300 hours Teacher Training is just unlearning 🙃

I was having a conversation with somebody recently, and they joked that on the advanced training they're going to spend 300 hours unlearning what they learned over 200 hours 🤯. It was lighthearted, and I fake laughed a little bit, but she did make a serious point. But that doesn't mean the 200 hours before didn't have merit or value. They absolutely do.

I gave the metaphor of a caterpillar 🐛 that grows and then eventually lets go and becomes a butterfly 🦋. Inside the chrysalis, most of it really does break down, but not all of it. Studies on moths suggest the adult can still remember things it learned as a caterpillar (I do love a caterpillar btw). Or a snake 🐍, which spends its life growing, surviving and learning, and every time it outgrows its skin, it sheds it. Not because the old skin was wrong, but because the snake got bigger. So everything serves a purpose, up to the point where you're comfortable and confident enough to let go and return to a certain simplicity

The 300-hour training makes you a 500-hour teacher, but there is a process. There is growth, but there's also a rebirth in your understanding of everything. There will be times when you feel overwhelmed (Laura, Paul and I will be there for those), but at the same time you will see the simplicity of what you're doing, what you're teaching, how you see yoga and, ultimately, what yoga really is. Away from westernised yoga magazine perpspectives.

In a way, your 200 hours are like your favourite yoga pose (or teacher or sequence). It's the one you go back to when you want to be safe and feel safe, and for good reason, because it is safe. But stay there long enough and, without noticing, you can start building a cage around yourself. Deep down, the mind knows it needs to step into the unknown. But as per my last weeks email, it just requires a leap of faith.

I tell people that the 300 hour training will completely flip your opinion of yoga on its head. But the more I think about it, are you already seeing Yoga upside down? 🙃

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Namaskar - Eternal Seeker

Zahir Akram

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References 1. Goutham S, Bhargav H, Holla B, Mahadevan J, Nagendra RP, Jasti N, Narasimha VL, Mehta UM, Varambally S, Venkatasubramanian G, Chand P, Gangadhar BN, Hill KP, Keshavan M, Murthy P. Yoga for Opioid Withdrawal and Autonomic Regulation: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online 7 January 2026. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2843424 Free full text (PubMed Central): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12780978/ (Study design, 59 participants, 30 yoga and 29 control, ten 45-minute sessions over 14 days, median recovery of 5 vs 9 days, improvements in heart rate variability, anxiety, sleep and pain.) 2. Powell A. Yoga can help cut severe, initial opioid-withdrawal period in half, study finds. Harvard Gazette, 24 February 2026. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/yoga-can-help-cut-severe-initial-opioid-withdrawal-period-in-half-study-finds/ (Group sessions, the specific practices used, and comments from the Harvard researchers.) 3. Yoga accelerates opioid withdrawal recovery. Healio, 23 January 2026. https://www.healio.com/news/psychiatry/20260123/yoga-accelerates-opioid-withdrawal-recovery (Parasympathetic activity accounting for 23% of the effect.) 4. Jha S. Drug withdrawal takes 9 days, yoga brings it down to 5: NIMHANS study. The South First, 16 February 2026. https://thesouthfirst.com/health/drug-withdrawal-takes-9-days-yoga-brings-it-down-to-5-nimhans-study/ (Stress markers rising briefly during breathing practice, then improving at rest by day 15.) 5. Gratzer D. Reading of the Week: Yoga for Opioid Withdrawal? The New JAMA Psych Paper. 29 January 2026. https://davidgratzer.com/reading-of-the-week/reading-of-the-week-yoga-for-opioid-withdrawal-the-new-jama-psych-paper-also-maois-history-and-ai-associated-psychosis/ (Average age of 25.6, and the study's limitations: small sample and no active control group.)