reveals the inherent unity of the gross and subtle energetic aspects of the human being, transforming perception so that attention is surrendered into the experience of an always-already present, non-dual awareness. Mula, Uddiyana, and Jalandhara, pada and hasta bandhas are common techniques taught.
• Vinyasa: the art of learning, arranging actions, and moving in concert with the breath in a specific, sequential fashion, and of surrendering attention into this movement as feeling-awareness and intelligence.
• Drushti: practice at the level of mind contextualizes the vagrant tendencies of everyday attention, so that these tendencies and perceptions can be surrendered into the impersonal space of pure awareness, where they arise and pass away without resistance or attachment. Drushti is taught as an orientation toward self study and reflection, and also as an actual structural adaptation (positioning the eyes in various places) in the posture practice, and/or the Pranayama practice, and/or the seated meditation practice.
The teacher training directed by this learning method requires only a willingness to orient one’s self toward the classical practices in a way that will benefit others. Such willingness means immersion in these techniques with a spirit that cultivates an openness to existence and ALL of its continuously arising conditions; or, as Godfreydev says: yoga is an ongoing invitation (to both teacher and student) to surrender.
The training is structured around several key elements:
Technical training: posture practice, meditation, pranayama.
Teaching skills: sequencing a class based on seeing and understanding actions rather than just form, hands-on adjustments, holding the space, adapting to the needs of the students, how to language and instruct actions rather than teaching/guiding a class via practicing together.
History and philosophy: particularly with reference to the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali and the Baghavad Gita.
Anatomy and physiology as applied to the practice.
The psychology of teaching: character development and learning methods.
Our training curriculum also takes advantage of adult learning methods. This methodology is taught by trainers experienced in those methods. Yoga is a transformational practice and as such requires teachers who can anticipate situations in which boundary or ethical issues may arise. A session on such is included in the training. Other topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Pregnancy and other special populations, studio and financial management.
To be recommended to the Yoga Alliance as a yoga teacher certified by Circle Yoga Shala, it is necessary to complete 200 hours, pass a comprehensive final examination, and be able to, in the opinion of the teacher training instructors, competently and compassionately teach a basic yoga class. Attendance at the trainings or completion of 200 hours does not in itself guarantee certification to the Yoga Alliance.
Each teacher training attendee receives a beautifully produced 200+ page manual containing illustrations and professionally photographed Asanas.
If you have any questions about Circle Yoga Shala's teacher training program, please contact Matthew Krepps: krepps.matt@gmail.com,
or Holly Krepps: kreppsholly@gmail.com. A land line number also available is: 870-861-5175.
Training recognized by the National Yoga Alliance.
