Teacher training classes in Weligama
Deepen your path, or start teaching.
A teacher training is a structured program that prepares you to lead yoga classes, or simply to go much deeper into your own practice. Programs are counted in hours: 200 hours is the usual starting point, with 300 and 500 hours as advanced levels. They run as full-time intensives over a few weeks or spread across weekends for months.
No classes scheduled in the next two weeks.
What Teacher training does for you
You get time and structure for what a weekly class only hints at: anatomy, philosophy, breath, sequencing, how to give a clear cue. Your own practice usually changes, often more than people expect. You learn to speak in front of a group and to watch bodies closely. Many people sign up with no plan to lead classes and come out with a much clearer sense of why they practice.
It suits you if
- you want to lead classes one day
- you want to understand your practice, not just repeat it
- you have practiced regularly for a while and keep asking why
- you like learning in a committed group
- you are ready to invest real time and money
Read the full guide to Teacher trainingWhat a class is like, your first time, history and the words you will hear
What a class is like
Expect long days: an early practice, lectures on anatomy and philosophy, workshops on alignment and adjustments, and practice teaching in small groups. Weekend formats might meet one or two weekends a month over six to twelve months; intensives can be three to four weeks full time, often abroad. There is reading, homework, observing classes and usually a final practical and written assessment. You talk a lot, get feedback and spend a lot of time with the same group. Prices are significant, so compare curriculum, live contact hours and who leads each module.
Your first time
- Take a class or workshop with the lead trainers before you sign up.
- Ask for the full schedule, including weekend dates and the rules for making up missed days.
- If it matters for where you want to work, check whether the program is registered with Yoga Alliance or follows BDY standards, and whether it meets the in-person hours German insurers ask for in certified courses.
- Plan your energy: intensives are tiring, and long weekend formats mean protecting your weekends for months.
Good to know
- Leading yoga classes is not a regulated profession in Germany, so certificates vary widely; look at the curriculum, the trainers' experience and whether the qualification is recognized where you want to work, for example for insurer-certified courses.
- A 200-hour training is a foundation, not mastery, and many people find their first months of leading classes are where much of the learning happens.
- Ask how the program handles hands-on adjustments and touch, and whether it has a written code of conduct.
Where it comes from
For most of yoga's history, knowledge passed from guru to student over years, without a course or a certificate. Formal training programs for future yoga facilitators appeared in the 20th century. The Sivananda teacher training course, started by Swami Vishnudevananda in 1969, is often described as one of the first in the West, and many lineages, from Iyengar to Ashtanga to Kundalini, went on to build their own systems of training and certification.
Hour counts became the international shorthand largely through Yoga Alliance, an American nonprofit founded in 1999. It keeps a voluntary registry: schools register programs at 200, 300 or 500 hours, and graduates can list themselves under credentials such as RYT 200 or RYT 500. It is not a license or a government standard, and it has been criticized for weak oversight of registered schools. In March 2020 it allowed trainings to move online, and a 2023 policy made online training a permanent option.
Germany has its own tradition. The BDY (Berufsverband der Yogalehrenden in Deutschland), founded in 1967, sets a training standard that runs over four years with written, oral and practical exams, far longer than the 200-hour model. Separately, the office that certifies prevention courses for statutory insurers asks facilitators of certified Hatha yoga courses for at least 270 hours of in-person practical training. In Berlin you find programs that follow Yoga Alliance hours, programs on the BDY route and programs that follow neither, taught in German, English or both.
Words you will hear
- RYT 200
- The Yoga Alliance listing for graduates of a registered 200-hour program.
- RYS
- Registered Yoga School, a training program registered with Yoga Alliance.
- Practicum
- Supervised practice leading classes, with feedback from trainers and peers.
- Sequencing
- The craft of ordering poses so a class makes sense in the body.
- Asana
- Sanskrit for seat; today it means any physical yoga pose.
- Contact hours
- Hours spent learning live with the trainers, as opposed to reading or homework.