LEARNING TO TEACH YOGA THROUGH PRACTICE

A yoga teacher training can teach you the names of poses, basic anatomy, how to structure a class and different ways of giving instruction.

At Yoga Mandir Goa, our 200-hour and 100-hour yoga teacher training courses in Palolem, South Goa include all of this. But information is only one part of learning to teach.

Yoga is learned by doing yoga. You practise, observe, adjust and repeat.

This is how Akshey approaches his own practice, and the training grows from the same process.

Trainees first work with instructions in their own bodies. Something that sounds straightforward in anatomy or teaching methodology can feel very different when you try to apply it in a pose. You begin to notice the difference between reproducing a shape and understanding how you are actually working within it.

LEARNING IN A LIVING CLASS

The training group is kept small so there is room for individual attention, questions and close supervision.

But trainees do not practise only with one another.

Alongside their dedicated training sessions, trainees join Akshey’s regular drop-in yoga classes in Palolem, practising with local students, visitors and longer-term practitioners.

A regular class brings together a wider range of bodies, histories and experience. Someone may be very mobile, someone less mobile, someone working with an injury and someone encountering an instruction for the first time.

The same pose does not require the same response from every person.

Trainees see how Akshey works with this. He may change his language, introduce a prop, redirect the effort or ask two people to work differently in what appears to be the same pose.

They also see what it takes to work with a whole room: how to sequence and pace a class while still noticing individual students, and how to decide when to intervene, when to change something and when to let the work continue.

The trainees are practising too, rather than standing at the side analysing other people. Something discussed earlier in anatomy or teaching methodology can suddenly be felt in their own body and recognised differently in someone else’s.

Over time, they are asked to look more closely themselves. What is actually happening here? What matters? What kind of instruction might help?

Before you can guide another person, you need to learn how to look.

Learning to teach is not about memorizing a list of corrections. It is about developing the ability to observe, understand and respond to the person in front of you.

BEFORE YOU JOIN

Some students come to the training intending to teach. Others come because they want to understand their own practice more deeply. Both are welcome.

Before enrolling, prospective trainees are asked to attend one of Akshey’s classes first, in person in Palolem or online.

It gives you direct experience of the method and helps you and Akshey decide whether the training is the right fit.

The aim is not to leave with an answer for every body or every pose. It is to leave better able to observe, respond and continue learning through practice.

For current dates, fees, the course structure and application requirements, visit our Yoga Teacher Training page.