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300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training in Surrey
Yoga teachers, step into a deeper yoga you didn’t know existed and change the way you practise and teach forever.
A 300 hour advanced training for qualified teachers who know, deep down, that their 200 hour training was only the first step. Twelve people, three teachers who will still know your name next October, and students who will feel the difference in every class you teach.
In person, not online · 300 hours · Ten weekends · Starts 30 January 2027 · Twelve places · Addlestone, Surrey, two minutes from the station · From £3,000 · Yoga Alliance Professionals accredited
Driven by Science
Guided by Tradition
Why I built this training
by Zahir Akram
In my years of teaching, I realised that the standard training most yoga teachers receive is completely inadequate for the level of responsibility we carry. Every single day, vulnerable people walk through our studio doors, trusting us with their bodies (and minds).
A 200-hour course gets your foot in the door, but it doesn't give you deep knowledge, that only comes with further study and active seeking. That’s why my wife Laura and I put this training together. We wanted to give teachers a space to build real knowledge and unshakeable confidence, so you can safely and effectively teach any student, regardless of their background, ability, or injuries. And just as importantly, to give you the practical skills to build a sustainable career beyond just grinding out classes and workshops.
For the past 25 years I have studied everything from Osteopathy to Philosophy, from the story of a single cell through to the stories of the 1st Yogi Shiva. My pursuit for an understanding of Yoga beyond conventional yoga magazine "wisdom" has been relentless.
You don't come to this advanced training because you're an "advanced yogi" You come so we can dig deeper into all of it together. You come to advance your understanding of ALL things Yoga: the poses, the science, the history, and the tradition.
A few questions to ask yourself honestly. With no judgment...
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Do your cues and instructions make actual anatomical sense? Or are they just memorised scripts?
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Can you safely modify for injuries - specifically back pain? Are you sure those general yoga magazine modifications are actually backed by science?
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When someone asks, "Why can't I touch my toes?" Is your answer grounded in your own core understanding of the nervous system and body, or are you just repeating what you’ve read?
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Who actually originated Yoga? What is the true story and history behind it - one that isn't a Western invention?
These are just the tip of the iceberg.
If any of those questions made you pause, it doesn't mean you're a bad teacher at all. It just means your 200-hour did its job as a starting line, and now you're ready for the actual answers.
My wife Laura and I designed this so you never have to guess your way through a student's injury or hold your breath when someone asks a hard question. You’ll walk away with real confidence, clarity, authority, and a practice you know is built on Science and Tradition.
My passion is simplifying the Science & the Traditions so anyone of any background can really understand it.
What You Are Actually Signing Up For
Three hundred hours across ten weekends between January and October 2027, at our yoga studio in Addlestone. Twelve people, three teachers, and the same twelve people the whole way through, so that by the summer we all know exactly how each other teach.
Saturdays and Sundays, 8.30am to 3pm. That's 130 hours in the room with us, of which roughly 50% are practice labs where you teach and get corrected rather than sit and listen. The remaining 170 are the online platform, the reading, your reflections log and the classes you practise in, which is what the free studio membership is actually for.
The training is fully Yoga Alliance Professionals (Yoga Pros) accredited. Combining this training with your existing 200 hours this qualifies you at 500 hour level.
Below are all ten weekends ↓. Check them against your diary before you read any further, because ten months is a real commitment and it's better to find out now.
Weekend 1 Sat 30 & Sun 31 January 2027
Weekend 2 Sat 20 & Sun 21 February
Weekend 3 Sat 13 & Sun 14 March
Weekend 4 Sat 10 & Sun 11 April
Weekend 5 Sat 8 & Sun 9 May
No weekend in August, so the summer holidays stay yours. Miss one and there's catch-up material online plus a reflections log. Life happens. You catch up in your own time and nobody makes a fuss about it.
Weekend 6 Sat 12 & Sun 13 June
Weekend 7 Sat 3 & Sun 4 July
Weekend 8 Sat 17 & Sun 18 July
Weekend 9 Sat 11 & Sun 12 September
Weekend 10 Sat 2 & Sun 3 October
Why This Training Is So Different -
This training won’t spend 300 hours reaffirming everything you already believe. We’ll question familiar cues, reconsider ideas that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and explore yoga through anatomy, breathing, tradition, philosophy and the experience of teaching real people.
