How Do I Create My Own Yoga Teacher Training? How Long Will It Take?

Creating a yoga teacher training is an exciting opportunity to connect with your community, share your passion for yoga, deepen your own leadership skills – all while generating revenue for your business. So how you get started in creating your own yoga teacher training? And practically speaking, how long will it take?

The Student Manual

When you creating curriculum, it’s tempting to think that your yoga teacher training is all about your yoga teacher training student manual. After all, this seems to be the most tangible product that you will give to your students.

However, let me be clear: it is not.

While the yoga teacher training student manual is an excellent reference and supporting tool for your yoga teacher training, the real value and learning from your training comes in how the students spend those 200 hours with you. In short: the quality of their educational experience depends upon the quality of your lesson plans. A lesson plan describes what students will learn from you in a given length of time – and more importantly, a lesson plan is a roadmap for how they will learn it. Consider:

• What lectures or presentations will you give?
• What activities will the students do?(Asana labs, practices, sequencing exercises, worksheets?)
• What quizzes or practicums will assess the students’ knowledge?

How To Start

To begin thinking about creating your own 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, ask yourself the following questions:

• What will my students be able to DO as a result of this training (the full 200 hours) with me? How will I know that they are graduating as a good teacher? What will they need to demonstrate? (Check out my article on “the great mistake” if you haven’t yet :))
• What individual topics (lessons) do I need to cover to move students from A to B? What content is needed? (I recommend doing a big brainstorm!)
• How will I frame (schedule) these topics? See this resource for help!
• What will the students be able to do a a result of each individual lesson?
• And finally: what support materials will I use to support each lesson? (This is where you create your student manual :)) Need help? Check out this course.
• Marketing. (Need help? Check out this course.)

Timing

So how long will create your own yoga teacher training? Well, as a rough guide, you expect to spend 2-3 hours creating each hour of curriculum. So parts will be faster, and some parts will be slower. So for a 200 hour YTT, you can estimate that you will spend 400-600 hours creating your program. Now, there are ways that you can mitigate this time expenditure.

Option 1: Buy A Training

• Purchase a pre-made, high quality Buy A Training that you trust can serve as the foundation for your own yoga teacher training – as long as you can edit it and make it yours!
• Naturally, I’m a fan of the one that I created 😉 and you can see it here: Rachel’s Buy A Training. But I strongly recommend that you investigate the options that are out there and see if there is a premade curriculum that is right for you. Things to consider if you are thinking of this route:
  • Can I adapt, edit and brand the curriculum?
  • Are the lesson plans clearly mapped out, effective, and detailed enough to support my training with activities?
  • Has the training been run and tested?
  • Who created the training? Do they have any instructional design or educational experience?
  • Do I get support with registering for an organization like Yoga Alliance?
  • Do I like the curriculum? Does it align with my own methodology for sequencing, teaching, and cueing?
  • Are there good visual support materials for topics like anatomy?
  • Cost: are there cost options? Are there annual fees? How soon would I be able to pay it off?

Option 2: Get Support and Buy Lesson Plans

• Purchase some elements (like anatomy or sequencing lesson plans) to get some support on particular topics that may be challenging and time consuming to write yourself. Then flesh out the program with your own material.
• You can see all my Buy A Lessons here – they may give you good ideas on where to start.

Option: Do It Yourself – With Guidance

• Creating a yoga teacher training is exciting – but it’s a massive project. Knowing how to do what tasks and in which order will save you a lot of time and help your training be more effective, professional, and engaging.
• If you want to do it yourself, consider reaching out for coaching, or I’ve also created a “Create Your Training” course that helps you do things right. It’s all you – but you’ll undertake the project in way that helps you creating everything you need, structure your program smartly and clearly, prepare to register for your oversight organization, and do tasks in the right order to make the most of your precious time. See the course here: Create Your Training.

Final Thoughts

Whichever option you choose, remember: you don’t have to go it alone!

Creating a yoga teacher training can initially seem overwhelming, but there are lot of people – including me 😉 – who love education and can be an ally and thought partner to make your dream a reality. As entrepreneurs, we often are ferocious do it yourselfers ~ but getting support for your YTT creation can help you to juggle all those balls more easily and make you’re yoga teacher training a reality sooner rather than later. Work smart – not just hard.

I’m always available for a free virtual coffee chat! Reach out to connect and get your yoga teacher training ball rolling 🙂