Anyone who wishes to learn yoga from India and make a living from it, the first question that s/he would need to address is how to find the best yoga courses in india? Where can you learn the core ethics of yoga exactly as they’re meant to be? There is an age-old proverb, “When a disciple is ready, the teacher appears”. This proverb is applicable even today.
First and foremost, the person aspiring to become a yoga instructor must have a deep desire to learn and teach yoga correctly to others. Please note, yoga is a practice that has been essentially handed down from one generation to the next through verbal teachings. It’s a miracle that some of the yoga schools have managed to preserve the purest form of yoga even today! So when you choose to learn and teach yoga to others, you’d be partially shouldering that responsibility in a way!
“Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life.” B.K.S. Iyengar
Carry out a simple search on the Internet and the thousands of different yoga teacher courses you’d be offered can easily confuse anyone. When trying to find the ideal yoga instructor course in India which benefits you both at physical as well as spiritual level, you must factor in other aspects like time, dedication and money too. Many people opt for short yoga vacations or yoga retreats before enrolling in more comprehensive yoga courses later. Whatever approach you take, you must always keep the following important points in mind:
How experienced is the training staff of yoga teacher course?
Whether you’re taught by seasoned yoga instructors or newly-appointed staff can make a world of difference to the quality of your yoga teacher course. Yoga is rapidly emerging as a very profitable business for many schools and teachers all over the world. Considering the competition between the schools, it’s not uncommon to find some of them cutting corners and compromising on the quality of the training staff. If that happens, you might not be able to properly understand and master the yoga skills. It’s important that you learn from someone who teaches yoga not based on bookish knowledge but based on years of experience under his/her belt.
The opinion of ex-students
It’d be best if you could get in touch with the ex-students of a prospective yoga school, and take first-hand information regarding its teaching quality and services from them. This quality analysis should cover various aspects of the yoga instructor course including accommodation facilities, the studio quality, teachers’ quality and meals.
Number of students enrolled in yoga instructor course
The method of teaching and the student-teacher ratio may vary from one school to the other, depending on the availability of teachers and resources. Most of the yoga instructor courses in India feature class sizes from 20 to 100 students (sometimes even more).
In order to ensure that you get proper attention and training, you must look for a yoga school that includes no more than 20 to 30 students per class. Any number above that would automatically impact the training quality. AyurYoga Eco-Ashram Indiastands out from many other yoga schools in Indiain this aspect as there are normally 10-20 students per class during low season (March to September) and 20-30 students per class during peak season (October to February). Furthermore, there is a minimum of 5 to 6 teachers per group and over 20 people as supporting staff. This means there are usually 2-5 students per teacher, which is an excellent student-teacher ratio by any standards!
Learning environment
It’s important that the school you learn yoga from is situated in a calm and peaceful place so that your entire focus can be on learning and mastering the yoga skills. Extreme temperatures can have a major impact on your learning process.
Apart from that, you must check if the lodging facilities are as per your expectations are not. Yoga schools situated in noisy places don’t provide the peace of mind you’d so need to concentrate on and master various yoga forms.
Affordability
Budget is another very important consideration when you seek out yoga teacher courses in India. The usual price range for residential yoga courses in India (one-month long) varies from $ 2000 – $ 5000, including accommodation expenses. You must thoroughly check if the schools’ teachers and facilities are up to the mark or not if it offers you a 200-hour and one month-long teacher training course for under $ 1500.