The Art of Teaching Yoga: Teacher Training Manual and Workbook: Live the Light of Yoga

By Christina Sell

How to Use This Manual

This manual is meant to accompany a year-long classroom experience. This is a workbook designed to give support to lectures, reading, group discussion, and experiential exercises. This manual outlines vital elements of teacher training course curriculum and includes experiential exercises in teaching methods such as sequencing, verbal articulation skills, demonstration, observation, adjustments and class planning.
This manual is not intended to be an all-inclusive treatise, or a book that fully explains the complex and multi-faceted art of practicing and teaching yoga. It is designed as a resource for the sincere practitioner and teacher who wants to deepen his/her understanding of the philosophy of yoga, engage a process of self-inquiry and develop their skills as a yoga teacher. My hope is that new teachers will gain a foundation in both theory and practice, and seasoned practitioners and teachers will find nuggets and gems to help them continue along the path of mastery with greater efficacy and joy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483530406

Book preview

Welcome to The Art of Teaching Yoga

The decision to participate in this teacher’s program is a life-changing decision that will offer you many opportunities to learn, grow and serve others. Thank you for making the choice to deepen your practice and understanding of yoga in this powerful and unique way.  As a participant in this process, you will practice asana, puja, pranayama, meditation, mantra, contemplation, visualization, journal writing, and discussion, as a means to strengthen your personal connection to what lives at the core of your authentic spiritual expression, so that your inner life becomes a strong foundation upon which you can teach. Special attention will be given to developing an integration between body, mind, emotion, and spirit through creative, dynamic, and experiential exercises.

Live the Light of Yoga Vision and History

Live the Light of Yoga Programs offer educational intensives that connect people to the healing power of the Heart's Light through traditional spiritual teachings, disciplined yoga practices, and the transformational power of community.

Inspired by a variety of hatha yoga traditions and philosophical traditions, Live the Light of Yoga is dedicated to authentic spirituality and practical work on self. Conceived in the fall of 2011, by Christina Sell, Live the Light of Yoga programs are a resource for yoga practitioners and teachers of all faiths and traditions, who wish to step deeper into the path of awakening and service. Live the Light of Yoga’s official birthday is January 3, 2012, at 9:00am Central Time.

Christina Sell is known internationally for her passion for practice, her dedication to community, her ongoing studentship, and for offering workshops and trainings of the highest integrity and professionalism. Christina was introduced to Iyengar yoga in 1991, has studied a variety of methods, and was certified and licensed to teach Anusara yoga in 2003. After serving the Anusara yoga community as a certified teacher for many years, Christina developed Live the Light of Yoga in 2012 as a way to freely and creatively offer her insight, understanding, and expertise to a new generation of teachers and practitioners.

Live the Light of Yoga was born under a constellation of three stars, called Shravana, that  symbolize the A-U-M of the syllable OM. The Shravana constellation is said to be the home of the Vedic rishis who first heard the teachings of yoga. The word Shravana comes from the Sanskrit root shru, which means to listen and to hear. It suggests that listening to the teachings that live within our own hearts, as well as to the teachings that are shared by others, is a reliable doorway to understanding oneself and the nature of reality. The notion of shravana suggests that when we come into community to explore the teachings together, when we endeavor to  listen to ourselves and to one another,  we step into yoga as a living oral tradition through which we become aware of the power of what is spoken, and are provided a chance to be held accountable for what we say in the company of our fellow seekers.

Program Overview and Orientation

Live the Light of Yoga Teacher Training is designed to teach you  the fundamental skills required to teach powerful, effective public yoga classes. The training will focus on a broad-based introduction to fundamental postures  and the basics of verbal articulation skills, sequencing strategies, heart-based themes, demonstration skills, observation skills, and making effective verbal and physical adjustments. Additionally, trainees will practice asana, pranayama, meditation, and contemplation as a means to deepen their connection to their personal practice and authentic expression of the teachings. A primary point of emphasis in this training is on helping trainees understand how to learn the subject of yoga, so that their teaching is grounded in the love of learning and is part of a lifelong commitment to personal growth and transformation.

Live the Light of Yoga Mission Statement:

Live the Light of Yoga offers educational programs that connect people to the healing power of the Heart's Light through traditional spiritual teachings, disciplined yogic practices, and the transformational power of community. 

