Reddit mentions of Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship

You should recommend Donna Farhi's book on teacher student relationships to her. I'm sorry you're dealing with this and hope that your yoga practice provides a structure of support for remaining compassionate towards your body and mental state.

Yes you're both consenting adults, but she is providing a professional service in a community/culture where overstepping sexual boundaries are a relatively frequent issue. I think we can all agree a teacher making a move on us, no matter how welcome or not, colors our perception of the studio and what we are there to learn. Not to mention it can affect the experience of the other students around us. Some studio owners have stricter rules about this than we know.

Students may not realize it, but teachers learn (or should learn) about this topic during their trainings and it is a lifelong endeavor. Anyone who deals with an imbalanced transactional relationship (teachers, therapists, counselors, doctors/nurses/EMTs, bartenders, etc.) has to face appropriate boundary setting and also how to manage students' potential lack of boundaries. It's a difficult but educational process.

Warning: wall of text. For realz. I'm not sure I've ever gotten this close to the 10k character limit before. And because I wanted this to be useful both for you and in general, it may meander a bit. I am ABSOLUTELY open to adding to this (w/in 1k characters) to get things I've missed. Let's make a list, people!

Finding the right one for you, given that you are already teaching, is going to be different than for someone else, but only in that your list will look different. But making a list- a list of your strengths and weaknesses- should be something that most people thinking about training should be doing.

You may also find that to get the absolute most from your training that you need to reframe your approach to one that covers concepts but also bolsters your outside study. My hope for my second YTT (I had been teaching for 3 years) was to address gaps I knew existed and to make for a more cohesive body of knowledge, giving me the chance to address anew topics that were either not on my radar or I was not yet at a place to soak in at the time of my first training.

It's probably fair to argue that anyone unable to make a list of their strengths and their gaps in knowledge is not yet ready to choose a training. Not that they're not ready for YTT, but that they need to do more self-study on what there is to know so as to build a list of gaps. For people looking at doing a training that don't know what that is, simply looking at the suggestions here for books will give an idea about the fact that there are Sutras, and a Pradipika, as well as the numerous resources about alignment and anatomy. From there, comparing the 200hr requirements for YA and some syllabi will further allow someone to consider what other gaps they need to address.

For the people answering the gaps question with, 'I don't know anything about anything outside of asana'... I'd suggest that you start reading, and focus on finding teachers you connect with whose syllabus is solid. Know that it's quite likely that you will need to do a significant amount of work outside of your 200hr (and that those already possessing the information you are lacking have probably already had occasion do to that work.) You'll learn more from teachers you connect with. I'd only suggest intensives for those with an incredibly solid base of knowledge (I'd been practicing for over 10 years, and though the training itself was an intensive, it was followed up by a practicum in which we did our observations/assisted classes, and our practice teaching). I'd only suggest trainings abroad/you'd travel to with a similar base, unless you already know that teacher well.

For you I'd suggest a list of your strengths, your weaknesses... and your passions. Those things that, even if you consider them to be strengths, that you are passionate about and hope that you get more information about.

I'd suggest taking that list and, again as objectively as possible, determine how many of those things are reasonable to expect in a 200hr training. I think this is probably most important for the last item on that list. You'll want to consider that the things you are passionate about and want to learn more about, given that you are already teaching, may well be outside of the scope of a 200hr training for you to really gain depth.

Keep in mind that as you well know, many 200hr trainings are impacted most noticeably by the fact that they don't set the bar as high as you and I would expect to allow those 200 hours to actually focus on training amazing teachers.

So... with your list in mind (I tried to keep it both general enough that others will find it useful but also address things specific to where you're at)...

• What are the requirements of the training? Do they have requirements? (Hint: They should!) Understand that trainings that don't have baseline requirements are then forced to start from the ground up, which directly impacts the amount of valuable information you will receive.
  