That questioning approach runs all the way through the teaching. Our anatomy is taught by Zahir, an exercise physiologist, taking you beyond memorising muscles to explore why bodies move differently, why a familiar cue won’t work for everyone, and how to make better decisions for the person in front of you.
There is no dogma to adopt or single teaching style to follow. The aim is to deepen your understanding, strengthen your judgement and help you develop a way of teaching that is your own.
Zahir's Philosophy ↓
Advancing as a yoga teacher is all about staying open: open to new ideas, different interpretations and deeper self-understanding. This course doesn’t impose a rigid, one-size-fits-all way of doing things. After all, that would be the most un-yogic way to learn! It asks us to be willing to explore, with a clear mind and an open heart.
Knowledge is borrowed. It flows from one teacher to another, whether that’s anatomy, sequencing or how to market yourself and build an income. But wisdom is different. Wisdom comes from within, from your own understanding of a concept and how it aligns with who you are. My goal is to help you develop this kind of wisdom, so your teaching, and your business, reflects you.
My own studies have taken me from anatomy to philosophy, from exploring the human body to the yogis who remind us that we are not the body at all. That journey has carried me from my parents’ birthplace in Kashmir, through the bustling streets of Calcutta, to the quiet, expansive landscapes of Nepal.
I’ve studied anatomy and movement for over 25 years, working as a personal trainer, yoga teacher and exercise physiologist. What drives my work is translating complicated science into something practical and usable, exploring anatomy through movement rather than memorisation.
My aim is simple: to help you develop deeper understanding, clarity and confidence in your own teaching, while giving you the freedom to question, explore and find your own way.
Namaskar,
ZAHIR AKRAM
By October You'll Be Able To....
Build the confidence to teach students with back pain and injuries.
Modules 5 and 6 help you move beyond generic modifications and understand why an approach can help one student but aggravate another. You’ll develop the knowledge to adapt your teaching, explain your choices and recognise when a student needs support beyond a yoga class.
Teach with confidence built through experience.
In our practice time, you’ll teach in front of the group, receive specific feedback and put it into practice. With guidance throughout the training, you’ll recognise what you do well, work on what needs improving and see the difference in your own teaching.
What will you discover in the 300 hours?
From illness and injuries to why zebras don't get ulcers, from the science of breathing through to the lesser-known origin stories of yoga.
Click the image below to explore the full Advanced syllabus ↓
The Module Nobody Else Runs
Build Your Online Yoga Business
Earning from what you love is part of the training too.
Most 300H teacher trainings show you how to teach better. We also show you how to turn your knowledge, interests and experience into something you can actually build a business around.
In this module, we look at your unique skill set and how that could become an online course, workshop, specialist programme or digital offer. You’ll learn how to shape it, price it, create the page and market it to the people it is for.
Because teaching more classes should not be the only way to earn more as a yoga teacher.
I will help you → find your niche → Build your offer → Price it → Market it → and finally how to sell it.
Ask yourself a single honest question -
DO YOUR CUES & INSTRUCTIONS MAKE ANATOMICAL SENSE?
Fifteen Hundred Pages. Three Hardback Manuals.
When you sign up you get three manuals, around five hundred pages each, in hardback and PDF, yours to keep: Anatomy for Yoga Teachers, Advanced Teaching, and The Essential 84 Poses.
I wrote them because I couldn’t find the books I wanted to hand you.
Graduates tell me they’re still using them three years later, which is either a compliment or a sign that nobody else has written anything decent yet.
The Three Of Us
Over the 10 months you will have the same three teachers, from the first weekend to the last.
You’re not passed between a long list of guest lecturers. We get to know how you practise, how you teach, where you’re confident and where you need more support.
Laura Akram
NERVOUS SYSTEM & THERAPEUTICS
Qualified Yoga Therapist. Laura teaches the nervous system material and its therapeutic application, the part you’ll reach for when a student tells you something complicated after class. Her focus is helping you understand what is actually happening beneath the surface of stress, pain and regulation, and how to use that knowledge without stepping outside your role as a yoga teacher. She knows considerably more about it than I do, which I’ve made my peace with.