Live the Light of Yoga Program Goals:

• Connect people to the healing power of the Heart’s Light though the practice and study of asana, mantra, pranayama, meditation, and yoga philosophy, in a conscious learning community.

• Create a safe and inspiring learning environment where students from various backgrounds can explore traditional yogic teachings and practices, and apply them to their own lives in empowered and authentic ways.

• Assist students in accessing their innate wisdom as a means to cultivate discernment in their devotion and integrity in both their spiritual and worldly pursuits.

• Inspire students to live from a place of spiritual vision in a way that is grounded, practical, honest, and clear-minded, and to provide practical tools to bring that inspiration into daily life.

The Art of Teaching Course Objectives:

• Clarify teaching skills and discuss the hard skills and soft skills necessary to teach yoga effectively.

• Introduce students to the use of mantra.

• Practice teaching a mantra to others.

• Practice seated ujayi pranayama daily.

• Learn how to introduce ujayi pranayama to others.

• Read first three chapters in The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer and discuss personal insight gleaned as it relates to teaching yoga.

• Watch History of Yoga DVD .

• Explore through writing and discussion what it means to be a steward of yoga as a yoga teacher.

• Read What is Yoga? in Light on Yoga, by BKS Iyengar.

• Discuss and Contemplate through writing the yamas and niyamas.

• Learn how to learn the postures on the potpourri sequence for the 200-hour program by utilizing Light on Yoga and Yoga the Iyengar Way, small group work, and classroom practice.

• Explore how the use of active command language can increase the efficacy of verbal cues.

Identify habitual language patterns and default communication patterns.

• Develop a script of basic instructions for each of the postures on the potpourri sequence.

• Explore through theory and practice ways to modify and expand the basic sequence effectively and creatively.

• Practice teaching in partners and small groups

• Explore the basics of teaching methods in a general way to build a foundation for further work, including: demonstration, verbal articulation skills, sequencing strategies, modifications, observation, adjustments, heart-based themes, and metaphoric language.

• Explore through writing, discussion and scripture, the concept of aim as it relates to practice and teaching.

• Provide a general overview of basic anatomy concepts and terms as they apply to teaching and practicing yoga.

Keep this flow in mind:

• Big Vision to Mission to Goals to Objectives to Daily Practice

Take a few moments to reflect and clarify for yourself your primary aim for this training:

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Now, Summarize:

MY PRIMARY AIM FOR THIS TRAINING IS

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How does this relate to your own work as a yoga teacher? What is your big vision about teaching? How will your big vision live in relationship to your smaller goals and objectives?

List 3 concrete actions you will take during this training to help you manifest your aim.

1.

2.

3.

SECTION 2:

PHILOSOPHY, LIFESTYLE

&

ETHICS

INVOCATION

ॐ

स॒ह ना॑ववतु । स॒ह नौ॑ भुनक्तु ।

स॒ह वी॒र्यं॑ करवावहै ।

ते॒ज॒स्वि ना॒वधी॑तमस्तु॒ मा वि॑द्विषा॒वहै॑ ॥

ॐ शान्ति॒ः शान्ति॒ः शान्ति॑ः ॥

om

saha nāvavatu

saha nau bhunaktu

saha vīryaṃ karavāvahai

tejasvinā vadhīta mastu

mā vidviṣāvahai

oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ

Let us together (-saha) be protected (-na vavatu), and let us together be nourished  (bhunaktu) by God’s blessings.  May we work together with great energy and strength (-viryam) for the benefit of humanity (karavaavahai) May our study be luminous, (tejasvi)  filled with joy, and endowed with the force of Purpose (vadhita mastu). Let us never (-maa) be poisoned (-vishaa) with the seeds of hatred for anyone. Om. Let there be Peace in me.  Let there be Peace in my environment. Let there be Peace in the forces that act on me.

Ganesh Mantra

Om Sri Ganeshaya Namah

Salutations to Lord Ganesh who removes my obstacles.

Verse from the Guru Stotram, Hymn to the Guru

OM

gurur brahmâ

gurur vishnur

gurur dêvo mahêshvaraha |

gurur saksath parabrahmâ

tasmai srî guravê namaha ||

The Guru is no other than Brahma, the Creator. The teacher is in all that is created. The Guru is no other than Vishnu, the Preserver. The teacher is in all that