Have you been thinking about expanding your yoga knowledge? Maybe you want to get into full hanumanasana, or maybe you just want to spread a little satya and become a yoga teacher. Well, now you don’t even have to go to Williamsburg or anywhere else in the city because Bushwick is lucky enough to be home to THREE yoga teacher trainings, each of which offers something special and unique. Which one of these programs is the right for you? We took a closer look at them…
Jai Yoga Arts
Price: $2,499
Duration: 200 hours
How your life will look during the program: A month-long intensive, Monday – Friday, 7am-4pm (Wednesdays is 9:30am-6pm) plus additional observation hours including weekends. The session culminates in a trip to an Ashram in upstate New York.
Next session begins: May 27, 2013
Full disclosure: I just completed my teacher training at Jai Yoga, and I can recommend it with all my heart. Ella Luckett, the founder of Jai Yoga Arts, is passionate and fun and just a little whack-a-doo. She studied dance in high school and college but when she first tried yoga she felt something click in a way that dance didn’t. “Something my very first yoga teacher said unlocked a door in me that had been closed tight for so long. She said, ‘Leave your ego at the door. Don’t look in the mirror and think about looking good or bad in a pose. Eliminate the whole conversation all together, and just breath and move.’ This one statement freed me from a long belief that I had to be constantly judging myself,” says Ella.
Ella quickly recognized that she wasn’t the only one who struggled to silence this inner judgement. Within a year she had completed training and begun teaching in San Francisco. Since then she’s been trained in Ashtanga and at a Jivamukti teacher training in Austria. She knew that the revelation she had had on the mat could be shared with others, and for many years she dreamed of training a new generation of yoga teachers. “When I help others remove their own anxieties and see them making new connections in life through the yoga philosophy and practice, it brings me so much joy. When I see someone who was previously timid get in front of a group and deliver a kick ass yoga class, I am unbelievably proud of them,” she explained.
Although most yoga classes in the city are priced near (or well above) three thousand dollars, the cost at Jai is only $2,499. Ella’s desire is to make the program as accessible as possible because she believes that everyone can benefit from the work being done at Jai. Ella says, “It just happens to be a gem in a humble setting with a purposefully humble price.”
Loom Yoga
Price: $2700
Duration: 200 hours
How your life will look during the program: The program will be held from June 1st through August 31st. Classes will be held most Saturdays and every Wednesday from 7 PM to 10 PM.
Next session begins: June 1, 2013
Loom Yoga was opened in May of 2010, and since then they’ve grown to offer a wide range of yoga styles, massage therapy, pilates and now even tai chi. Beginning June 1st, they will hold their first ever teacher training program. Why did they wait three years before expanding into the teacher training business? Zalmen, the founding yogi, explained, “[I] wanted to make sure it’s going to be the best program ever.” That attention to detail and perfectionism permeates Loom Yoga. Zalmen’s assembled an ace team of teacher trainers with backgrounds in Ashtanga, Thai massage, Laughing Lotus, Suspended Yoga, and Ayurvedic cleansing. Together, they have a combined 20+ years of experience.
Students at Loom will not only get training in the studio, they’ll also partake in a whole smorgasbord of field trips, including a trip to the Bodies Exhibit. Trainees will keep a diary throughout the summer, detailing their personal practice of asana (physical postures), meditation, and nutrition. Zalmen and one of the teachers said that “Our responsibility is to the future students” of the teachers Loom trains. “We’re really excited about the group,” and the opportunity to share “different types of yoga as opposed to having a singular focus.”
The training runs from June 1st through August 31st. Class will be held most Saturdays and every Wednesday from 7 PM to 10 PM. If you sign up before June 1st, the cost is $2700. If that seems steep, they also have a payment plan!
goodyoga
Price: $3000
Duration: 200 hours (but they offer also 100 and 500 hour-long programs)
How your life will look during the program: A 4-week long program will immerse you in yoga. The classes are held on Monday through Friday from 7AM to 4PM. (Beginning September 1, they offer a program that takes place only on weekends.)
Next session begins: June 3, 2013
goodyoga’s teacher training technically takes place in Greenpoint, but a goodyoga studio has also opened in Bushwick on Wycoff Ave, and so they also made it to our list!
Flannery Foster, a co-founder of the studio, took her first yoga class when she was 18 and a student at Boston University. At first, she hated it. What brought her back to yoga? “Six years later I was diagnosed with a benign but problematic brain tumor and my father died.” Confronted with the big questions, she started to explore Buddhism and happened to try a vinyasa yoga class. Eventually, her yoga life became discordant with the rest of her life, so she shed the extraneous and turned her focus to teaching yoga exclusively. Since then, she’s traveled to Sri Lanka and Asia, “immersing [her]self in the traditions of Yoga, Buddhism and Hinduism.”
goodyoga offers an intimate teacher training (only ten students accepted!) and they are the only teacher training in North Brooklyn that features several students in direct lineage from Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is often considered the father of modern yoga. Also, goodyoga won’t skrimp on philosophy, and they’ll do their best to feed your spiritual needs, whatever that might mean to you. As Flannery says, “the Yoga Sutras offer a practical guide to be less unhappy.” It is possible, she argues, to “never be UN-happy. Really.”
The curriculum at goodyoga includes anatomy, alignment, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the Chakras, the Bhagavad Gita, and oh so much more. They offer 100 hour, 200 hour, and 500 hour training programs. One of the reasons Flannery loves training teachers is because it “challenges [her] own practice and requires [her] to continue research to keep up with the curiosity of students…it’s like Yoga Grad School.”