Why Study with Us?

Seattle Yoga Arts is renowned as a studio of depth and excellence in teaching and our core faculty are among the most respected teachers in the Northwest. Since we began our Teacher Training program in 1998, we have trained some of the most beloved teachers in Seattle and beyond. We have had the time and experience to refine our program and we continually refresh our training with current and vital concepts that enhance your potency as a yogi and as a teacher.

Our core faculty members were trained in Anusara yoga and understand that method deeply. We also honor and source the best from the fields of physical therapy, kinesiology, therapeutics, etc. We have a commitment to including the stream of Tantric teaching in our philosophy, while also continually revisiting the root texts of the yoga tradition.

We believe that being a yoga teacher is an honor, a privilege and a never-ending path of growth and service. We have seen over and over that yoga changes lives and know that being part of that evolution is sacred.

Core Faculty: Denise Benitez, Bianca Raffety, Amy Reed, Beth Award — all experienced teachers and teacher trainers

Taking the Seat of the Teacher

The impulse to take the seat of the teacher arises most auspiciously from the passion and blessings of your own practice, which create a heartfelt desire to offer the gifts of yoga to others. You become an excellent teacher when you bring head and heart, intelligence and passion together into your own individual form of teaching. This teacher training will first support you in establishing daily life practices that sustain and nourish a yogic lifestyle. We will then guide you in accessing your own creativity and brilliance and offer you tools to become the best yoga teacher you can be. We will also take you on a grand tour of the yoga tradition, its philosophy, insights, and texts. We will offer you the very best of our many combined years of teaching and teacher training, so that you will leave this program prepared and inspired to teach effective, contextualized yoga to a diverse body of students.

200-hour Teacher Training Curriculum

Our program runs one weekend a month for 12 months for a total of 200 hours and covers the following:

Establish the Daily Habits of a Yogi

• Creating a steady home asana practice
• Learning pranayama
• Establishing a daily meditation practice: sourcing the great well
• Refining your poses: personal guidance on your practice
• Contemplation: sourcing great teachings and your own insight for life wisdom

Foundations of the Yogic Path

• Two great texts of yoga: The Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
• The root text of Saiva Tantra: The Siva Sutras
• History of yoga, where the poses come from, the evolution of yoga in the West

Dwelling in the Body Vessel

• Fundamental anatomy with Michael Jacobus
• Softening as student and teacher
• Embodying and teaching the elements of earth, water, fire, air, spirit
• Contacting your own creative fire
• What to practice when? Teaching for different times, seasons, life transitions

Subtle Body Knowledge

• Introduction to the chakras as a model of energy flow
• Layers of being: the koshas
• Rivers of life: nadis and kundalini
• A model of creation: the tattvas

Taking the Seat of Teaching

• Learning a refined, logical system of body alignment for asana and teaching
• How to teach all categories of poses safely and effectively; standing poses, backbends, forward bends, twists, inversions, restoratives
• The art of verbal and manual adjustments
• Peer teaching with feedback
• Building a wave: the craft of sequencing
• Observation and seeing beauty in the student
• Teaching with a theme: how to teach a meaningful, contextualized yoga class

And more…

• Finding your inspiration
• Clarifying your unique contribution
• Study and practice groups
• Keeping a sadhana (practice) and insight download journal

Tuition Fees

$290 per weekend or $3480 for the entire training. All students enrolled in the 200 hour program will receive free unlimited yoga at SYA during their training year. We encourage you to come to class as often as your schedule permits! You can expect to spend about $100 on books and will be required to take 3 classes at other studios. There are no further fees or workshop/retreat costs.

Scholarships: We have two income relevant scholarships available, which reduce the fee by 40% and require financial disclosure for application.