”In America today, there are more people doing yoga than all the practitioners in the history of yoga combined.... The demand for qualified teachers is unprecedented.”
July 2004
The Next Stretch
Yoga Students Take the Leap to Teaching
by Jennifer Liss
In blue knee-length Gold’s Gym shorts and a loose black t-shirt, muscular Jason Moring looked more like an offstage Henry Rollins (minus the tattoos) than a yoga teacher as he patrolled rows of bodies in an extended downward dog pose at a San Francisco yoga studio. A focused, animalistic vibe intensified as bodies began to shake and heat up in the timed inversion (a sustained yoga pose, or asana, in which the heart is above the head). But even before this asana began, the class already had spent 70 minutes in lecture and discussion. The rigorous schedule includes practice of asana six days a week, pranayama everyday, and meditation six days a week. “If you don’t show up to any of the classes or don’t do your homework, I want you to call and tell me the reason,” Jason said seriously while smiling. “And if I don’t like it, I’m not going to let it slide.”
When I first started taking classes with Jason, eight to ten of us met in the basement studio of a private Upper Haight residence and welcomed his tough-love, tough-talk approach to yoga. When Jason began leading the San Francisco Yoga Tree teacher-training course (now facilitated by Darren Main and taught by a variety of Yoga Tree instructors), 40 paying adults of varying backgrounds and experience filled the course to capacity. Jason’s rough edge may have smoothed some since I took his earlier classes, but not a lot. And no one in that teacher-training class, or his students now at the SOMA Amrita Studio, seems to mind.
“When we first started [Yoga Tree] over five years ago, we’d ask how many people were beginners and about half the class would raise their hands,” co-owner Tim Dale recalls. “Now only three or four people raise their hands. There’s a high demand for intermediate classes. Three years ago, people weren’t ready for teacher training, and now we’ve sold out.”
The leap that people are making from students to teachers has a lot to do with supply and demand. Some estimates indicate that there are more than 10 million yoga practitioners in the U.S. alone. The Yoga Tree’s teacher training handbook notes that “in America today, there are more people doing yoga than all the practitioners in the history of yoga combined.... The demand for qualified teachers is unprecedented.” The operative word here is qualified. The Yoga Alliance, a national organization, offers an online teacher registry for teachers who have completed a minimum of 200 hours’ training (8,000 teachers currently are members).
Darren Main, the author of two popular books and both a Yoga Tree and a private instructor, has been training people to be yoga professionals for years. “More and more organizations are going to the Yoga Alliance for yoga teachers even gyms. We are teaching teachers-to-be to treat clients with respect, to follow ethical guidelines, to really know what they are doing, or at the very least, know what they aren’t supposed to be doing. You just can’t consider yourself a professional in a weekend program.”
There are any number of quick-fix teacher-training programs offered around the country and the world (including some programs that offer “from home” certification in 90 days or less), but aspiring teachers who sign up at the Yoga Tree pay a $2,200 fee and commit to six months and between 300-600 hours of training — a program that demands a complete re-focusing of their lives.
The first four months involve intense studio practice and the building of personal and meditation practice. Teachers-in-training attend mandatory classes for three hours on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as two hours of Friday evenings. A 7-8:45 morning class on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays is encouraged. Two months into the class, students begin to assist with teaching. Subjects covered during the classes include Asana, Pranayama, Mediation, Yoga Philosophy, Western and Yogic Anatomy and Physiology, Yogic Lifestyle and Diet, Yoga Business, and Teaching Technique. At the Amrita Studio, where Jason teaches now, the schedule is just as vigorous but offers rolling enrollment.
The 30 year-old Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco is one of only two state-accredited teacher-training programs. The two-year course delivers 48 units for a price tag of close to $6,000. This graded curriculum (designed and monitored by the Iyengar family in India) focuses on asana, pranyama, philosophy, and science, and prepares teachers to take the Iyengar Yoga National Association of U.S. Introductory Certificate Assessment.
Regulating Yoga?
For some time, the yoga community has been aware that Western medicine, governmental organizations, and health insurance companies are beginning to acknowledge the powerful healing properties of yoga. The Yogis I spoke with agreed that it is only a matter of time before someone steps in and tries to regulate yoga. So why shouldn’t the yoga community regulate itself? And why shouldn’t it continue to raise the bar higher ?
“Some people glamorize teaching yoga. But it is — and should be — really hard work,” Jason explained. “There is an element of nose-to-the-grindstone in any line of work — even if the work is fulfilling, like teaching yoga. The compensation is not just monetary, it is spiritual. A lot of people have preconceived notions: ‘Yoga should make me sweat.’ ‘We should always do sun salutes.’ I’m training teachers how to teach that yoga is not always comfortable, but that it is liberating.”
Most importantly, he explains, he believes that a great teacher finds a way to make yoga the focal point of his or her life. But are modern teachers-in-training (who live in a hobby-and-distraction-rich city) ready for yoga to be the central element in their lives?
Many Crossroads; One Path
For Amy Gilliland, 28, whose career trajectory has propelled her from gymnast and cheerleader to poet, waitress, and now, aspiring yoga teacher, yoga is not the core of her life. Yet. Yoga is more like the backbone of her day as she writes and works. Punctuating her thoughts with the movement of her slender hands, Amy flashes a heavy agate ring as messy blonde dreads spill out from underneath her Tribe Sector Nine hat. Like most people I spoke with, Amy found herself at a crossroads, ready for a change and ready to fill a void in her life, when she decided to pursue teaching and signed up for the training. “A life tightly wound begins to unravel,” she once wrote in a poem titled Savasana.
Jim Pitkow, a 34-year-old yogi with a handsome Tahoe tan and wire-rimmed glasses, also happens to be the CEO and President of Moreover Technologies in San Francisco. Jim isn’t planning on teaching, but he is enrolled in Jason’s teacher training, an example of a modern U.S. yogi taking it to the next level.
Spiritual practice, with yoga as a key element, is the main focus of Jim’s life. Alert, Jim moves through his corporate schedule, while taking breaks throughout his workday to practice asana or meditate in the open storage unit in his office building. “Yet I certainly do expect in 10 years that I will giggle at the awareness I have now,” he says with a laugh.
Jim also arrived at yoga when he was at a crossroads. He had just sold a company and “intentionally went bored” in order to meditate on the next step in his life. Yoga was one of the only recreational activities he allowed himself. “We don’t have the tools to measure the changes that yoga causes,” he says. “It isn’t like engineering where you give a bridge a test and determine the results by whether or not it is still standing afterward. If I’m able to get your shoulder in the right place, am I a good yoga teacher?”
While the search continues for the bridge test that will determine a qualified yoga teacher, one thing is certain: teacher trainings are becoming more rigorous, and students are demanding it. This continuous push toward high teaching standards should produce a new generation of instructors who will maximize the spiritual and physical benefits of their students.
“Yoga basically means union with God,” Jason explains. “There is a process of spiritual awakening. You can take a month-long training course, memorize some sequences, and teach them to people. But that doesn’t mean you’re teaching yoga. If you aren’t pursuing spiritual awakening, you’re just an exercise teacher.”
SF-based freelancer Jennifer Liss writes frequently for Common Ground.
Where You Can Study
Jason Moring now teaches at the Amrita Studio. 415.247.YOGA www.amritayoga.com
Yoga Tree The Yoga Tree Hayes Studio will be offering two teacher-training classes per year. www.yogatreesf.com 415.626.9707
Darren Main www.darrenmain.com
Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco 415.753.0909 www.iyisf.org
Yoga Alliance 877.YOGAALL www.yogaalliance.org
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