10 Reasons To Consider CorePower Yoga For Yoga Teacher Training

Before I decided to sign up for yoga teacher training at CorePower Yoga, I did my fair share of research. I checked out other yoga teacher trainings in the area, based on location, schedule availability, price and the style of yoga studied. Since I’m a huge Bikram Yoga fan, I knew I wanted to go with a hot yoga style of teacher training. I also knew I needed to find a teacher training program that would fit with my budget, work schedule and be close to home.

I discovered the CPY teacher training program after talking with a friend who currently teaches at CorePower. I loved the idea of enrolling in a well established and structured program because I knew I’d learn a lot and get my money’s worth. I started taking a few yoga classes at CorePower to get a feel for the various studios in my area and the studio’s culture. Within a month, CPY grew on me and I signed up for the Hot Power Fusion teacher training program starting at the end of February in 2016.

I really enjoyed my time in teacher training at CorePower Yoga. Read back on some of my previous teacher training posts here on my blog. You’ll see firsthand how much fun I had during the training with CPY and all of the cool things I learned about yoga and discovered about myself.

At the end of June, I wrapped up my second yoga teacher training with CorePower Yoga in Seattle. The first training I did with CPY was the 8-week Hot Power Fusion program, which is also considered a 200-hour certified program by Yoga Alliance. In this program you learn and develop all of your yoga basic fundamentals. The second training I did with CPY was the Hot Power Fusion Extensions program. This is where you get to expand on topics like theming classes, music, yoga ethics, advanced hands-on adjustments and a full five weeks of practice teaching.

If you’re in the midst of looking for a solid yoga teacher training program in your area and there’s a CorePower Yoga studio near you, I highly recommend checking out CPY. Here are ten reasons why.

1 – Convenient Locations
With over 150 CorePower Yoga studios nationwide, in 20 different states, there’s probably a CorePower Yoga studio near you. I’m in the Seattle area and had FIVE studios to choose from within a 10-mile radius. The Greenwood studio ended up being my home studio for both my Hot Power Fusion teacher training and Extensions program.

2 – Convenient Times
Finding a training program that fit with my work schedule was key. I knew I’d have to manage my full-time job during the day while studying yoga on the side. The only time I could fit in a yoga teacher training program would be during my off hours from work, such as weeknights and weekends. Quitting my day job was never an option. The teacher training program I signed up for at CPY met up well after work hours on Wednesday and Thursday nights from 7:30-10:30pm and then on Sunday afternoon from 2-5pm. The convenient schedule didn’t interfere with my busy work schedule at all.

3 – Different Styles of Yoga to Choose From
CPY offers two different styles of yoga teacher training to choose from and are both 200-hour programs certified by Yoga Alliance – Power Yoga and Hot Power Fusion. Since I came from a Bikram Yoga background and have enjoyed practicing this style of yoga for many years, I opted for the Hot Power Fusion teacher training. Hot Power Fusion is CPY’s version of Bikram Yoga.

4 – 200-Hour Certified with Yoga Alliance
Being certified by Yoga Alliance means I’m now a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT.) This distinction is given to yoga teachers whose training and teaching experience meet Yoga Alliance requirements. Yoga Alliance is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting yoga and acts as a governing body to recognize yoga teachers and schools whose training meets the designed Standards. A lot of yoga studios and gyms recognize the importance of teachers having a Yoga Alliance certification. Having this certification was important to me early on in my yoga teaching career because I wanted to have as many opportunities available to me as possible.

5 – Affordable
I wont say yoga teacher training is cheap because it isn’t. As far as teacher trainings go, I felt like CorePower’s training program was quite affordable. I didn’t have to buy a plane ticket or pay for hotel lodging because I was able to find a studio close enough to my home and work. I didn’t have to take any time off of work and was able to maintain my full-time job throughout the entire program. I did end up using one paid vacation day from work, but that was more because I needed a mental day for myself during Week Five. Having teacher training close to both my home and work made it very affordable on so many levels.

For specific rates on training programs, you’re best off contacting CPY directly. There are discounts available if you’re a current CPY member and if you sign up for the training program early enough.

6 – Experienced Coaches
One of my favorite parts of teacher training was getting to know all of my coaches. The support system at CorePower Yoga is amazing. The teacher training coaches are also seasoned CorePower yoga teachers and were a huge asset to my own yoga teaching journey.

