July is a month of yoga teacher training continuing education at One Down Dog. Open to any yoga teachers or teachers in training we have a range of opportunities for you to remain a student. Learn and work alongside fellow teachers to grow your practice and what you have to offer your students.

Hands On Assisting and Seeing w/ Janine Glass

This workshop will cover theory, demonstration, and training of safe and effective hands-on yoga assists
What you get:

• “Seeing” skills training: “seeing” blockages and brightness in bodies.
• Hands-on assisting theory and injury Q&A
• Guidance and coaching in assisting with partners
• Working with injuries and clearing pain

 

 

 

 

 

only 20 spaces available onedowndog.com/workshops

 

Restorative Yoga Teacher Training – Level 1

This is Sam’s second visit with this training. Take level 1 now, she will be back for level 2 again within the next year! Check out the first group of ODDfam that attended.

She will also be offering  a 2 hour Restorative class open to the public and the students who attended the workshop. It will be delicious!

Join the relaxation revolution!

Restorative Yoga is a healing practice that brings the body, mind, and nervous system into balance. Learn to teach Restorative Yoga, guided by Samantha Akers (formerly Joseph) (E-RYT 500) (C-IAYT), creator of the TheraYoga Method. Sam is passionate about the immensely powerful practice of Restorative Yoga, since it has been a major part of her own journey to health. These trainings are for teachers & students who are looking to deepen their knowledge of Restorative Yoga!Teachers receive a certificate of completion once all homework and assisting is completed.Level 1 of this training covers the main poses of Restorative Yoga, how to adapt them for a variety of students, how to use props, how to design a satisfying class, and more. Special attention is given to therapeutic applications of Restorative Yoga, and how the practice can benefit people with special needs, or simply relieve stress. The training also includes discussion of the three Ayurvedic Doshas (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) and how to build a Restorative and breath practice to best suit the needs of all three. You will also learn the basics of a mindful awareness practice to aid those with anxiety and trauma disorders, helping to keep students feeling more grounded, clear and balanced during their experience of Restorative Yoga and beyond. Students will receive a manual and a reading list.

These trainings are designed to prepare current yoga teachers to teach Restorative classes in studios and other environments. These weekends are also open to students simply wanting to deepen their knowledge, and for those in allied professions (massage therapists, those in the mental health care field, etc.) as a vital part of their practice with clients.

The goal is ‘happy kitty face’ here.

COST:
$400 prior to July 1st
$450 after

DATES & TIME:
Friday July 14th 5-8pm
Saturday July 15th 9-5pm 
Sunday July 16th 10-5:30pm 

Samantha is currently under the private direction of her teacher George Haas as well as being a student in his 11 month program, A Meaningful Life. She completed Community Trauma Resiliency training, through the Trauma Resource Institute, in August of 2014. Her Restorative practice has been influenced by her teachers Judith Lasater and Leeann Carey. – Learn more about Sam in her bio under the workshop.

 

Hands-On Savasana Adjustments

7/25 + 2-3:30pm

Did you know we had a massage therapist at One Down Dog? Did you know she’s a yoga teacher!?

Want to give your students that little extra love in Savasana? Need a refresher course or brand new on feeling comfortable palpating and moving areas of the body? Then this workshop is for you! We will…+ Review basic structural anatomy

Where to apply pressure, where not to…+ Simple massage therapy techniques
Help ease muscle tension after an intense practice 

+ Carefree joint mobilizations

Traction and movement to areas of the body without
assistance from student

+ Savasana Sequence
Learn a quick sequence outline that allows you to add your own flavor throughout

COST: $40

 

When I first signed up for yoga teacher training, I was constantly second-guessing myself. I worried about not being “good enough” at yoga. I mean, I couldn’t even do a headstand yet! Who was I to be a yoga teacher? Why would anyone want to take my yoga class if I couldn’t even do a headstand?

Looking back, I realize I was talking to myself in a way that I would never talk to a friend – or anyone, for that matter!

I think a lot of this self-doubt was coming from my desire to find external validation. There’s a lot of stereotypes swirling around in the yoga world these days and I don’t exactly fit the bill for all of them. Arielle recently wrote a great post along these lines. When people found out I was doing yoga teacher training, they’d almost always say “wow you must be really good” or “wow so you can do headstands and stuff?”

This feedback coming in was fueling a fire of doubt.

I was recently reading a blog post I wrote about one of our early training sessions where we all shared our reasons for being there and also any fears/doubts we had. It was very reassuring to hear that everyone else had similar feelings.

I realized that in order to overcome these feelings of self-doubt, I had to stop searching around me for permission to go after what I want and allow myself to follow my heart. I stopped asking myself if I was “good enough” at yoga to become a teacher and looking outside of myself for the definition of “good.” I started asking myself what it was that really drew me to teacher training in the first place.

I didn’t sign up for teacher training to be “good enough.” I didn’t sign up for teacher training to do a headstand. I didn’t sign up for teacher training to fit into size small yoga pants. And I most certainly didn’t sign up for teacher training to impress others.

