Consider the notion of taking a Yoga class? We have up to 90 minutes to teach a lifestyle, a lifetime of learning, a life changing practice, a workout! The enormity of this task may be the very thing that puts people off both teaching and attending Yoga despite a desire to start this epic journey – it just somehow seems such an enormous task!

When Yoga became popular as a class based format over 25 years ago there became a need to set a guideline for teachers to be both qualified and informed. “A committee” of established Yoga experts devised the 200 hour entry level study plan which for many training providers remains the tenant for training in 2018.

Technology was never a consideration of 200 learning hours. There was no online study, no social media and absolutely no immediate face to face contact via any other means than live learning situations. Nothing could be more unthinkable today and to try and ignore it in favour of the old ways of learning is absurd.

As a modern training provider I can offer you a library of practical videos at the flick of a switch, I can chat with you face to face via skype, facetime, podcasts, chat rooms, meeting rooms, WhatsApp, facebook, this list is endless; it is immediate, discreet, intimate and ultimately effective. As a learner you can repeatedly view, ponder, ruminate and digest everything I have to teach you and in doing so you retain so much more than in one single face to face meeting where so much of the spoken word is missed.

The UK provides several frameworks for learning that are specific, regulated and set to academic standards that are recognised throughout the learning sector. When you invest in a qualification surely you want something that is transparent, and easily recognised by your target market and those who employ you as an industry standard rather than a set number of hours that may or may not meet even the most basic levels of competency.

Yoga spans many continents and decades and we will never learn or understand it in its entirety. Learning the history is of ultimate importance but staying in the past is a futile exercise! 200 hours is beyond dated, it makes no sense in the modern age and there a much better ways of entering into Yoga Teacher Training.

I urge everyone to consider courses that offer blended learning using every means of teaching aids available in the 21st century.

Jayne Nicholls

Jayne Nicholls, multi award winning owner and director of GXT.