Paul Allen
PRACTICE LABS & ADVANCED ASANA
Over twenty years teaching across Ashtanga, Iyengar, Jivamukti, Baptiste and Yin. Paul runs the in-person practice labs and helps you understand not just how a pose looks, but why it works, where it breaks down and how to adapt it for different bodies.
The labs are where you find out whether you actually understood the morning or just nodded along to it.
Zahir Akram
ANATOMY, BIOMECHANICS, PHILOSOPHY & BUSINESS
Exercise physiologist. Twenty-five years teaching and running teacher training since 2013. Zahir leads the anatomy, biomechanics, philosophy and business modules, with a particular interest in taking subjects that have been made unnecessarily complicated and making them useful in teaching yoga. Three manuals, one book and OM Yoga Teacher of the Year 2024, which I’m reliably informed I’m allowed to mention twice on my own website. Akram Yoga was also Om Yoga studio of the year 2024.
Hear from our Graduates
Sally. Former GP, Yoga Teacher of 15 years one of my 300-Hour Graduates
When Sally joined the training, she was relying almost entirely on teaching classes for her income and was starting to feel burnt out by it. Why did she give up her G.P practice she thought? From one stress to another.
But during the course, she became clearer about where her strengths were, more confident in the value of her own knowledge, and started thinking beyond the weekly timetable.
We helped her find her niche, built a digital product around it, and created a new income stream that now earns more than her class teaching.
Before: Her income depended entirely on teaching more and more classes.
After: She now has a clearer niche, greater confidence in her expertise, and a digital product earning more than her classes.
She stopped assuming the only thing she had to sell was another hour of her time.
"Zahir has uncomplicated the science of Breathing and now I finally understand how to explain it".
- Agi ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"I finally have the confidence to share complicated science (and tradition) with my own students thanks to Zahir". - Maria ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"I have done my 200hr, YIN and 300hr training with Zahir and I would 100% do another one".
- Emma ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Don't hesitate to train with Zahir. If you are thinking about it, don't over think. Just do it 🫶🏽"
- Erin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This training is for you if:
And it’s probably NOT for you if:
You’re already qualified, but you know there is still a lot you don’t fully understand.
You want to know why something works, not just repeat the cue you were taught.
You haven’t completed a 200-hour teacher training yet.
This course starts where that one finishes.
You want to become better at working with the person in front of you.
Different bodies, injuries, pain, different abilities. Real people do not always fit what the textbook said they should.
You want one fixed version of yoga and one right way to teach it.
We are going to question things. Including some of the things you already believe.
You’re ready to take your teaching further.
That might mean becoming more confident, finding your niche, earning more from what you know or building something beyond weekly classes.
You want the qualification without really getting involved.
There is no final teaching exam, but there is study, coursework, discussion and practice throughout the year.
You’ve stepped away from teaching and want to come back properly.
Not just with another certificate, but with a much deeper understanding of what you are doing and why.
In-house and in-person, taught directly by our expert faculty. We deliberately cap each cohort at 12 trainees so you get real, individual attention.
The Questions People Actually Ask
Is it really 300 hours if I’m only there for ten weekends?
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Yes. 130 hours are spent in the room with us. The rest comes from the online training, reading, your reflection work and your own practice throughout the ten months.
That is also why your studio membership is included for the duration of the course. It isn’t a little freebie we’ve thrown in. Your practice forms part of the training.
I’d rather explain that properly now than have you sit there doing the maths and wondering where the other hours went.
How much work is there between weekends?
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There is work, but you shouldn’t feel as though you’ve gone back to university.
There are short quizzes, a reflection log, some written work and your own practice across the ten months.
There is no final teaching assessment. You’re already a qualified teacher and I’m not going to make you prove that twice.
Can I carry on teaching while I do the course?
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Absolutely. In many ways that makes the training more useful because you can take what we discuss at the weekend and immediately start noticing it in your own classes.
