By Sanjeev Patel, CYT 500
Please be prepared to laugh because I call it like I see it. Once in a while, I read an advertisement with a headline that states: "Free Yoga Teacher Training." This makes all of us curious! I'm jumping out of my seat like I drank a quad mocha latte! I teach Yoga classes regularly, but I believe in continuing education for life. Meaning no disrespect to my Guru, I click on Free Yoga teacher training in anticipation.
When reading the small details, I learn that I must spend over three thousand dollars for the course and I have to travel (more money). The lodging is going to cost me another three thousand dollars. When I call up, they tell me I'm going to pay extra for my study materials. I don't want to buy the ashram - I just want to get the free course! The advertisement states that I don't have to pay.
All of this is making a long and expensive flight back to
After talking to a dozen of these ashrams, I learn that seva means I work for free, but I can't be accepted into a Yoga teacher training program, while I'm doing seva. Do you see the big picture? I'm a Yoga teacher already, and I'm good enough to sweep the floor, peel potatoes, and clean toilets, but no free yoga instructor course for me.
I didn't like their food anyway. How many days do they expect me to eat kale soup and go without a coffee? It was a five mile ride to the nearest Starbucks and I'd have to do it on a bike through ice, rain, and snow, because I can't afford to keep my car if I'm going to work for free for a whole year.
Uncle! I give up already. There is no free course for continuing education or for somebody who wants to become a Yoga teacher. I fell for the free deception. This is what Paulji meant by "Maya." He talked about how maya is the primary aspect that manifests illusion and duality. So, "free" is an example of the practical application of maya.
Now, I'm willing to go for low cost Yoga certification. There isn't one until I search for online and correspondence Yoga teacher courses. Well, I've come full circle and back to the arms of my Guru. Thank you, Paulji and
Hari Om Tat Sat
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6 comments:
Thats a lesson for you "Yoga Alliance" certified "teachers. Spend 500 hours and you are a teacher!!! Thats the joke.
Earn your dues, Spend time with a real master and be deserving of the gift of Yoga and then maybe a good teacher will take you as a disciple and spend years refining you.
I pity every assembly line yoga teacher that comes off 200 or 500 hr training.
Thank you Sanjeev,
Good tongue in cheek humor. The yoga teacher training is only the beginning of the journey. Continuing education of yoga teachers is the key. YA hasn't got a thing to do with it since they don't certify. They just push registration for bucks.
Hari Aum,
Kushvinder
The joke is malicious writing below Sanjeev's joke. Sanjeev is a Jokester and a great Yoga teacher.
Yoga teachers have to start from somewhere. If 500 hours minimum isn't good enough - what is?
Besides the 500 hours is just the training. Sanjeev's been teaching yoga for over 10 years.
Your idea was useful by Revathi
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I've been teaching Yoga over 20 years. Back some years I closed my studios and just taught privately. Recently I have noticed that one can make a living teaching Yoga and so, not having the extra funds to open a nice studio of my own in a well populated district, I have been applying when I see "Yoga Instructor", needed, want ads. Everything goes great and they want to hire me then they as for my YOGA CERTIFICATION.. When I was learning Yoga there was no such certification, if there was I wasn't aware of it. And so, I do not get hired as a teacher since I do not have this certification. Even though I've been teaching since before most of these instructors even knew what the word Yoga meant, I seem to be NOW unqualified to hear them tell it. When I ask what good the certification is I get ALL kinds of bologna excuses from,"due to insurance purposes it is required", to "so we know that you know what your doing"...What an insane and nonsensical idea..
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