6 Best Yoga International Courses To Get Certified

Being able to practice yoga is a luxury and practice that can improve pretty much everyone’s life. Whether it’s their overall body and fitness level, or their mental health, yoga is an amazing gift to be able to teach others.

So it’s only natural that so many people who start practicing yoga want to learn how they can share this gift with others.

But this leads to a slight issue that many people will need to come up against. Unless they’re pointing friends, family, and other people towards a certified yoga instructor themselves, you’re going to need to have some kind of training to be able to safely teach other people.

This means that you need to start looking for a professional yoga course. Something that is surprisingly hard to do online.

Luckily, we have done some of the heavy lifting for you here! In this guide, we will not only show you some of the best yoga teaching courses in the world, but we’ll also explain what it takes to qualify as a certified yoga instructor.

How Do You Become A Certified Yoga Teacher?

While yoga has been taught for hundreds of years without the qualifications necessary, yoga teachers being able to demonstrate that they can safely practice and teach yoga to others is essential in the modern world.

It demonstrates to potential customers and your audience that not only are you a trustworthy instructor to practice under, but you can also be trusted to help people practice yoga safely and without unnecessary danger.

While you don’t need a certification to help guide a person through practicing yoga in private, a certification will allow you to teach people in public, such as at a gym or in a yoga studio.

When it comes to training schedules, there are often 2 main avenues for certification training that you can take.

There are the longer, less intense course of many weeks (usually at least 8 to 10), that can either be done in-person or remotely.

Then there are the high-intensity courses, designed to push through the 150+ necessary hours that you’ll need to learn everything in just a few weeks.

Recognized Certification

Generally speaking, you’ll want to find a yoga training course that has been officially recognized by the Yoga Alliance, a non-profit organization that was set up in 1997.

The Yoga Alliance sets most of the education standards for yoga instructors in the United States and offers accreditation for most certified courses across the country.

So, if you find out if a course is certified by the Yoga Alliance or an international organization equivalent, then chances are that it’s a good course!

1. Yoga 200

The International Sports Science Association (ISSA) is one of the biggest educational and certificate-granting bodies in the world. So you can probably trust a good certificate that they offer when it comes to training courses.

And, probably unsurprisingly, they also offer a yoga training course!

Throughout the course, you’ll be taught how to both perform and teach others to practice yoga in the Vinyasa and Hath-style yoga schools, inspired by the 7 body chakras.

By the end, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of two of the biggest schools of thought when it comes to yoga, so that’s an easy plus in our books.

The course itself is taught over 200 hours of teaching and introspective training that is split up into a 10-week training course, during which you will be given a comprehensive understanding of the styles of yoga, as well as encouraged to. 

2. Therapeutic Yoga Training In Pahoa, Hawaii

And if you’re learning to teach yoga through a 3-week intensive course, you may as well be doing it in a beautiful part of the world too!

Enter this therapeutic yoga training course that is based in Pahoa Hawaii. Taking place over 18 days (just over 2 weeks), this is a course that asks a lot of its trainees, but gives a lot back in return too!

Offered directly by the Yoga Alliance, this course offers tons of training on various aspects of Vinyasa and Hatha yoga, while giving you a walkthrough of tons of techniques for poses/asanas, stretches, breathing exercises, and meditation too.

It will ask a lot from you, but no more than what you would expect a potential student or class you are teaching to do.

Plus, keep in mind that this course is offered by Yoga Alliance themselves, meaning that you’ll have a certification from arguably the most legit source in the country. It’s from the people that set the standards, after all!

While the course is not currently taking on any new trainees for the time being, make sure to keep an eye out in the future for this course.

If it’s an intensive training course that you’re looking for, then this one will suit your training needs perfectly!

3. Movement Wisdom Yoga

One of the key lessons that you’ll need to learn as an instructor isn’t even totally to do with yoga, but about the confidence and charisma that many great teachers need.

Not only do you need a presentation that will make students and the class listen to you, but also to know when a student needs a little extra help when learning yoga poses and techniques.

That’s something that this course has in spades.

The course instructor that you’ll be with for this intensive training, Jess Rose, has taught over a million people about yoga in her time, giving her an almost encyclopedic knowledge of many aspects of yoga, both practical and esoteric.

Pay attention to her teachings, and not only will you learn how to perform better yoga for yourself, but you’ll also be able to firmly grasp, understand, and, importantly for a yoga instructor, able to explain it and teach it to other people in a class of other people who might be struggling with it!

This might be the biggest strength of this course, as it’s a confidence and charisma that doesn’t just come through natural personality (though that does help), but from your intense and comprehensive understanding of the yoga poses and exercise that you’ll be teaching.

4. 200 Hour RYT Arcata, California

Yoga has been a popular practice in California for a couple of decades t this point, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that it has also put out some of the best training courses on the subject that you can find.

Taught over three weeks, the training location for this course is situated in the middle of a natural salt marsh and a haven for wildlife, making it an almost idyllic location to learn both more about yoga, and how you can teach it to others.

From positions to exercises to breathing and meditation, this covers all the bases that you’ll need to teach yoga effectively and safely to other people.

And, of course, it is also registered with the Yoga Alliance, so you know that it’s a certificate that means something once you have completed the course!

5. My Vinyasa Practice

Since 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of training courses, yoga or otherwise, have had to restructure how they teach their classes, especially in scenarios where instructors and teachers were used to teaching in person.

While it’s been tough for everyone, some training courses managed to successfully adapt to the situation, and take some of the lessons learned and apply them to their standard training courses.

My Vinyasa is one such training course that has managed to adapt perfectly, with lessons that are both personalized, while still being learnable through your laptop.

From the historical and philosophical aspects of yoga to the poses and practices themselves, this 200-hour course has them all.

Plus, you’ll get a whole host of other learning materials to use along the way, from e-books to help you understand the concepts better in your own time, to podcasts and live-streaming memberships for online learning sessions.

And, of course, it’s registered with Yoga Alliance!

6. Yoga Farm Ithaca

Following on from the precedent that My Vinyasa has set, let’s take another look at another online yoga teaching class that boasts both remote learning and personalized training content!

Yoga Farm Ithaca is run by a non-profit 501c3 organization.

With both a full 12-week course, and a streamlined and more intense 8-week course on offer, you have a few different options when it comes to how you learn best.

Add to that self–teaching components that can be done at your own pace, alongside live sessions where you will practice alongside your class, you get both structure and freedom in your learning.

While most instructors would probably still prefer you to learn in a physical studio with them, courses like this one are excellent alternatives for people where that simply isn’t an option.

Final Notes

So, as you can see, finding a yoga training course, whether it’s in-person or done remotely, or completed over 10 or 3 weeks, there are quite a few ways that you can learn how to teach yoga to others. All it takes is knowing where to look in your searches.

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