Whereas once you might have been expected to clean your guru’s house for years before he would show you a single asana, these days 200 hours of instruction is all that’s needed to complete your yoga teacher training. Don’t kid yourself – yoga is the journey of a lifetime (and teaching yoga well probably takes several) but it’s a good place to start!

BookRetreats.com is a good place to look for  yoga teacher training and you can filter your search by price, length and location and they have a list of some selected courses in places like Greece and Spain that are warm in the autumn and spring.

BookYogaRetreats.com also have extensive listings of yoga teacher courses and prices seem to vary a lot between 1200 and 2500 euros for a 200 hour course so make sure you do your research.

More about yoga teacher training

Whereas yoga used to be the domain of hippies and mystics and, well, Indians,  yoga has become a mainstream business around the world now which has its pluses and minuses; on one hand it’s great that you can find a class almost anywhere these days and tens of millions of people can learn more about their bodies and take care of their health; on the other hand, it’s become a business and an ancient spiritual tradition has become just something else to market. Yoga teacher training is no exception to this and so when it comes to becoming a yoga teacher you should do your research and check exactly what the yoga teacher program offers.

And once you’ve got your certificate you still have a long way to go. You’ll learn through practice but you would also be advised to look for experienced teachers and deepen your understanding of yoga with them.

Can you make a living as a yoga teacher?

On one hand training up as a yoga teacher is a great idea as it’s a portable skill that you can take with you anywhere, it’s good for your own yoga practice and even if you don’t end up running your own yoga classes, you’ll always be able to help out friends who need a bit of advice with their asanas.

On the other hand, when it’s so easy to become a yoga teacher one wonders where all the newly qualified yogis find students…a lot will depend on how much effort you put into your studies, your patience and compassion with those in your classes, and also your own personal charisma. As ancient as it  is, yoga is something alive and there’s a need to interpret it with fresh eyes all the time.