Online Yoga School is the Original Online Yoga School! Long before the pandemic and global shift to online spaces in the yoga community, we've been offering our yoga teacher training programs online. It's always been our mission to make yoga teacher training affordable and accessible to people and populations that haven't had access to yoga teacher training historically.
Yoga comes to us from India. Traditionally, students would stay at the ashram with their guru for an unspecified period of time to study yoga. It often took many years for the guru to decide that the student was ready to teach. Students would pay for their yoga teacher training in service during these times, possibly taking care of the animals or the land in exchange for the guru's time and mentorship.
Yoga started migrating to the Western Hemisphere and yoga teacher training started to change. Krishnamacharya, the father of modern yoga, had three pupils that brought yoga to the U.S.. BKS Iyengar brought the alignment and prop-based Iyengar style of yoga, K. Pattabhi Jois brought Ashtanga and Indra Devi brought a Hatha-based classical style of yoga to the U.S.. Eventually, the students of Iyengar, Jois and Devi wanted to become yoga teachers and began training under their guidance.
In 1999, the official 200 hour yoga teacher training model emerged. An article published by a doctor found that yoga and meditation were helpful in reversing damage from heart disease. There were suddenly many doctors and nurses who wanted to become certified as yoga teachers and a model was put into place for them to get their certification in 200 hours. They already had significant knowledge of the human body and lots of prior anatomy. Yoga Alliance adopted the model and made that the standard for anyone and everyone who wanted to become certified as a yoga teacher.
From there, yoga was commoditized in this part of the world. Yoga teacher training programs cost thousands and thousands of dollars which meant that a prerequisite to become a yoga teacher was having disposable income. This created an accessibility issue for a larger percentage of the population. Marginalized communities did not have access to yoga teacher training and therefore these communities lacked yoga classes. As a result, there were a lot of underrepresented populations in the yoga community.
This is why we put our yoga teacher training programs online at such affordable prices. We want everyone who wants to become a yoga instructor to have the opportunity to get certified as a yoga teacher. It's been an honor to bring accessibility and affordability to yoga teacher training while upholding the authentic ancient wisdom of this sacred practice.
