What No One Tells You About Creating a Yoga Curriculum from Scratch

Summary: Creating a yoga curriculum from scratch can take far more time than expected. Creating an excellent curriculum also requires us to move out of the realm of teaching and incorporate skills beyond teaching, such as structuring content and planning lessons. Many aspiring teacher trainers initially also struggle with organizing topics, developing effective activities and creating useful assessments. Instead of reinventing everything, using a pre-made yoga curriculum could save you time, provide structure, and help launch a professional YTT faster while still allowing personal customisation.

Okay: you have been teaching yoga for years. And now, you are feeling the call to take your own leadership one step further and design a YTT course. So, you sit down and start to create your yoga curriculum…but then it starts to feel overwhelming. You may ask yourself, “Where do I even start?”

Hello! I’m Rachel Scott, a yoga educational consultant. In this blog, we are going to explore some key elements hat no one tells you about creating a yoga curriculum from scratch.

What No One Tells You About Creating a Yoga Curriculum from Scratch

If you are thinking about creating a YTT course curriculum from scratch or have already started writing it (but now it feels hard), here are a few things you must know:

1. It Takes a Lot More Time Than You Think: You may think it will take a few weeks to create your YTT baby. Maybe a month. But then you start writing. Planning. Organizing. It keeps growing. Most teachers spend months building a yoga curriculum. Some never finish. As an instructional designer, I would plan for at least a 2:1 ratio if I’m well versed in the content (so, two hours for every hour of instruction to create a lesson plan and student materials). If you’re researching content to include (say, for those anatomy modules), the time goes way up. Doing it online? More time still.

2. Teaching Yoga and Designing a Curriculum Are Not the Same: You already know how to teach a great class. But building a yoga curriculum is different. We are not just teaching poses anymore, we have to create a full learning journey and teaching methodology that teaches other people how to teach. This is a key change in perspective.

3. You Don’t Know What to Include or What to Leave Out: If you are thinking about leading a YTT, chances are that you love yoga and love to share it. You probably know a lot about many different topics. And, you may want to include everything in your YTT. But – as I found out the hard way! – that can actually be a problem. You want to include everything. Your students can’t handle all that information. Choosing what matters most – and how to teach it clearly – is hard.

4. Organizing Everything Feels Messy: You write notes and create a schedule. Then you move things around. Then again. The flow of your program may feel scattered or random. It may be challenging to figure out how to structure a day to keep your students from overwhelm and fatigue. You may also be frustrated trying to make all your hours align in the proper categories for registration with Yoga Alliance.

5. You Need More Than Just Content: A strong yoga curriculum is not just about great content; this content needs to be titrated and presented to students in a way that makes it digestible, practical and applicable. Simply sharing information won’t cut it; you need student-centered activities and assessments to help your students embody and truly understand the information. This transition from information to learning is where many teachers get stuck.

6. Perfection Slows You Down: Anyone out there a perfectionist? I understand! When I first created my YTT, I kept editing, changing, and tweaking the content and the schedule. But perfectionism can keep us stuck. I have seen teachers delay their training for years because they wanted to wait for it to be perfect.

7. You End Up Reinventing Everything: A lot of trainers tell me, “I felt like I had to do it all myself, otherwise it was cheating!” So they recreate everything from scratch: every handout, lesson, presentation and quiz. It takes months. But it doesn’t have to be that way. A pre-made, editable yoga curriculum can be a game-changer for you and give you a foundation from which to build. Rather than spend your time re-inventing the wheel, you can instead spend your time creatively adapting the curriculum to match your voice and vision.

Why Buying a Pre-Made Yoga Curriculum Can Be a Smart Solution

1. You Save Time: Instead of building everything from scratch, you start with a complete yoga curriculum. The structure and schedule is already there. Lesson plans are ready. Rather than focus on creating everything, you can strategically focus your work to edit and personalize.

2. You Get a Clear, Professional Structure: All my content and program schedules have been vetted in real life in the classroom. Lesson plans and concepts build on each other to give your trainees a step by step path to teaching excellence. Your training will feel well-organized and well-paced for both you and your students.

3. You Still Make It Your Own: Using a pre-made curriculum is not copying. The teacher training is still yours. You adjust the language, add your stories and favorite teaching techniques, tweak the content. The yoga curriculum becomes your foundation, not your limitation.

4. You Can Launch Faster: I can’t tell you how many times I have met with someone in the initial stages of creating their own TT…then met with them again two years later and they still aren’t launched! With a pre-made yoga curriculum, you can move forward sooner. You don’t have to wait until everything feels perfect.

Creating a yoga curriculum from scratch is one way – but not the only way. Using a vetted and trusted curriculum as a starting point can help you gain welcome support, save time, and free you up for more creative work. If this is sounding attractive, check out my buy a 200-hour yoga teacher training or explore my blogs for more information! Happy creating.