12 Day 100-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India

You will get a hands-on experience of teaching methodology at Aranya Yoga by preparing your own teaching class and leading a class for your fellow students under the guidance of your teachers. This will enable you to teach and boost your confidence level to new heights.

Aranya Yoga Ashram's well-designed 100-hour yoga retreat is an exploration into personal growth and traditional yogic practices with a focus on self-development. This course is open to all and specially designed for beginners or intermediate practitioners wanting to realign breath, body, and mind coherence.

While they adhere to the traditional Indian yoga teachings, Aranya Yoga Ashram also integrates an updated modern approach, with trauma-informed teachers and an element of lightheartedness suited to modern-day yogis and yoginis.

The 100-hour yoga teacher training course is a multi-style yoga course program that encompasses a comprehensive study of the Ashtanga primary series and Hatha yoga. You will learn postures, mantras, mudras, meditation techniques, yoga kriyas, yoga methodology, anatomy, and yoga history and philosophy.

The course is designed to lay a strong foundation for integrating these yogic spiritual practices into modern life. You will garner ancient wisdom and integrate this knowledge into contemporary ways of living. The course is laid out for any level of yoga, from beginners to intermediate levels, and the advanced practitioner will also be welcomed to upgrade and complete their practice.

This course suits the person seeking a new professional path or the person looking to deepen their own practice and avail tools for maintaining their own health.

The art and science of yoga are dedicated to creating a union between body, mind, and spirit. Their objective is to assist you in using the breath and body in a way to foster an awareness of yourself as an individualized being intimately connected to the unified whole of creation. They are about creating balance and equanimity to live in peace, good health, and harmony with the greater whole.

This art of living was perfected and practiced in India thousands of years ago, and the foundations of yoga philosophy were written down in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Course content:

• Alignments and adjustments
• Anatomy
• Ashtanga primary series A and B
• Hatha yoga, including suryanamaskar
• Introductions to sacred texts, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the Bhagavad Gita
• Kriyas
• Meditation techniques
• Methodology of teaching
• Pranayama
• Mantras
• Mudras
• Yoga philosophy and yoga history

Course features

This teacher training course is comprised of the following:

Asana classes

Mornings will be dedicated to the study and practice of the Ashtanga primary series. There, the asanas will be practiced in a dynamic set sequence, with the main focus placed on learning to perfect the A and B series, as well as on the breath (pranayama), energy locks (bandhas), and the gaze (drishti).

Ashtanga means eight limbs or branches, of which physical yoga is one branch. Ashtanga yoga is a branch of yoga that was introduced to the modern world by K. Pattabhi Jois in the 20th century.

Afternoon asana classes will be dedicated to the in-depth study of Hatha yoga, whose origins go back to Guru Goraknath of the Nath order of yogis. It consists of the practice of postures, pranayama, proper yogic diet, body purification, and discipline.

The aim of Hatha yoga is to achieve health and well-being as a prerequisite to spiritual liberation, along with achieving these higher levels of consciousness, so that divine nature might come to the achievement of the yoga siddhis. You will also learn the Sanskrit names of the postures.

Pranayama classes

"Prana" means life force or vital energy and "ayama" means control. Pranayama is the conscious control of the vital life energy. It is about the correct yogic breathing. It is beneficial in healing disorders caused by stress and will take your breathing from being an unconscious process to being a mindful act.

There are several specific techniques that have exceptionally healing and balancing effects. In your course, you will learn the following breathing techniques:

• Bhramari - humming bee breath
• Bhastrika - bellows breath
• Kapalbhatti - brain illuminating breath
• Nadi shodana - alternate nostril breathing
• Sheetali - cooling breath
• Shitkari - hissing breath
• Ujjayi - the victorious breath

Mantras

You will also learn the teaching of Sanskrit mantras. Mantras are composite sound syllables from the Sanskrit alphabet that resonate with certain body parts and induce healing frequencies in the body and mind. In your yoga teacher training course, you will learn the following mantras:

• Gayatri mantra
• Mahamantra
• Mahamitrunjaya mantra
• Mantras for good health and wealth
• Mantras to remove obstacles
• Om and Soham mantras
• Seed mantras

Mudras

This session will include spiritual, yogic, and healing hand gestures. The course includes a total of 12 hand mudras.

Anatomy

Study of anatomy comprising the digestive, respiratory, endocrine, immune, and muscular system. The skeleton in detail, with a focus on the spine and its function, will be discussed.

Kriyas

Kriyas are bodily and mental purification methods. There will be an introduction to kriyas and a study and practice of a minimum of two kriyas.

Yoga philosophy and history

This will be a study of the kleshas, koshas, the Eight Limbs of Yoga, and the introduction to the different types of yoga, like Karma yoga, Bhakti yoga, Raja yoga, and Kundalini yoga. The course includes practical excursions into all the yogas and a brief history of yoga.

Alignments and adjustments

This is the very important study of how to move in and out of postures, how to stay in them, how to teach others the correct moving into and out of postures, and how to correct postures of yourself and others by hands-on adjustments. This is to ensure the minimization of injuries while moving into the postures. Learn about the limitations and contraindications of yoga postures.

Methodology

This is a teaching on how to incorporate the yogic lifestyle and its disciplines into the modern way of life and how to facilitate this knowledge to your future students. Learning about the importance and guidelines for presenting a class, and learning how to suitably prepare the hall for teaching. You will acquire the skills of explaining and delivering classes.

Meditation

You will be learning and practicing four kinds of meditations: silent meditation, Tratak meditation, sound healing meditation, and Third Eye meditation.

Introduction to sacred texts

This class will familiarize you with spiritual books and their regular studies, such as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and the Bhagavad Gita and its benefits.

The main goal of this course is to train you to evolve as a yoga teacher. After the first week of the course, you will actively participate in aspects of teaching. You will be called to plan and execute yoga teaching classes for the other students, always under the guidance of your yoga teacher. This will enable you quickly to go and teach and spread the message and benefits of yoga to the world.

Sample daily schedule

• 08:00 - 09:30 Yoga asana class
• 09:30 - 10:00 Breakfast
• 10:00 - 11:15 Yoga theory
• 12:30 - 13:00 Lunch
• 16:00 - 17:30 Yoga asana class
• 18:00 - 19:00 Meditation
• 19:00 - 20:00 Dinner