ryt-200 advanced studies

Contact us to apply! The 2011-2012 year begins September 9!

Overview

At Boundless Yoga, our mission is to foster transformation. We believe that transformation is in the dialog between students, teachers, and the community at large. We are a hatha yoga community interested in passing on thousands of years of knowledge from the deepest sources of the mind.

The one-year Boundless Yoga RYT-200 program (September 2011-July 2012), certified by the Yoga Alliance, seeks to honor the cultural shifts in modern yoga while maintaining its meditative origins. Practicing yoga opens the mind, settles the body, and yolks individual identity to universal identity.

The Boundless Yoga program is crafted primarily in the spirit of Krishnamacharya, an Indian teacher whom many believe to be the father of modern yoga. His teachings suggest that the yoga asana class is the design of the individual, woven simultaneously into the community at large. It is the yoga teacher’s role to relate to each student one-on-one, no matter how small or large a yoga community or class. It is the yogi or yogini who takes the teachings of yoga into the world.

About the Teacher Trainers

Liana Brooks-Rubin and Leah Barr are the lead teachers of this Program, balancing and harmonizing each other’s style with their approach to yoga and deep teachings they have both received from similar and differing sources. Expect anatomy and teaching methodology primarily from Liana: she provides the classical alignment of the basic yoga poses taught in the program. Leah, having also studied strict alignment-based information, has migrated to a tantric and Anusara style of teaching, which is rooted in energetic flows and the Anusara teaching approach to asana.

James Foulkes, Boundless Teacher, and Kim Weeks, Boundless Founder and RYT Programs Founder, offer smaller modules potentized around their specialties. James offers an examination of how the musculo-skeletal body surfaces emotional tensions. Kim Weeks offers the overall picture of the world of yoga as it is fast evolving, and what the true Krishnamachariya legacy of seeing bodies one body at a time. Her hope is to develop the right insights and internal alignment to know, specifically, what each body in a classroom needs at any given time.

To teach or not to teach?

We prepare you to teach a basic-level yoga class, although only about half of our graduates go on to teach yoga. That’s why we call the program Advanced Studies: The program is about deepening your practice of yoga, which can–but doesn’t have to–lead to teaching others.

The Boundless methodology relies heavily on the deepening of your knowledge, and then trust and instinct, of human anatomy and physiology. These two modes of learning, external and internal, are the two essential halves that create a whole environment for becoming a Boundless Yoga certified teacher.

Our 200-hour training program satisfies the Yoga Alliance requirements for obtaining an RYT certification (Registered Yoga Teacher).  To this end we focus the program on a basically equal combination of the following:

• Anatomy and alignment: how the musculoskeletal, organs, and energetic bodies work in conjunction with one another.

• The philosophy, history, and spirit of yoga: the anchor of the program, enabling teacher trainees to examine themselves and their yoga practice more deeply and to learn to trust their own internal maps.

• How to teach: learning yoga more deeply does not necessarily make a good yoga teacher.  We will spend large amounts of time practicing teaching, giving each other feedback, and sharing in each other’s innate talents.

• The principle of karma yoga as taught by the Bhagavad Gita: we will explore the concept of action without attachment to the result.

For more information, please contact us.

program topics

These topics may shift as the group grows through the program:

• Principles of the Krishnamacharya yoga tradition
• Physical and energetic anatomy and physiology
• Meditation
• Yoga philosophy
• Basic yoga postures
• The Principles of Pranayama
• Sanskrit of poses
• Assisting and adjusting
• Level one postures (modifications)
• Sequencing postures
• Teaching restoratives
• Teaching special groups and populations
• Planning for the first day
• Session-based classes versus drop-in classes

prerequisites

We prefer that the advanced student be currently practicing in a primarily Indian-based school of yoga (Iyengar, Anusara, Kripalu, Sivananda, Integral, Ashtanga, Kundalini, etc.), though we honor all traditions and are open to all schools and traditions.

Applicants must have practiced yoga twice a week for one full year or the equivalent (breaks in a longer practice are expected and are OK).

Meditation, Pranayama, and/or other spiritual/meditative endeavors are a plus. For more information, or to ask any questions, please contact us.

time commitment and schedule

We will spend one weekend a month for one year, beginning in September 2011 with the first meeting September 9-11. While we have high expectations for the commitment teacher trainees will make to the program, we understand that yoga and family/work commitments can be challenging. If you know you will be away for one of the workshop weekends, you need you to let us know ASAP so that you can make other arrangements.

2011-12 dates (classes held Friday 6:30-9:30 pm, Saturday and Sunday 2:00-7:00 pm)

• 2011: September 9-11, September 30-2, November 11-13, December 9-11
• 2012: January 13-15, February 10-12, March 9-11, April 13-15, May 4-6, June 8-10, July 13-15

cost and teacher-training discounts

The cost for the program can be paid in full or through monthly installments. If paid in installments, the total cost is $3400 with a deposit of $950 due September 1, and ten (10) monthly installments of $245 thereafter. The total cost of the program if paid in full by August 15 is $2999.

Price does not include books, the $30 non-refundable application fee, and $65/month for unlimited classes at boundless yoga.

Please contact us with any questions!

other requirements during the program

Teacher trainees are expected to fulfill these additional requirements:

• Maintain a practice of 5x/week for the duration of the program. This will consist of a combination of studio and home practice.

• Observe and take studio classes at Boundless Yoga or at another studio unless approved by Boundless.

• Teach one or more classes to the boundless community. Trainees may also choose to sub at Boundless during the last six months of the program (pending approval by faculty).

• Complete and pass a final written paper (10-12 pages double-spaced), anatomy exam, philosophy exam and Sanskrit quiz. There will also be other written assignments during the program.

The program starts September 9. The application is due by August 21, 2011, along with a non-refundable, $30 application fee. Full payment or deposit due August 15, 2011 to guarantee your place in this year’s program. Please send or bring your application to:

Boundless Yoga, 2001 13th Street, Washington, DC 20009.

For more information, or to ask any questions, please contact us.

Final papers from previous years:

Soliloquy of a Yogini
Asana as Integration
A Yoga Practice for Alleviating Symptoms Associated with PMDD
Changing the Shape of Grief