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Kripalu School of Ayurveda

500-Hour Ayurvedic Yoga Teacher

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Curriculum

Learn to integrate principles of Ayurveda into your yoga classes. This 500-hour training explores the philosophy and principles of Ayurveda as they apply to the practice and teaching of yoga. Students learn to create customized yoga classes based on the season and time of day, and to offer private Ayurveda-inspired yoga sessions to help their students develop a personal practice suited to their unique circumstances. This certification builds on a 200-hour yoga certification from any tradition and consists of an additional 300 hours of training completed in four 9-day modules.

This 500-hour yoga teacher training with a focus on Ayurveda offers a deeper understanding of how to use yoga postures and breathing to address people’s individual needs, based on body types and seasonal changes.

Required courses include
Foundations of Ayurveda Parts 1 and 2 (students must register for both sessions together)
Advanced Studies in Yoga and Ayurveda

Elective courses include (choose one)
Advanced Techniques for Teaching and Assisting Asana
or
Exploring the Energy Body: Teaching Meditation and Pranayama

Foundations of Ayurveda

Anatomy and Physiology for Ayurveda

The biological humors or doshas, including their qualities, actions, and sites; the 20 attributes; subdoshas; seven tissues; seven nutritive membranes; and the malas. Agni and its 13 forms; ama, the srotas and organs; and an introduction to the concepts of etiology and pathology.

Ayurvedic Digestion and Nutrition

The six tastes and the specific action of each as well as the potent energy of food and its postdigestive effects.

Dinacharya—Ayurvedic Lifestyle Training

Practical Ayurvedic principles, including daily routines, seasonal routines, and disease prevention; yoga for everyday health, including lectures on nutrition for balancing the doshas.

History and Philosophy of Ayurveda

The historical connection to the Vedas, the ancient texts that form the basis of Ayurveda; the historical background of Ayurveda in India and how it evolved into modern schools; and the cosmology of Ayurveda and where it stands in relation to the other schools of yogic thought.

Psychology from an Ayurvedic Perspective

The biological humors; the three gunas—prana, tejas, and ojas—as they relate to the mind; and an introduction to spiritual therapies: meditation, mantra, gems, color therapy, aromatherapy, and Jyotish astrology.

Sanskrit

Training in the Sanskrit language, including the alphabet, rules, grammar, and use of Sanskrit dictionaries. Sanskrit is yoga for the mouth and the brain. It improves memory and exercises the neural pathways, which can help to retain brain function as we age and relieve stress. As a vibrational language, the way that words are spoken is integral to their healing properties—instruction in and knowledge of Sanskrit is necessary for the true integration of Ayurvedic knowledge.

Yoga and Ayurveda

Explore the doshas and how they relate to asana and pranayama practice.

Advanced Studies in Yoga and Ayurveda

This 9-day intensive course deepens your knowledge of the relationship between yoga and Ayurveda, with classes focused on cultivating prana (life force) and agni (inner fire). Participate in approximately 20 hours of on-site, supervised practicum in areas of tri-doshic yoga, pranayama, meditation, and daily health routines. Content covered in this 9-day intensive also includes

  • Yoga and Ayurveda as interdisciplinary sciences: explore the relation between panchamayakosha and the eight limbs of yoga as they relate to Ayurveda
  • Key postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama), and meditation techniques for balancing psychophysical constitutions (the doshas)
  • The different types of pranic flow, including prana, udana, samana, apana, and vyana
  • The archetypal types of energies (gunas) and psychophysical constitutions (doshas).

Advanced Techniques for Teaching and Assisting Asanas

Gain a mastery in the art of teaching asana. Increase your ability to appeal to students who want more challenge in their practice and to assist those who have unique limitations. In this module, you improve your knowledge of asana, learn more about the anatomical principles of alignment and the benefits of the poses, and enhance your ability to assist your students by offering creative and knowledgeable modifications and variations for all levels.

Using the koshas (the five bodies: physical, pranic, psychoemotional, witness, and bliss) as a framework, you undertake a multidimensional study of asana. You dive into the deeper dimensions of core yoga poses and explore some new and challenging postures to widen your scope of students. You also discover ways to weave the powerful methodology of the vayus (the five winds: prana, apana, vyana, udana, and samana) and chakras into your teaching.

This module includes:

  • Fine-tuning and deepening your practice of Kripalu Yoga’s 26 basic poses
  • Understanding anatomy in relationship to asana
  • Exploring 10 essential postures and their intermediate to advanced variations
  • Advanced techniques for teaching in-depth asana assists
  • Learning the essential anatomy of the hips, the sacroiliac joint, and the fascial chains
  • Multidimensional use of the koshas as an exploration into yogic anatomy
  • Exploration of nonjudgmental self-awareness, or witness consciousness
  • Additional advanced postures
  • Developing better teaching skills through one-on-one practice and evaluated practice-teach sessions.

Exploring the Energy Body: Teaching Pranayama and Meditation

By deepening your knowledge and practice of pranayama, meditation, and yoga philosophy, you enhance your work as a yoga teacher, guide, and healer. This course is designed to help you explore these yogic technologies to transform your life and impart your discoveries to others. Swami Kripalu, founder of Kripalu Yoga, emphasized the foundational nature of pranayama, saying, “Whatever yoga one may practice, directly or indirectly, one must worship prana, the life force.” Patanjali writes in the Yoga Sutras, “When pranayam is mastered, the veil that covers the inner light is removed.”

This module explores the modern-day applications of pranayama, inner stillness, and yogic philosophy, focusing on the energetics of yoga as expressed in breath practice, meditation, and daily life. You learn not only how to articulate the technology of each technique, but also to understand the effects of these transformative practices on the body, mind, and spirit. You also gain an understanding of the philosophy from which these techniques originate.

Packed with experiential components as well as practical information, this module empowers your pranayama and meditation, taking your practice and teaching to the next level. Some components this course covers include

  • Relationships between the respiratory, endocrine, and nervous systems
  • The science of prana and the physiology of energy
  • The philosophical foundations of energy mastery
  • Deepening your sadhana and social silence, chanting, toning of bija mantras, and integrative breathwork
  • Improving your skills and confidence with one-on-one practice and evaluated practice teaches
  • How to draw on yogic lifestyle teachings to support transformation.