During teacher training, I was required to continue with my own yoga practice by taking 60 yoga classes over the eight weeks. My training coaches taught most of the classes I took during training, partially because my schedule permitted and mainly because it was my preference. I found this to be a huge benefit because I discovered many different teaching styles, cues given for various postures, class playlists and built friendships with a lot of my coaches outside of the studio. If I ever had a question or concern during teacher training, I knew I could always count on any of my coaches to give me solid advice. My coaches were always open to sharing with me their own career path and gave me a lot of ideas to consider when deciding on where I wanted to go myself.

7 – You’ll Learn Way More Than Just The Yoga
When I first signed up for teacher training, I thought it would be all about memorizing the class sequence and then being able to teach it. Memorizing the Hot Power Fusion sequence was only part of our training. In addition to learning the postures in the sequence and the cues, we also managed to cover a wide variety of topics over eight weeks including Yoga Philosophy and Concepts: Yoga Sutras, the Eight Limbed Yogic Path, Yamas and Niyamas, Sanskrit names for each of the postures and how to say them correctly, the seven major chakras, anatomy, hands-on adjustments, modifications of postures, Ayurveda and the business side of yoga.

In addition to learning about all of the various topics out of our thick training manual, I never realized how much more I’d learn and discover about a very important topic besides the yoga, myself. It was a crazy transition I went through over the course of eight weeks. During the first week, we were already practice teaching yoga with one another. It was very humbling realizing how much different it was to take a yoga class than it was to teach one.

By Week Five, I was struggling to juggle all of my responsibilities with my full-time job and personal life while still being able to keep up with my yoga practice, stay on top of my journaling and training assignments and work hard to memorize the sequence and cues for each of the postures. Just when I started to question myself on if I’d ever be a good enough yoga teacher, Week Eight came along and reminded me why I signed up for yoga teacher training in the first place. Teaching yoga was fun. With enough practice, my confidence grew and eventually I realized I had what it takes to be a great yoga teacher.

8 – Practice Teaching
No one becomes great at anything over night. To really be good at something, you have to practice, a lot. When it comes to teaching yoga, you’ll never learn how to be a good yoga teacher by reading a book. You’ll learn by doing it over and over again.

I found the more I put into my own teacher training, the better experience I had. It’s funny because as teacher training got underway, I realized how scared I was to actually teach the yoga, even amongst my peers. But wasn’t this what I had signed up for? I constantly fumbled my words and blanked on what cue to say next. Sometimes I’d forget the whole sequence all together. I hated it. I made so many mistakes all over the place, but I had to stop beating myself up over it because I was learning something new. The more time I spent practicing teaching, the more mistakes I made, the more confident I eventually became and the better I got.

It seemed intimidating at first, but looking back now, it was quite a blessing to already be practice teaching the Hot Power Fusion sequence by the end of our first week of teacher training. The more time we had to practice, the faster we could work through the jitters, filler words, stop bad habits from forming and become quality yoga teachers. I’m so incredibly thankful for all of the time we had dedicated to practice teaching during our teacher training at CorePower Yoga.

9 – Hands-On Adjustments
During teacher training, we learned a variety of hands-on adjustments though multiple workshops and practice teaching time. We learned how to read alignment in the room and make proper yoga adjustments for each student as needed. The idea of physically touching a student during class seemed very scary to me at first. Once I realized the value of a proper hands-on adjustment and was able to practice giving them correctly, they became less scary and just as important as correctly cueing a posture in class.

10 – Opportunities Beyond Graduation
Here’s something I didn’t know about CorePower yoga before signing up for teacher training. There’s an easy-to-follow career path for those interested in teaching yoga at CPY after training. If you’re interested in teaching yoga at a CPY studio, you must first start with the 200-hour teacher training program. Upon graduation, you’d then need to sign up for the five week Extensions program. After completing Extensions, you can then audition for an internship at a CPY. During the paid internship, the teacher either teaches 30 classes or up to six months (whichever comes first), with a minimum of two classes per week. After the internship has been completed, the studio manager will then decide if that teacher becomes a permanent addition to the studio’s schedule, based on how well the teacher did during their internship and the studio’s schedule availability.

In addition to Power Yoga and Hot Power Fusion, there are also other trainings available for various class formats taught at CorePower Yoga including YogaSculpt, CoreCardio Circuit and CoreRestore (CPY’s version of Yin Yoga.) After discovering YogaSculpt during the first few weeks of my teacher training, I decided I want to come back to CorePower Yoga for the YogaSculpt teacher training and teach those types of classes on a regular basis.