296 - New Teacher Series: How to Choose a 200 hour YTT and Prepare For It

Today I introduce a new series aimed at new yoga teachers, featuring relevant conversations, actionable insights, and support in building community.

Join me to explore considerations when choosing a training and qualities to look for in a teacher.

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Connect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), Website
Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:01.082)
Mmm, so good to have you here on the podcast. Welcome to a brand new series. This is going to be the beginning of a series called the New Teacher Series. For those of you who are stepping into this role, maybe you're teacher curious and maybe you're in the middle of a teacher training. Maybe you're in the middle of your third teacher training, but you have yet to step into the room. Maybe you're actually already teaching.

but there's gonna be things within this new teacher series where you're like, wow, actually, I never learned that, or that's the thing that I've been curious about. I'm gonna cover a whole array of topics. I think I have 15 episodes mapped out. So the idea of this for me is to keep them short, concise, and really actionable so that you can pick this up and have it be really topic-specific for you.

So thank you for being here and share these with your YTT friends, share these with your teacher trainer, share these on the gram. Like if you know people who are stepping into being a yoga teacher, this is for you. And if you are in that process, this is for you. I recently heard from a student who came to my in-person classes. So I live in Portland, Oregon, and I teach in person every Tuesday night, I rent a space.

and we come together for an hour and a half long class. It's enough time where we actually get a drop in together. It's chill. It's like just us in the studio. It's not a typical yoga studio, but it is absolutely a yoga studio. It's a little bit of our adventure here. A friend came or a person came and I had never practiced. She had never come and practiced with me and she's in the middle of her YTT. out.

you know who you are. And she's going to her teacher training actually in a couple of cities away from me. And she told me how she was assigned to listen to a couple of episodes from my podcast as part of her teacher training. This is the first time I've heard this. So I just want to share this moment because that just happened to me a couple of days ago. And I've had this idea in my head of creating a series specifically for new teachers. And then she came to class and told me this and

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (02:23.15)
The podcast is one of those things that I create that I don't actually hear a lot about except for at random times like that where somebody might say something in a conversation with me, but I have to be in conversation to hear it, which is really beautiful. You know, it's not like I don't typically get emails about it. I get shared on social media sometimes, but there's not a lot of chatter. I think of if you were to do a social media post and then there's people who comment, like, share.

drop into your DMs. The podcast is very much not like that. sparked by that and the beauty that things that I might share here will be supportive to you in your teacher journey. Here I am. So, thank you for sharing that with me when you came to class this past Tuesday. Thank you for a teacher trainer who is

really somebody who believes in abundance enough to be like, listen to this person say something and listen to this person say something. That is so much at the heart of what I believe that we do this together and that we learn together and that we need each other. We're all going to be different types of teachers for each other. And so the beauty of this person's teacher trainer to say like, hey, listen to this podcast. This really applies to some of the things that we're learning and feels impactful.

As much as I direct people to, like when I'm in conversation and working with folks, I am sharing resources and contacts with others, say like, learn this from this person, learn this from this person, that really we are a network community. So just gonna give this as a shout out to say thank you and here's more. Yeah? Okay, for our very first episode that is focused on new teachers today,

We're talk about how to choose a 200 hour YTT and prepare for it. And so if you're already in a teacher training or have taken this, maybe you'll agree, maybe you'll disagree. Could be interesting, right? So how do you choose a 200 hour YTT? I'm gonna give you a short answer, long answer. A short answer is that you don't walk blindly into learning from somebody.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (04:43.81)
You don't walk blindly into learning from somebody. Why? Because you're going to be spending a lot of time with them. You know, when you meet somebody and it seems like you should easily find flow with them, but for some reason it feels like two fists trying to mesh together, but they're fists. It doesn't work very well and it's kind of annoying.

And then other people you meet and it's like the interlocking fingers. You're like, ah, hi. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna learn from you, right? You don't know if the person you're gonna learn from is one of those fist people or one of those blending fingers type of person. Now we can learn things from all different humans. And I really think we should.

and you're going to be spending a lot of time with this person that's going to be the teacher trainer, the head teacher trainer. There might be more than one teacher that kind of pops into your teacher training depending on the teacher training. And teacher trainings are often taught so specific to the people who are teaching them. Even if you're somebody who is interested in doing a teacher training that is Yoga Alliance certified, I don't care about Yoga Alliance, just going to put that out there. Yoga Alliance has a certain

manual they want a teacher trainer to say like, okay, you're gonna teach, you need to teach these things. Now write a manual, now prove it to us. They can do that. And then they don't have to teach anything in the manual. There's no follow through, there's no connection to it. And a teacher is only gonna teach what their take is on that. I'm actually totally fine with that because for me, when I run a teacher training for like a 200 hour and 300 hour teacher trainings, I know that it is coming from me and my point of view.

