Yogacampus are pausing the recruitment of new 200-Hour Teacher Training Diploma intakes whilst we examine two key questions in the context of the current yoga training marketplace:
Do entry level training standards need to be more rigorous to preserve the integrity of yoga’s teachings?
What additional skills do existing teachers need to thrive and achieve their potential?
The Yogacampus yoga teacher training course was developed over 20 years ago to address a gap for a modern approach to training yoga teachers in the UK. We attracted students from around the world, and we are so proud to have trained an amazingly talented group of graduates. However in the years leading up to covid, the surge of studios, organisations, and individuals offering entry level training courses, primarily for profit, both saturated the market and also led to a 200 hour training being seen as “foundational”, with a heavy focus on asana – is this really an adequate “yoga” teacher training?
As a not-for-profit educator we find ourselves exploring our core values and what role we can play in the yoga teacher training market, whilst remaining viable. Yogacampus' ethos revolves around an ecosystem of senior teachers sharing knowledge about the depth and breadth of yoga with budding seekers, fostering a community of educators and graduates. However, we are no longer sure that we can retain this ethos within the current 200 hour training market, and would love to facilitate a debate about what students want and need from a high quality entry level yoga teacher training course. We remain committed to the provision of a high quality educational experience to our current teacher training intakes.
As the challenges of making a living as a yoga teacher continue to grow, combined with the vast number of 200 hour courses on offer, it does feel that we are now witnessing a dysfunctional industry that, in many cases, commodifies Level 1 Training for profit. We feel the need for a debate about yoga teaching being a valued and viable profession, and the associated educational standards needed to allow teachers truly to convey the depth of “yoga”. We are keen to explore if there is the demand for an altered entry level course in future.
Making a living as a yoga teacher today is much harder than even a few years ago. Yet the practices of yoga are needed by society in so many areas. We are excited by a few initiatives we have underway to offer something different to other Advanced Trainings that we hope will innovatively address these dilemmas:
- What skills do existing teachers need to thrive?
- Where do you feel that Yogacampus should be focusing its efforts?
- How we can uphold our commitment to passing on the wisdom of yoga to the next generation of teachers whilst making it financially viable for teachers to invest in their education?
- How can we help society value this investment in skills and make yoga teaching a respected profession?
Join in the conversation! We are hosting a series of collective sense-making events to engage our wider community in discussion on these topics.
The next in this series will be 'Collective Sense-Making: Deepening Yoga Education' on Tuesday 24th October 16:30 to 17:30 UK time on Zoom.
Sign up to our mailing list & book your spot for the event below! We look forward to seeing you there.
