What makes Yoga Baum’s 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training stand out from the rest?
Yoga Baum’s 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training stands out in the sea of options that are now available. Here’s why…
Our Teaching Staff and Experience.
Our lead teachers have extensive experience in pedagogy and teaching in general. We not only know our stuff when it comes to yoga, but also when it comes to the art of teaching. Our lead trainer, Laurie LeCompte, taught language for 10 years at the university level before opening the studio. She also wrote the curriculum, and she and her staff stay up-to-date with research on movement science and studies related to trauma and movement. Yoga Baum teachers have an annual continuing education requirement so that they can stay at the top of their field. Our training keeps getting better, because our teachers keep getting smarter.
Mentorship.
Our small cohort size allows us a chance to really get to know you, your style, your interests, and your strengths. In our yoga teacher training, you have a chance to build your teaching skills for a specific audience. As part of our curriculum we cover several special groups that deserve extra study, such as senior, sedentary, prenatal, postnatal, and injured students, and we also guide you in developing your skills for a community you would like to serve. We include an assignment that allows you to explore what special audience you would like to teach to. Some examples of the communities trainees explored in past trainings: athletes, students with anxiety or depression, students with autism, neurodivergent students, students with amputations, students with brain injuries, students with Down syndrome, and many other communities.
The mentorship we provide extends to giving you a chance to teach several paid classes at the studio, allowing you to get your feet wet in a studio setting and to receive some extra feedback after you graduate. We also teach you effective ways to find employment as a yoga teacher!
Accessibility.
We take great strides in assuring our training is accessible and that we teach our trainees how to make yoga more accessible when they graduate. Our trainees do not need to be able to achieve any specific physical position or posture to partake in our training, as we do not see that as the goal of yoga. Trainees will graduate understanding how yoga is harder to access in some communities and how to initiate outreach.
Principles of Sequencing.
We don’t make you memorize a set sequence of postures and cues. Instead, we equip you with extensive knowledge of the principles of sequencing so that you can teach a variety of unique, creative, and thoughtful yoga classes. You will leave our training knowing how to format any flow style yoga class, and through our teaching of sequencing, we also cover how to sequence gentle and restorative classes. We also extensively cover how to cue efficiently, effectively, and creatively, so that your classes make sense to everyone from beginners to experienced practitioners. You will hone in on your teaching voice and learn how to shift your cues according to your audience.
Unlike some larger yoga teacher trainings, Yoga Baum’s smaller trainings allow trainees to have lots of time for practice teaching. Our trainees graduate with actual teaching experience, and teach a 60-minute class before graduation. Our training offers you ample time to try on your skills and voice as a teacher in front of both your peers and our teaching staff.
Blending of Tradition with Contemporary Styles.
We teach you about the history of yoga, how it came to the West, and how it’s changed throughout history. We look at traditional as well as contemporary styles so that students understand and appreciate both and build their unique style from these resources.
Balance.
Our 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training emphasizes balance in life and in practicing yoga. You will learn the alignment and details of many physical postures, but you will also learn about meditation, breathwork, subtle body energy (including the chakras and koshas), and both vigorous and gentle styles of yoga.
Ethics & Boundaries.
We take care to cover many ethical considerations in the yoga world such as power dynamics, guru culture, right to a living wage, cultural appropriation, and more. Our yoga teacher trainings are trauma-sensitive because we respect you and your future students. As a studio that hosts a special annual trauma-sensitive yoga training through the Trauma Center, our students’ and trainees’ boundaries and wellbeing are extremely important to us. Therefore, we also set boundaries at the beginning of training to respect your time, space, and health. The training should be challenging in an appropriate way that enhances your life. With the exception of the reading, biomechanics and anatomy webinar, and some class planning, we keep most of the work within the hours of the training, because know training is intense and you need downtime.