I know that I will be giving the things that I am most passionate about and most educated on and feel like responsible to like share with the world. And I know the things that I am not as interested in or as stellar at. So that will be those places will be like, I'm going to bring in some other people. I'm going to direct you some other people this is, and be really clear about exactly what you're going to get in a training from me. Cause bottom line is your initial training.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (07:01.164)
you're not gonna get everything you ever need as a teacher. So you gotta accept that first. So how do you prepare for going into your training? Know that it will not be the only training that you ever take in your whole life. Know that learning is not gonna stop there and know that the things that you're gonna be taught are going to be given to you through the lens of the person that is teaching them and their perspective and their experience. So,

What experience do they have? What is their voice like? How do they teach classes? What are they interested in? Those things will be really important to know. So when you're going to choose a teacher trainer for your teacher trainings, go take their classes, experience them. And truly, what is the sound of their voice? Do you like the jokes they make?

Does it grate on you when you hear them laugh or does it make you want to laugh with them? Is it nice to be in their presence or does their presence challenge you in just the right way that's going to help you grow? I think of the teachers that I had in school that were in both like, you know, when I was younger and then also in college where they had both this balance of, of like high education and high standards.

for students and also they were human. They wanted to bring a sense of play and presence to the room, but they also expected something of us. And I think striking that balance of, you have a teacher that's rooted in like, you got to do the damn thing. And also let's meet this thing with you and be human and compassionate about it, but also deliver. Like you got to have to, I really think that there's a little bit of both.

because I strongly believe in yoga and yoga teaching as a profession and leadership in a room and being able to lead an experience with hospitality, where we're blending this interesting space of physicality and spirituality truly in community. And that is a craft and these are skills to develop and they require practice and dedication and honesty and integrity.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:22.698)
And it's not something small. It's like truly not something small. And there's dedication to the process that is going to be required in you. So when you take other people's classes, especially if you are kind of thinking that you might take a teacher training, pay attention to these things. How do they treat people? How do they cue? Do you understand them? It shouldn't be confusing all the time.

Is it another, is yoga another language? Absolutely. Might it be confusing because you don't know? Yes. And how do they deal with people one-on-one, right? And this is very much a, a, a being in business with people, bit, a business of building trust. And so how you feel with them, what you think you can learn from them, right? It doesn't have to be all like, again,

People go, which make choices of what to do with their lives, what to do with their money, what to do with their time in all different sorts of ways. Some people are like, oh, it's just the right vibes. I've got it. This person's like, they're hella smart. I don't care what their vibes are. I think they've got what I need and what I want. Other people are like, oh, I really like the community that's here. Okay, cool. Other people are like, just give me a second. I just got to assess and see what's happening. We all make decisions in different ways. So however it is that you're making decision,

Do some research first because you're going to be spending some time with these people or with that person and you're going to be given the language of teaching yoga and the language of yoga through their experience. I think often how my kids think of yoga as what I do and how I talk. I am one person and I have a very particular take, right?

And even if I were to just take the city of Portland, gosh, there's a lot of yoga teachers here. And if my kids were to, you know, live a month with another teacher and watch them move and hear how they talk about yoga or hear them teach, it's going to be totally different experience because my voice that I bring to the practice is different. And the way that I sequence a class is going to be different. And the way that I approach people to create an experience is going to be different.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (11:49.59)
that's really beautiful because there's some people that are gonna land with me that aren't gonna land with other people and vice versa. So we need each other. I love that. I can say I love that at lots of times. There's more than one way to be right. I, again, I'm really okay with all different types of teacher trainings out there. I do host flow school because of and have become super aware of the lack of

instruction on how to sequence or how to sequence beyond a 200 hour training. Because in your 200 hour training, can you prepare? Like you could get nerdy and read some books, but really I know a lot of people who just step into a training. Some of them don't even think they're going to teach. And so they kind of step in and you learn the sequence that you usually learn like a single sequence. I think there's some trainings out there where you're to learn maybe how to put together a sequence, but if for the most part you're given a sequence.

