The initial 7-week, 120-hour intensive begins with the question “What is yoga?” and proceeds to examine in detail the fundamental elements of asana, pranayama and meditation as the interwoven threads of a holistic practice. Specific topics and activities include:

• Basic yoga philosophy
• Detailed exploration of approximately 50 asanas, including alignment principles, energetic actions, risks, benefits, preparatory asanas, counterposes, variations, modifications and use of props
• Sequencing families of asanas and entire classes
• Pranayama and Bhanda practices
• Functional anatomy in relation to movement-oriented yoga
• Subtle anatomy – charkas, nadis, vayus
• The art of seeing students and giving appropriate verbal cues and hands-on adjustments
• Class observation
• Practice teaching
• The ethics of teaching
• Methods of guided meditation
• Business/professional topics.

Throughout the course, we maintain a steady focus on developing effective teaching techniques and methods. All participants gain progressively more extensive and challenging experience and close guidance in teaching poses, sequences of poses and eventually a complete class.

Phase I gives you 84 direct instructional contact hours and requires 36 hours of non-contact study and activity (reading assigned course materials, researching asanas, observing classes), for a total of 120 hours applicable to certification. Upon completion of the Phase I, including an open-book take-home final examination, participants interested in going on toward Yoga Teacher Certification may then be admitted into the 200-hour or 500-hour Certification Program.

Throughout the  7-week course you may take unlimited free classes at Santa Cruz Cruz Yoga.