• Do you connect with the vibe of the studio or, in the case of an apprenticeship, the people you'll be learning from?
  
• Do you respect their level of knowledge?
  
• How many people are in each class? Is there a limit? Is this what you imagined?
  
• How many trainings do they do a year/have going on at once?
  
• How many teachers are involved, and how available are they to you throughout?
  
• How do they handle missed hours? (Yes, it's reasonable that at a certain point you're charged extra for contact hours you need to make up. Start doing the math and you'll quickly understand why.)
  
• How much teaching will you be doing as part of the training? At what point? Doing what? Who is observing?
  
• Are you expected to be practicing with a wide variety of teachers during your training?
  
• What other activities are you expected to be doing during your training?
  
• Is the opportunity to observe/assist available/required?
  
• Are you ok with the fact that these people are human beings with flaws and they may not live up to whatever lofty ideals you would like to project on them? (This is most certainly for newer students, but as someone with a long practice history, I found myself having to ask, 'does this person have information that I want/need/do they have enough experience to add to what I have already learned?' - it kept me focused on waiting for the right training.)
  
• Is this a training that will address your gaps in a meaningful way?
  
• How do they approach adjustments? (This is important if you come from an adjustment-heavy lineage and the trainers feel it's wrong to touch people, for instance- and can be an issue vice versa if you are not willing to be open to learning the value of adjusting and whether there's a way to do so that takes into account your feelings about consent/contact.)
  
• How much emphasis is there on the 8 limbs/spirituality? Is this in line with where you are right now? Example: my 500hr was with someone that was a direct disciple for nearly a decade. It had a huge impact on what he taught and how. Had this been the case in my first training it would not have been something I was ok with. For my 500hr it was a perfect fit.
  
• How do they approach ethics? I'd ask specifically what they teach here. If it's a glossing over, honestly I'd ask why. This may be something that longtime teachers don't think as much about covering situationally and in-depth, because for them it's so... common sense. Don't discount those people out of hand, but perhaps suggest that discussion about potential issues is invaluable and that you as a student would find it very useful. I highly recommend this book, though when I first encountered it, as one of the above people, initially felt that it was silly and SO very obvious: https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Yoga-Exploring-Teacher-Student-Relationship/dp/1930485174 - the reality is that as new teachers it's important to think ahead toward how you'd handle the questionable situations you will likely eventually encounter.
  
• Are you ok with the training being a little lighter on the items you are already strong in, if that training also meets your gaps?
  
• Do you realize that as a 200hr training it really is a foundational training, and for someone already teaching, it may be a good amount of review?
  
• Are you open to the notion of 'making your own depth' - be that asking the next question, or doing additional reading based on the topics or concepts covered? Keeping in mind that there's a limit to the time that can be spent in class on topics broader than the intended scope, good teachers will suggest or do some digging for suitable suggestions.
  
• Is some sort of trauma-sensitive training covered or offered?
  
• How much is accessibility discussed?
  
• How is anatomy covered? Is functional anatomy part of that conversation?
  
• Especially for long-time practitioners and those already teaching- are you willing to practice beginner's mind?
  
• Also for those long-time people- do you want to do a training focused on your primary practice? Or do you want to branch out?
  
• Have you considered how you'll respond/handle information that is different- be it a little or fully at odds- with what you have already learned?
  
  
  Other things to consider:
  
  
• Are they excited about training teachers?
  
• What do they love about offering TTs?
  
• Are they open about what they cover?
  
• Can they speak to why/how they have set up the training the way they have? (Example: I cover accessibility because I have training specific to it and it's something I am passionate about.)
  
• If you ask about the program's strengths, can they tell you what and why?
  In short... ask about the program with some direct but open-ended questions. The answers should give you some insight into what's important or at least some opening to ask the questions that will get you to those answers.
  
• Are they open to questions/have they left some time in the syllabus for the specifics of their group?
  
• Should you be looking for a class, or an apprenticeship?
  
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