So flow school fills this gap that I've created, right? That you're like, okay, how do you sequence? And not just how, but why? Because the why is gold. Why do we think it's like this? And what order and in how many repetitions and how do you move it with breath? Like it's gonna take a minute. So these are the add-ons, right? We'll get to that. But you like knowing what you're gonna learn and what you're gonna learn how to teach is gonna be helpful. Story for you.

When I did my teacher training, I taught for a whole year before I taught yoga or before I was like an official teacher of yoga. I taught for a whole year in my garage. I did a weekly class Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. I was already strength training women, other friends, other people who had little kids like I did at the time. And I was doing that twice a week. Then I started practicing yoga. They found out I was practicing yoga. They said, hey, Bonnie, when are you going to teach us yoga? I was like, well, I don't know how to teach. But if you just want to come over and do what I do.

And they're like, yep. So I started teaching Tuesday nights, 8 p.m. We had little kids. It was the right timing to feed the kids dinner, to kind of get them directed towards bed. And people who had partners then, they kind of took over kid duty. And then we filled the garage. It'd be like 12 moms in my garage with their mats next to the camping gear and the extra gas can and the toolbox and my treadmill. And then I would teach them yoga.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (14:18.358)
And I did that for a year before I actually was officially done with my teacher training. I started doing that before I even started my teacher training and was such a gift. Now I stepped into my teacher training with Rocky Heron and love him. I love him still. He does not teach a lot of yoga now. He's an adult content creator, an amazing human. He is the one who directed me towards human design, which we'll get into later in the series as well.

It continues to be a force of learning and embodiment for me. And I met him one weekend at a workshop with another teacher friend. She's like, hey, Bonnie, I think you really like him come to this weekend workshop with me in Portland. And I really hadn't spent a lot of time in Portland there because I kind of live outside of the Portland city center and the burbs a little bit. And so I went into the city for this weekend. She actually only ended up being able to go to one class out of the three or four he was going to offer. The room was packed.

And he is such like such a stellar teacher that I am different than like such a different presence in a room. He's a tall, beautiful human and so skillful and so attentive and

I want to say the word slow. He was slow enough so that you could actually learn it and you could ask questions. There wasn't a rush to anything. And when I think about teachers who are excellent, there's a part of them sometimes that is slower.

And to drive that home, think about when you get anxious. Think about when you feel overwhelmed and start talking really fast and you don't know what to say. you're not sure if you should go here or there and this person needs this and this person needs that.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (16:17.134)
And it starts feel overwhelming. And the same thing can come into the yoga room. If you're like, okay, inhale, your hands up over here. Exhale, turn your right. No, I mean, left, no elbow. mean, there can be this sense of anxiety that we actually lead the class into as teachers. And so it's not slow for slow sake or slow because a teacher might be have a softer, slower voice, but slow as almost an intentional leadership.

sort of presence in the room and awareness of self and how to meet students. That's the type of slow I'm talking about. And I just, you know, already I was like, okay, this person is somebody I want to learn from. I didn't know very much about him, but I spent the weekend learning with him and felt changed. And I instantly, you know, I'm like, I'm following him on Instagram. I connected with, I totally did, you know, let's all be real.

we find somebody on Instagram, we're like, okay, who do they know? What circles are they running in? Especially during that time that was in 2016, right? So then I was looking at this probably beginning of 2016 and I looked at who some of his friends were and then I have made friends because of those friends that have changed my life as well.

And so to find out who are like, who's the community around you? Who are the cool people around you that you can reach out to that just takes a little bit of effort actually to lean in with. Cause there's a lot of community available within yoga. And that's part of the reason why I loved it when I found it. So.

I was paying attention to Rocky and when he was going to come back and teach because he was no longer living in Portland. And he's like, and they had said during the workshop that, that maybe he would do a teacher training. So to stay tuned. And I remember sending emails and I'm like, okay, are you doing a teacher training? Okay. All of this to be said, he eventually did teacher training back here and love the setup of it. And in my kind of thought process around a teacher training that I will host, I'm figuring out what

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (18:29.612)
the timeline will be of that as well. But he did seven days on in October, seven days on in December and seven days on in January. So we were together for full three weeks, spread over the time together. And that was great. I actually really liked that model versus just every weekend for months on end. And what I did not expect is that it was a Hata teacher training.

And I didn't know enough at that point, even now. And so I want to share this because you could take classes with somebody and you feel deeply resonant with them. And then what they teach is different than maybe what your experience of classes with them was. That might very much happen. And that's what happened to me. And I am grateful for it. Was I lost in the middle of it? Yeah.

