YOGA CERTIFICATION

The Shantarasa School of Yoga, situated in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, currently offers Yoga Teacher Training Courses, Levels One and Two. These yoga certification courses have been created to provide the course participants with the requisite skills, experience and personal capacities necessary for being able to instruct students in the practices of Yoga.

These Yoga Certification courses extend over periods of one year for Level One and just over one and a half years for the Level Two program, which has as one of its prerequisites the successful completion of the Level One program or other equally qualified and accredited courses. Our programs require direct participation of at least 350 contact hours and 700 contact hours respectively, so that personal mentoring and interaction are fundamental components of the structure.

While close one-to-one personal ongoing instruction was an integral part of the teacher –student dynamic in traditional yogic teaching formats, these Shantarasa Yoga Certification trainings do endeavour to hold to the spirit of traditional pedagogical methods by working extensively in a small group scenario that rarely exceeds 15 participants well as teaching staff.

In terms of ‘yoga accreditation’ we should define what we mean by this term. Yoga as widely taught in most contemporary environments is indeed a beneficial aspect of yoga practice, yet is incomplete in its scope of understanding and methods of instruction. The practice of yoga transcends the use of a range of physical movements called “asana” or postures.

The first codifier of the system of classical yoga, Maharishi Patanjali, produced his insightful and exhaustive model of yoga practices and theory somewhere around 200 B.C. Interestingly, the inclusion of yoga postures in his system of yoga was quite minor and he stipulated that the use of physical postures was to enable the body to sit comfortably and the mind to become free of distractions and agitation while engaged in practicing meditation. Around 1000 years later the further inclusion of yoga postures became more widely integrated.

When yoga first came to the West in the late 1890’s those eminent sages, such as Swami Vivekananda and Swami Ram Tirth, made little mention of the practice of yoga asana in their widely received instruction of the great science of human transformation embodied in Yoga wisdom. Only later, in the early and mid part of the twentieth century did yoga asana become a predominant aspect of yoga instruction in the West. In fact, in many places in the West today yoga asana is taught exclusively, without the inclusion of other essential yoga practice.

The purpose of yoga practice is to release (moksha) its practitioners from the numbing, sleep-like effects of habitual behaviours that encase and obscure the amazing vitality, creativity and deep self-knowing that is inherently available to everyone. Yoga seeks to reverse the ‘dumbing down’ humdrum that besets our day to day routines, and to awaken experience to the full spectrum of human potentiality.

Certainly, inclusion of the conscious harmonious movement and breath work that constitutes ‘yoga asana’ increases sensitivity and vitality, and promotes healing in our bodies and minds. Yoga asana serves to prepare us for the more potent work of transformation that is the real focus of full yoga practice.

The Shantarasa Yoga Certification Courses Levels 1 and 2 are designed to give the full experience of authentic yoga and to enable its graduates to instil the experience and an appreciation of complete yoga to their own students.

Contact us on info@shantarasa.com to find out more about our courses.