How much yoga training is enough?

It’s said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in a subject. After 22 years of countless yoga classes, 500 hours of basic teacher training, hundreds more of continuing education workshops, 18 years of leading yoga classes for pregnant/postpartum people, and 14 years of doula work, I feel pretty confident in saying I’m an expert teacher of pre/postnatal yoga. Yet, I’m still a yoga student- practicing regularly under the guidance of truly senior teachers, a title few in this impacted industry (there’s that word I hate again), can claim. Frankly, the more I learn about the Art and Science of Yoga, the more questions I have…generally pretty profound contemplative questions with no clear answers, but today, I ask a pretty mundane one: Is 200 hours really enough for someone to be teaching yoga!? 

Quite simply, no! There’s not a chance in hell that in just 200-hours a person could learn even a fraction of what a competent yoga teacher needs to know to safely and thoughtfully lead another person (or group of people) through a beneficial, authentic yoga practice. Julie Martin addresses this issue quite thoroughly-- noting the origins of the 200-hour standard and why it’s become such a huge problem-- in her piece for Shut Up & Yoga. Her sentiments match mine perfectly.  

The standard for prenatal yoga teachers is an additional 85 hours on top of the 200-hour training. Many times in the yoga community, I have experienced condescension in regards to prenatal yoga, like it is somehow less than “regular” yoga. No surprise given how mothers have historically been treated in society. (“What do you do for a living…? Oh, you’re just a mom.” Insert eye roll.) In reality, in addition to understanding all of the topics necessary to competently teach yoga outlined by Martin in her article, a good prenatal yoga teacher also must understand perinatal anatomy and physiology, how to address common discomforts of pregnancy and postpartum, pelvic floor health, evidence based perinatal care and how to support pregnant people in receiving it from their providers, psychology of the childbearing year including red flags for mental health and how to refer, applying yoga philosophy to the role of householder, holding space for people going through one of life’s major transitions, often including grief or other extreme challenges…just to name a few things. There are the nuances of running the prenatal practice, too, like how to maintain a sustainable following when there is intrinsically a high rate of student turnover. There is nothing “less than” about teaching prenatal versus other types of yoga. Certainly 285 hours is not enough to adequately train a person to support the childbearing population. 

Most newcomers to the practice have no idea of the breadth and depth of yoga, prenatal or otherwise, so they don’t even know the questions to ask when looking for an appropriate yoga class. As a result, there are a plethora of underqualified teachers out there that are teaching alongside much more competent teachers, yet everyone seems to be on a level playing field. We’re all considered “yoga teachers.” And here is yet another shortcoming of the yoga industry. Well-trained, experienced teachers are often compensated at similar rates to newbie teachers, which perpetuates the myth that all teachers are the same. 

Prior to the pandemic, a studio owner reached out to me to cover a prenatal class when their current teacher was no longer available. As it turned out, the departing teacher, and others who had taught this studio’s prenatal classes prior, had the minimum “industry standard” of 285 hours of training and less than a year of teaching experience. No doula training or experience, no birth education training, no pelvic floor qualifications, no other training or experience in related modalities. Yet, as a teacher with all of those qualifications and more with over 15 years of experience at the time, I was offered the same amount of pay, which amounted to about minimum wage when time for prepping and following up with students was factored in. I pointed out my qualifications and the response was that as a small studio owner, she couldn’t afford to pay more and that many of her teachers (who have other “day jobs”) teach in exchange for free classes! I was floored! It wasn’t hard for me to tell this studio owner “no, thank you.” I value myself, my expertise, and expect my employers to value me as well. This studio’s business model, which unfortunately is not unique, perpetuates low standards for teachers and the trainings that churn these teachers out. Yoga as a hobby, a side gig– not the deep, committed eight-limbed practice that is defined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. 

Studios should know better. At the very least, a studio owner should understand the practice of yoga beyond the fitness modality it has become in the West and seek teachers who can do more than merely lead a sequence of poses to a room full of people. In all fairness, there are certainly studios who operate within a higher standard and I commend them. As far as prenatal yoga is concerned, though, oftentimes it is offered through venues that are not yoga studios and the managers don’t know what they don’t know. The managers of resource centers, doctors offices, community organizations, as examples, understand prenatal yoga offers benefits to their childbearing population, but have never practiced yoga and have no idea of the nuances of the discipline. They’re often unfamiliar with what constitutes an experienced prenatal yoga teacher and don’t know how to evaluate the quality of their teaching. I’ve known of organizations who hired teachers with minimal training out of sheer desperation to hire anyone with any prenatal yoga knowledge that was willing to stand up in front of a group of eager pregnant people (including 200-hour trained teachers who had no prenatal training, but had practiced in their own pregnancies). This is downright dangerous and these organizations are completely oblivious to it! 

Since yoga is an unregulated industry, legally anyone could call themselves a yoga teacher and proceed to lead a class. Fortunately, while this does occasionally happen, it doesn’t seem to be a common issue. But is it much better that a large number of current teachers have completed a mere 200 hours of training? It may seem like the answer to this issue is simply regulating the industry and legally requiring more rigorous standards. Unfortunately, that comes with its own set of issues: Who sets these standards? What are they based on? How are they enforced? Does the bureaucracy of government regulation get in the way of the objective? What then is the answer? 

Let me be clear, we all need to start somewhere- as yoga teachers or otherwise. I have the utmost respect for new teachers who are committed to the practice and just want to gain experience. The most straightforward way of achieving this, as far as I’m concerned, is to make it the norm for teacher trainees to commit to a long-term program (years, not months) consisting of two parts: the first part being an academic course of study covering the topics of current 200-hour programs just way more in depth and the second being a period of apprenticeship including supervised teaching. It’s time for the industry standards to evolve away from the 200-hour training in favor of programs that are focused on competencies, rather than just showing up and “ticking off boxes” to receive a certificate. Yes, it’s a much bigger commitment, but the true practice of yoga requires a commitment to the practice as a way of life, anyway. For the true practitioner, an in-depth teacher training program would not be a deterrent. 

There is still a place for 200-hour workshops in this paradigm for those who want to go deeper in their personal practice or as an introduction to the possibility of pursuing a career as a teacher. In my last blog post, I called attention to the problem of studios relying on 200-hour trainings as a way to meet their bottom line. By offering 200-hour programs for the sole purpose of deepening personal practice, it eradicates the dishonest practice of dangling the empty promise of a paying job at the end of the 200 hours.  

As an unregulated profession, of course there is no authoritative body who makes decisions regarding professional requirements for yoga teachers. The Yoga Alliance, with their hand in creating and promoting the 200-hour standard (and 500-hour, 85-hour prenatal, and 95-hour children’s yoga), is just a teacher registry, not an authority. Those of us in the know have a responsibility to promote yoga with its philosophical roots and call out culturally appropriative “fitness yoga.” We need to educate the public on what to look for in finding a competent teacher. We need to support new teachers through mentorships and continuing education. We need to demand and promote higher standards in the yoga community and in the general public. Fortunately, I’m not the first to discuss this issue and I won’t be the last. As the yoga industry evolves, let’s hope it gets back to its roots of something much, much deeper than a fitness routine and back to truly competent teachers wholeheartedly committed to the practice and their students.