And afterwards was like, what the hell do I do with this now? Yes. And it has given me the framework to do what I am doing now because as Rocky said during the training, all right, Ahad's a practice, it's an Iyengar based practice. His, like his mentor who created the practice that he was kind of sharing as a trainer of that type.

Stems also from Anasara yoga, which no longer exists, but there's a whole bunch of people in lineage of yoga trainers and practitioners that come from that. there's, it's the Mazay method with Noah Mazay. That's who created what Rocky was sharing. And as Rocky said during it, you know, we learned this series of postures and their held postures and it's a posture practice. And I love a flow practice.

And I loved a flow practice before I went there. And so then it was a posture practice and I learned how to cue poses really well. And you're holding a pose for like two minutes long each. And if you do the entire extended series that we learned, then it's gonna take like an hour and 45 minutes. It has a whole feeling to it that can feel really great. And I ended that though, was like, wait, how do I do this with flow? And as Rocky said during it, this is learning the scales.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (20:51.99)
And him as a musician and, you know, as somebody who's practiced things, where you learn from the ground up, I play the piano. I get it. I understand the language of music enough where you can't, I can't sit down at the piano and play something from sheet music with a whole bunch of notes all over the page without learning what the names of the keys even are and where my fingers go on the piano keys.

And so it was a training that really gave me that and I'm really grateful for it. And it's also not the training that I thought I was going to get.

So we can only do so much in our preparation to step into then our teacher training. So when you think about preparing for your teacher training, do it with an open mind. Do it with an understanding that you're going to receive things that you don't even realize that you need and to remember that it is just the beginning. Because I am.

at a very different place than I was when I first took it. When I first took that training with Rocky, I am still immensely grateful for him and still consider him a great friend. And I was able to grow from that experience and with that experience. And there's things that I do that are very much exactly because of what I learned from Rocky and his excellent teaching. I am glad I chose that. I would choose to do it again.

I think Rocky was exactly the person that I was supposed to learn from. like the things that he taught are continued to be some of the things that I teach in flow school because the roots of teaching a post-practice are needed in order to teach a flow of practice. And I teach this balance between the two. You teach a post-practice and you teach a flow practice within the same class. So it is a combination. And the way you do that.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (22:54.542)
is very much translatable between the two, while the two are also a very different type of practice. So prepare by knowing your teacher. Who is it? What's the sound of their voice? Have you experienced them? Do that if possible. And then know that it's not gonna be the end. And when you're walking into the room, I think there was almost like a fear of, my gosh, what if I don't pass the 200 hour training?

I think there's a couple different training programs out there that have different requirements for quote unquote passing and receiving your certification. But for the most part, I don't ever hear of somebody not passing their certification, but I think there's, it feels like a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure to perform, but you're really stepping into public speaking. You're stepping into being seen. You're stepping into learning a whole new language. So there's a lot of new pressures on you. So step into it playfully, but also with like,

It's like this funny realm of both being something really serious because it can change your life and also people come to class for an hour a day. It's like literally just an hour. And so it's like kind of like not very much at the same time. And I think like a lot of experiences if you zoom out, like zoom out of your life.

and how much time of your life is gonna be in this 200 hour YTT. In reality, it's not gonna be very much. And if you zoom way out and you're up in space looking down on earth, like you are such a small little human. And I think of this all time, like I am so small. I am so small. And yet I deeply believe in the power of one. So again, we're gonna play with this balance of something being both important

and also something being not important, like tomorrow we're gonna fucking die. So do something good with your life. Like do something that lights you the fuck up. That's important. And also like be soft with it. This is very much some principles of yoga, of effort and ease, of form and of flow. It's both. So approach the learning process like that because you're gonna be learning forever because

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (25:20.75)
Teaching is a practice. It's a practice. You're always gonna be improving upon what you're doing. And you're always going to be a learner because of that. If you approach it that way. Like, I don't know all the things. I'm okay not knowing all the things. That'd be boring. That'd be so boring. When you go into your teacher training though, okay? So you've signed up for one. You know who you're gonna sign up with.

I know people who just search a place. like, I want to go to Bali and do a teacher training. And you're just like, okay, here's a teacher training that works for my dates. That's an option. Totally. That's an option. There's teacher trainings that are only offered online now. You could just do an online teacher training. That's an option. You could do a teacher training that's like both this hybrid of online and in person. Maybe it's online and it's in person. You're headed to Greece. Okay, cool.

