Yoga teacher training in India

Choosing a teacher training in India

Two places account for most of what runs, and they are not interchangeable. Rishikesh, in the Himalayan foothills, is where the large multi-style schools cluster, and it is where you go for a general 200-hour certificate that draws on hatha, vinyasa and ashtanga together. Mysore, in the south, is the home of ashtanga in the Pattabhi Jois lineage, and courses there tend to be smaller, longer and aimed at people already committed to one method.

The 200-hour course is the entry qualification and assumes no teaching experience. A 300-hour course builds on it and expects you to hold a 200 already; a 500-hour programme is the two run together across roughly eight weeks. Yoga Alliance registration is the usual standard schools quote, and it is worth confirming directly with the school rather than taking a badge on a website at face value.

Season shapes the calendar more than most people expect. September to April is the comfortable window across the north, October to March is the busiest, and courses fill earliest then. May and June are severely hot. The monsoon from July to mid-September brings heavy rain, quieter cohorts and lower prices. The south runs on a different pattern, with the heaviest rain arriving later.

Prices on this page are the figures each school advertises on its own course page, read again every time the page loads. Where a school quotes several rates for one course, usually a shared room and a private one, the figure shown is the lowest you could actually pay.