Why do teachers need this?
Because everyone reaches a plateau. After an initial 200 hour program and a stint of teaching, the information settles in and we’re left wondering not only how do we continue to inspire and challenge our students, but how do we continue to inspire and challenge ourselves?
This program builds on your foundation – it assumes you can lead people through a yoga class, and ratchets that up several notches by giving you the information you need to continually challenge your students through safe and innovative sequencing, skillful and precise hands-on adjustments and the depth and breadth of knowledge of yoga philosophy.
What separates The Kaivalya Yoga Method Teacher Training Program from other TT programs?
This program is looking to authenticate YOU as a teacher. The goal here is not to create scripted teachers or followers of any one doctrine. The goal is to empower and enable those who go through this training to go their own way – in an authentic and substantiated way – by giving you the tools you need to create your most real, true and incontrovertible yoga experience…one you can share as an extraordinary teacher backed by the skills and knowledge you know you need.
Why is this the right time for you to do TKYM TT?
This current climate in the yoga community is showing us that the means to success requires us to stand on our own two feet and be responsible for the tradition we share and the way in which we share it. By owning the experience and understanding the responsibility required to be a phenomenal yoga teacher, now is the time to take it upon ourselves to garner the skills, expertise and training we need to lead this next generation of yogis skillfully, safely and authentically.
Because the time is now to create a yoga movement without hierarchy or dogma, but a movement that includes competence, confidence and meticulous understanding.
What inspired the creation of The Kaivalya Yoga Method?
Having worked with and developed teacher trainings across the country, I now have an eager body of students who want to be able to take their teachings to the next level. What’s interesting for me is that this process has demanded that I do the same. As I started to think about doing my own training, naturally, I had to figure out what to call it. Then, once I named it, I needed to quantify the specifics of what it would include. While it hasn’t necessarily been easy, it has been effortless, and it seems like that’s the sign that it’s the right time for The Kaivalya Yoga Method to be brought to life.
How does the Kaivalya Yoga Method stand out from other 200-hr programs, and what sort of students would benefit most from participating in it?
One of the things that became clear to me over the years was that there is only so much that can really fit in to an initial 200 hour teacher training program. While these programs are great ways to begin a teaching career, the serious teacher eventually needs to get another injection of wisdom and knowledge to take their teachings up a notch. That’s who this training is for – those who’ve been teaching for a while and feel they’ve plateaued and want to develop further their knowledge of anatomy, adjustments, philosophy, sanskrit and sequencing and learn how to tie all these things together into a masterfully artful class backed by substantiated knowledge. What I’m looking to provide is the platform for mastery, understanding and intelligence in teaching. I’m hoping to give the folks in the training what they need to be able to open their eyes to individual students (even in group classes) and truly see what they need to be happier and more free in their bodies and heart.
Is the program appropriate for individuals without any prior certification as well?
It could be! I’m honestly looking for committed students with a solid history of yoga practice and study. This training will require a kind of “spiritual maturity” because we’re not covering basics, per se. There is an application process so that people will get a feeling of whether this is a good fit for them, and also so that this training can be filled with students who are ready to make a leap into the depths of yoga. What’s important to me at this early juncture is cultivating the right group of individuals – individuals who are interested in teaching yoga and seeing students without boundaries and beyond hierarchy – to help substantiate and grow this method. It’s an important, exciting time, and I can’t wait to develop a team of people in April who are excited about sharing yoga in this uncomplicated and profound way.
What are your visions for the future of the Kaivalya Yoga Method? How do you see this program growing in years to come?
My vision is to facilitate the growth and training of responsible, educated and compassionate teachers. The Kaivalya Yoga Method isn’t about creating a formatted kind of experience, but rather giving teachers the foundation and structure they need to create authentic, important and intelligent classes for students informed by the fact that they have the tools they need to live this practice. Maybe most important is this: Yoga is not an external experience. We cannot throw it out to students without having run it through our own bodies and hearts first. It’s not rote or experimental, but rather known and experiential. While each of the TKYM teachers will need to fortify all they learn with me through their own dedicated practices, they’ll have a comprehensive set of tools to be the kind of teachers that help students find more peace and freedom….because they’ve had that experience themselves. It’s an optimistic vision, but one that I believe there is room for. I’m hoping to relinquish hierarchy and dogma in favor of cohesiveness and integrity. I think if these principles are the foundations than the future will be shaped by those on my team – TKYM teachers who can hold space for students to transform and evolve in a responsible, effective and safe way.