Then there's teacher trainings that are at your local studio that you're going every weekend and Wednesdays and you're doing that for four months. Great. Or there's some that are spread across a year. Okay, cool. There's a lot of different formats out there. So it kind of depends on what you're interested in, who you're interested in, the resources that you have, meaning time, presence, money, attention, family life, right? So there's going to be some things to consider in those, in all of that.

So pay attention to all of those things. Know that you have options. And then as you prepare for it, sure, there's gonna be maybe specific things if you're local versus if you have to travel, right? Those are gonna be different things you have to pay attention to. But I would prepare, if I were to go back now, I prepared by taking a whole lot of different classes from different teachers and just experiencing their different styles.

It's a reminder when you do that. I know sometimes we find a teacher in a class time, we're like, this is it. And that's good. And also it's really important, I think, to take other people's classes to realize that there's more than one way to do a thing. It gives you some context to speak to things and to ask questions as well. There are some things that I go to some teacher friends class and I'm like, that was so excellently done. Like the way they queued that thing.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (27:38.848)
or a posture that I have totally forgot about from it. I remember once I went to somebody's class and they did triangle pose. And I had the aha where I realized I hadn't done triangle pose for a hot minute. I was like, yeah, that's right, triangle pose. Right? So it's fun to go to those classes. And I think it's an important thing because it gives you more language from different people. And that can be really valuable as you step into the learning room. And then,

you know, usually you'll get a manual of something to read or have your reading materials. For reading materials, especially if it's a book, you can listen to that book while you do dishes. You don't have to just read it with your eyeballs. So let yourself embrace the learning style that you have as well. And the time that you have, I know I had little kids at the time. And so when I was in my teacher training, you know, it was a different experience then.

as I was doing it, we'll get into in being into teacher training in a little bit here in another episode. So those are just the preparation for it. If you have reading materials, great. But like truly, when I think of preparation for just stepping into a learning space, I'll tell you what I tell my people when they come to flow school. Like, what should I do? I'm like, just bring you, just bring you. If this is something that's calling you.

you have nothing to prepare for, you have everything you need. Because the people who are coming to me, for the most part, every once in a while people come who are not yet certified or have taken a teacher training but haven't started teaching and I'm like, great, come, come to the room. It's enough. Like you're already enough. And when you step into the teacher training, there's nothing you have to come knowing how to do the whole point of the training.

is for you to learn how to do and to have it be a positive learning experience that makes you want to expand. Like I sure hope you pick a space and people that feel expansive to you. And your preparation for that is just knowing that you have a particular voice and gifts to give. And sometimes when you learn something new, it feels like you know nothing.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (30:03.392)
And so remember that you do know some things, but you're learning a whole new language. You're learning something else that you have not done yet and you're not supposed to be good at it because it's new. So go softly and you're ready and take other people's classes and be stoked about it and be serious about it because it's serious too. You're moving people and their bodies and they're watching you like it's going to happen. Yeah.

Okay loves, I am stoked for you. I am stoked for your journey. There is nothing like being a teacher because people truly mirror you back to you. And if you think of looking in the mirror and you were to do warrior two, then you look in the mirror and you see you doing warrior two, are you doing warrior two, right? Like it's a mirror experience. So you'll be standing there and you'll be doing warrior two there, warrior twoing. And how you're guiding them.

they're moving or they're like looking at you with the side eye of like, wait, what? And so you're going to see yourself in them, but it's like a physical seeing, but then you are going to have this deep experience of self study because you're being willing to step into this experience of practicing teaching. This, doesn't matter if you actually end up teaching or not.

Stepping into a teacher training room is going to be an experience that opens you up to other parts of yourself. Because you can't step into learning something new and not have that be an experience, especially learning something new where you have to then speak to it, ask questions about it, be in community with it. That's beautiful. Truly, that's beautiful. It's part of the reason of why it's such a transformative

time, the teacher training is because you open up to you. Yoga being this practice of paying attention to really this practice that helps you build a seat inside yourself that helps you find your home inside yourself. If you're going to teach that, this is part of the experience that you're also going to be going through. So show up stoked, show up serious, show up hopefully knowing the teacher.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (32:30.126)
and know that it's just the beginning. If you have any questions along this topic of choosing a YTT or preparing for it that you're like, wait, what about this? Or wait, you never said this, or I want more about this. Reach out to me. You can send me an email, hello, bonnieweeks.com or message me on the gram. I'm here. And then share this with your friends. Look forward to more episodes of the new teacher series and I'll talk to you soon.