Yoga is not about any of that to me. Yoga is a constant process of learning about oneself, looking inward and then using that stability of inner peace to be completely present in the world around us. Yoga is about finding comfort in the uncomfortable places, finding balance between effort and ease, finding joy in the everyday.

Signing up for teacher training was my way of inviting all of this into my life. I wanted to learn and explore ideas. I wanted to grow and challenge myself physically and mentally. I wanted to be a part of a community with others who were on a similar journey.

These days, I’m teaching at One Down Dog 4 times a week and I’m still constantly learning and growing. Every class is different and there is something to learn from every experience. I’m so glad that I signed up for the teacher training because I proved to myself that I can face my fears and that those fears aren’t even real. I get to be a part of a super fun community of yogis. And it just so happens, I did learn to do a headstand – and it’s super fun!

See you on the mat!

You can connect with her on Instagram and Twitter. Check out Taylor’s class schedule here.

Have you ever considered becoming a yoga teacher?

Do you want to deepen your yoga practice?

Curious about yoga philosophy, ayurveda, pranayama, etc?

Click here to learn more about the One Down Dog Yoga Teacher Training program.

Come check out one of our Teacher Training Info Sessions every Saturday at 12:30pm at the Silverlake Studio! We’re here to answer all of your questions and chat about what you can expect from the experience.

I’ll never forget the day I was approached at the sunset junction farmers market by a girl handing out fliers for a new yoga studio. It was about 2 years ago; I had just moved back to LA from Santa Barbara. I was looking for a new studio to call home to my yoga practice. Little did I know what was in store for me.

I have been practicing yoga since I was a teenager. But I have never had a strong and consistent practice until I found One Down Dog. I instantly connected with the power vinyasa flow and the message about keeping it real at One Down Dog. I felt like I could just be myself and not try to be some yoga-ized version of me.

When Jessica decided to offer the first teacher training something inside of me said, “do it”! I had toyed with the idea of yoga teacher training before. I had just gone back to school for my BSN so I wasn’t sure how I was going to work full-time, go to school full-time and do yoga teacher training. Even though it seemed impossible and a little crazy, I knew that my mission is to serve others through nursing, yoga and Buddhism. So I listened to my heart and signed up for the training.

I wasn’t sure what exactly would happen after I finished the training. I didn’t see myself teaching classes per se, more like incorporating yoga into nursing somehow. But during teacher training I started to discover that I liked teaching; I found it equally terrifying and exhilarating. The most important thing I learned in teacher training was to find confidence in my own voice and myself. This is still a work in progress for me.

I currently teach two classes a week: 6:30am Flow on Monday and 5:45pm Sweat on Friday. I have learned so much from teaching yoga. Not only have I deepened my own practice, I have also discovered the joy of practicing for others, my students.
It’s really a creative endeavor for me to come up with new flows and playlists every week. My goal for every class is to guide my students on a yoga journey and leave them feeling grounded, centered, and a little more joyful.

I am so grateful to Jessica for being such an amazing teacher and creating an awesome space where we as a community can explore our dreams.

Yoga teacher training was a life changing experience – sounds dramatic, but it’s true!

I tried yoga for the first time in college but didn’t practice regularly until about 4 years ago. I enjoyed yoga because it was a way to de-stress and help ease the pain from working behind a computer all day. It never crossed my mind that I would want to be a yoga teacher until I went to One Down Dog. I met a few teachers and they all loved teaching, I had never “loved” any job!

A few months passed and a teacher mentioned to me that Jessica was going to lead One Down Dog’s first yoga teacher training at the end of the summer. I was working 10+ hour days at the time, miserable in my job, and I thought I would never be able to juggle that kind of commitment with my current day job. Maybe when I got a new job and had better hours I could entertain the idea of signing up. I have friends who have completed yoga teacher trainings at other studios and they always say, “It changed my life!” or “It was the most amazing experience!” I realized I needed a change and it was never going to be the “right” time. I could keep putting it off, or I could sign up and try something new. So I did it!

Before I started teacher training, I felt stuck in my job. I would wake up every day and dread going to work. I had always been a driven person, I always knew what I wanted, but here I was, complacent and clueless about what my next steps would be professionally.

In teacher training, we learned about goal setting, something I had always done, but at this point in my life I wasn’t chasing any career goals. Early on in our training, we were introduced to the Sanskrit word bhavana, meaning yogic contemplation and visioning. We set lofty goals for ourselves and I wrote down what I wanted to be doing for a living and what I dreamed of. A week before training ended, I landed the job I envisioned at the start of training. You could say it was a coincidence but I don’t think so. If it wasn’t for training and my new way of thinking, I never would have scored an interview for the position. Training has also helped me further my practice. I am stronger than I have ever been, inside and out. I would recommend teacher training to anyone who is curious, wants a change or wants a challenge.

The experience is difference for everyone, so what will your experience be?