Best Yoga Teacher Training Online

Written by Mayuri Shewale, E-RYT 500 (Yoga Alliance), founder of Swaastik Yog School in Rishikesh.

Disclosure: Swaastik Yog School runs both an online and a residential 200-hour course. The checklist below applies to any school.

Online yoga teacher training has become a normal route to teaching. It is also very uneven. At one end are self-paced video libraries with an automatic certificate; at the other are small live classes where a teacher corrects your Downward Dog through your laptop camera and watches you teach. Both may say "200-hour" and "Yoga Alliance". This guide shows you how to tell them apart.

What should you look for in an online yoga teacher training?

Look for live teaching, a small group, named senior teachers and real feedback on your teaching, in that order.

• Live versus recorded hours. Ask how many of the hours are taught live, with a teacher who can see you. Recordings are useful for review, but they cannot correct you.
• Maximum batch size. On a video call, a teacher can genuinely watch a handful of people. In a grid of 40 faces, you are on your own. Ask for the maximum, in writing.
• Who teaches. Get the lead teachers' names and check their Yoga Alliance profiles. E-RYT 500 means a teacher has substantial logged teaching experience.
• Practice teaching with feedback. You should teach your classmates and receive specific, personal feedback, more than once.
• Yoga Alliance registration. Search the school in the Yoga Alliance online directory and confirm it is a Registered Yoga School at the level you want. Here is our Yoga Alliance profile.
• Time zone. Live classes happen at a fixed time somewhere in the world. Work out what that time is where you live before you pay.
• Total cost. Ask what is included: manuals, recordings, certificate, exam fees. Registering with Yoga Alliance as an RYT is a separate step you apply and pay for yourself.

Is an online yoga teacher training as good as one in person?

A well-run live online course can teach you the theory, alignment and teaching skills well, but it cannot replace hands-on adjustments or the immersion of a residential training.

Online suits you if you cannot take a month off, cannot travel to India this year, or want to learn in a very small group. Residential suits you if you want to step out of daily life, practise several hours a day with a group, and experience Rishikesh. Neither is "better" for everyone. If you can do the residential course, most students find it more transformative; if you cannot, a live online course is a real alternative, not a second-rate one.

How does the Swaastik online yoga teacher training work?

Our online TTC is a live, semi-private 200-hour programme on Zoom, with a maximum of 4 students per batch, for $400.

• Teachers: the same E-RYT 500 teachers who teach in Rishikesh. Mayuri Shewale, our founder and lead teacher, has more than 15 years of teaching; co-founder Rahul Badoni leads philosophy.
• Daily rhythm: pranayama and meditation from 6:30 to 7:30 AM India time (IST), then alignment-focused asana from 8:00 to 9:30 AM IST, live.
• Curriculum: pranayama (including Nadi Shodhana, Kapalbhati and Bhastrika), Hatha and Vinyasa sequences, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and the eight limbs, Bhagavad Gita essentials, anatomy and physiology, injury prevention and contraindications.
• Teaching skills: class planning and sequencing, verbal cueing and demonstration, managing an online class, practice teaching, assessment and feedback, and personal mentoring.
• Recordings: sessions are recorded and available for review for 3 months after the course.
• Batches: each batch runs for one calendar month, from the 1st to the last day of the month.

What does 6:30 AM in India mean where you live?

India time is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of UTC and does not change for daylight saving, so a 6:30 AM IST start falls at 01:00 UTC.

In practice that is the previous evening in the Americas (around 8 PM in New York and 5 PM in Los Angeles during their winter), around lunchtime in eastern Australia, and the middle of the night in the UK and Europe. If live mornings in India do not fit your day, talk to us before you book about how the recordings and practice-teaching sessions would work for you. We would rather you know in advance than struggle through a month of 1 AM alarms.

Honest trade-offs of training online

• Discipline is on you. Nobody walks you to the shala. You need a protected space and protected time every day.
• No hands-on assists. You learn to adjust students with words and demonstration. If you want to learn hands-on assists, add an in-person course later.
• Screens tire you. Long philosophy and anatomy sessions on a laptop are harder than in a room. Short breaks help.
• Internet matters. An unstable connection means missed corrections. Test it before the course starts.

Next step

If live, small-group online training fits your life, see the next month's batch and book on our Online Yoga Teacher Training page. If you can travel, compare it with our residential 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Rishikesh, which starts on the 5th and 15th of every month.