You’ll probably also start questioning a few things you’ve been saying for years. That’s part of it.
Do I need to be able to do advanced yoga poses?
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No. Advanced refers to how deeply we study yoga, not how impressive your handstand is.
Nobody is going to ask you to demonstrate something your body cannot do. And if it helps, there are a few poses on the syllabus I can’t do either.
Will any of this feel too basic if I’ve been teaching for years?
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Some of the subjects will be familiar. They should be. The difference is that we stop taking familiar things for granted and start looking at them properly.
You may have taught downward dog thousands of times. That does not mean there is nothing left to understand about shoulders, wrists, load, proportion, pain, cueing or why the same instruction works brilliantly for one person and terribly for another.
Advanced study does not always mean learning something exotic. Sometimes it means finally understanding something you thought you already knew.
What happens if I miss a weekend?
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Life happens.
You need to attend at least 90% of the in-person training, but a lot of the supporting material is also available through the online platform, so there are ways of catching up.
If you know in advance that you’re likely to miss several weekends, tell me before you enrol. I’d rather work that out with you beforehand than pretend attendance doesn’t matter.
What are the dates and hours?
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There are ten training weekends across the year, with no weekend in August.
Both Saturday and Sunday run from 8.30am to 3pm.
All ten dates are listed higher up this page so you can check the whole year before applying.
Who else will be in the room?
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A mixture.
Some teachers will have been teaching for years. Some will have qualified relatively recently. Some will have taken time away and are coming back to it.
People also arrive from different styles of yoga and with very different interests.
You are not expected to walk in as the most experienced teacher in the room. That would rather defeat the point of coming to learn.
What if my circumstances change and I have to pull out?
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Course fees aren’t refundable, and I’d rather say that plainly than hide it somewhere in the terms.
Where circumstances genuinely change, we have previously been able to move people onto a later cohort rather than have them lose their training altogether.
If there is anything about the ten-month commitment that worries you, bring it up on the call before you pay. That is exactly what the call is for.
I’m travelling to the studio. How easy is it to get there?
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We’re at 157 Station Road, Addlestone, around two minutes' walk from Addlestone station.
People have travelled a surprisingly long way for our teacher trainings, so you certainly won’t be the first person coming from outside Surrey. We have had cohorts come all the way from Sweden!
Free Parking also on a first come first serve basis.
What happens when the course finishes?
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You keep lifetime access to the online training and the material you’ve built up throughout the course.
And ten months is a long time to spend learning alongside the same small group of people. In reality, the relationships tend not to disappear simply because the final weekend has finished.
Can I speak to you before I decide?
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Yes. In fact, I’d prefer that if you have questions.
Fill in the short application and book a call. We can talk through what you want from the training, where you are now and anything you’re unsure about.
The call isn’t there so I can pressure you into joining. It’s there to work out whether spending the next ten months with us actually makes sense.
What It Costs
£3,000 if you pay in full before 31st October. £3,400 after that, or £3,400 spread across a deposit and monthly payments.
That includes the full 300-hour training, all three hardback manuals, access to the online platform and studio membership throughout the course.
I could put an inflated value beside every part of that and give you a huge number to compare against the price.
I’m not going to. You can see what’s included and decide for yourself whether it’s worth it.
1. Hardback Yoga Anatomy Manual
2. ADVANCED TT Course Manual
3. The Essential 84 poses manual
EARLY BIRD
£3,000.00
Paid in full before OCTOBER 31st 2026. Save £400.
Instant access to the online platform from today.
FULL PRICE
£3,400.00
Paid in full after the early-bird places have gone.
Klarna available.
Everything included.
Flexible Option
ADVANCED TT - PAYMENT PLAN
290
Every month
+£500 Deposit
£500 deposit plus your first payment of £290 today, then nine more monthly payments of £290. £3,400 in total, the same as the full price.
Life happens.
If something genuinely changes and you can no longer complete the training, we have previously moved people onto a later cohort at no extra cost.
Course fees are not refundable, and I’d rather tell you that here than hide it in the small print.
If the ten-month commitment is something you’re worried about, talk to me before you pay.
