A 200hour Yoga Teacher Training Regret 😵‍💫

Jul 28
3 min read

"Dave" did his 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training in Bali ☀️. Spent £4.5k, came back with a decent enough tan, plus a tattoo he got with the group (that he still finds funny tbf), and a certificate from a guru called Raj 👳🏾‍♂️ he never once saw practise 👳🏾‍♂️

What he didn't get was any idea how to actually build or even teach a class. He knew his bandhas, he could say the Triangle pose in Sanskrit (very badly), he'd even joined a Bhagavad Gita book club the teacher recommended 🧐. But he soon realised that none of that helps you at 8pm on a Tuesday night when you're trying to work out what on earth to say or do to a room full of random people who've just walked in to class 🫨

He lives in Bethnal Green, so his rooms are a church hall of grandparents one night, a restless and demanding David Lloyd crowd wanting a "workout" the next night, then a hot yoga class that has zero interest in the actual yoga. Nobody in Bali mentioned that part. He was handed one sequence template and left to work the rest out himself, which mostly meant winging it and hoping nobody got hurt.

So feeling lost "he" reached out to me and asked if he could do our 200 hour teacher training here at Akram Yoga. I said of course. He asked if I related to his pain? I said not specifically to yoga - but yes. I have done my fair share of bad courses in my life time. It happens to us all. He then asked if I related to having dodgy tattoos. I said I had no idea what he was talking about 🫣

So he joined our training (a few years ago) and didn't tell anyone he'd already "qualified" once, because he didn't feel qualified, he felt like a fraud with a dodgy NWA tattoo. I mean honestly, a gangster rap tattoo? What sort of jabroni gets one of those? 😵‍💫🫣😤🤦🏾‍♂️ (I know I know, gimme a break i was a teenager 😭).

So two years on and he's teaching 4-5 classes a week alongside his day job, and for the first time he actually knows what he's doing rather than performing it and hoping. He feels confident in his ability to actually teach, lead and instruct.

Here's the thing though. Dave's initial problem wasn't that he'd trained abroad. It's that he'd been handed a template and left to work out the rest himself, and that happens whether it's your first training or your second. Most trainings (from the feedback I have had since 2013) teach you the poses and some philosophy and assume the actual teaching bit will sort itself out. But it doesn't if you have no previous background in teaching or instructing.

Whether you've never stood at the front of a room or you've already got a certificate gathering dust, the question's the same: has anyone actually taught you how to adapt a class to the people actually in front of you, or have you just been handed a template and told to get on with it?

That's why every one of our yoga teacher trainings now includes our full teaching, structuring and sequencing course, which you can work through before, during or after your training (its free when you sign up). It walks you through the actual craft of building a class, whether that's a faster flow, a slower hatha style like mine, or a hybrid depending on who's in the room. I run it, but Laura and Emma both feature in the online course too, so you're not just getting my way of doing things, you're getting a proper rounded view of what teaching actually looks like beyond performing a sequence well.

Our October 2026 cohort is filling (2 spaces left as of writing this email), and once it's full that's it until next year. If you have been thinking about it, the right time will never come. Trust me. Get in touch today.

[Click here to see the October dates and grab your spot]

Namaskar 🫶🏽

Zahir

Btw, Public Enemy (of whom I have a tattoo) are actually "conscious rap" and not gangster rap. Er, just saying 😁🤦🏾‍♂️

Sign up to our Newsletter so you never miss out. I send 3x emails a week.