Yoga Alliance Accredited YTTC Program

Yoga Teacher Training Course History

“Yoga is a system of integral education, education not only of the body and the mind or the intellect, but also of the inner spirit.“ – Swami Sivananda

History

Swami Vishnudevananda was the first yoga master in the West to develop a training programme for yoga teachers. In 1969, he taught the first Sivananda Yoga Teachers’ Training Course (TTC) in Canada, continuing the training programmes offered by the Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy of the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh, India. Since then, over 43,000 certified yoga teachers have completed the Teachers’ Training Course, with another 1,000 graduates each year according to Sivananda Ashram.

The goal of this training programme is to produce qualified and inspiring yoga teachers who are able to draw on their own practice and personal discipline in imparting the yoga experience to others.

Swami Vishnudevananda retained India’s traditional Gurukula teaching system in which students and teachers live together in an ashram (centre for yoga and meditation). Through the direct contact with experienced teachers, the student’s day-to-day life during the course is transformed into a learning experience. Students advance both physically and mentally and enjoy a comprehensive yoga experience, which they can later transmit to their own students. In efforts to create the most favourable conditions possible, this training is offered as an intensive course in an ashram.

Text extracted from https://ttc.sivananda.eu

Living in an Ashram. What a life-changing experience!

The opportunity to change and evolve is in each one of us. Taking
an intensive course like this outside the environment that we know brings not only formal knowledge, in this case of Yoga, but also a life experience that transforms us completely.

Just as a cell is capable of changing its nucleus according to what its membrane perceives, we also incorporate the world that surrounds us and change our core, our perception of things. That space that is created for the new brings a new vision of things, a renewing and transforming air. In an Ashram the activities are designed with this purpose following the ancient knowledge of Yoga in all its forms. Get up early, cleanse the body, breathe consciously, practice asanas, eat properly, meditation spaces, free time, moments of gratitude and devotion, chanting of mantras, selfless help and cleanliness of the place are some of them. The simplicity of the ashram greatly influences this change. A bed, a window, the bathroom and a small table is our new private space. Each of the objects that we have brought take on a special relevance. It can be a book, a pair of well-wrapped socks that connects us with our everyday life at home. Those few objects that we have brought are the same ones that connect us with the past and also relieves us from the past at the same time. Other objects will come to us to expand our world. A vessel to clean the nose, incense, yoga props … etc. We can see how this new station opens within us, reflected in the objects that we are incorporating. Little by little we change patterns, including new habits and thoughts, then we recognize these new habits as our own and we are able to delve into the different practices to finally, during the weeks that the courses last, take and transform what we will take home. The change in each one is so profound, so mobilizing, that it is the environment that now comforts us. The environment that we felt unknown when we arrived is now our home, the other students and teachers who were strangers are now our friends and Yoga as knowledge is now our new way of life.

Hari Aum