om yoga teacher training guide
After a decade and a half of study,
I brought together what I learned of
movement work in the temples with whatever
I’d found useful elsewhere into a Yoga
Alliance registered programme for training
teachers. The guiding intention was to
create the training I wish I’d had. I realised
that the greatest teachers share from a
wellspring of creativity. I wanted to help new
teachers tap into that wellspring so that
their teaching could be an ever-developing
lifelong journey. That way neither they nor
their students could ever get bored.Count to Zen
The teacher training programme weaves
together three key principles.1
The first one is physical alignment.
We start from the sitting posture. In
Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind
Beginner’s Mind we find: “Just keeping
the right posture and being concentrated
on sitting is how we express the universal
nature. Then we become Buddha, and we
express Buddha nature.” When we take the
relaxation and balance of physical poise into
the range of human movement possibilities,
fascinating gateways can open.A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE.
MARCI STUCHLIKOVA
“I started yoga as a troubled,
depressed 18 year-old.
As my practice grew over the years,
so did my wish to share the magic
of yoga. I found so many teacher
trainings listed online, but none
really spoke to me. Then I found
the Zenways website and loved its
uniqueness. The approach was open
and creative, designed to develop
and foster your own expression of
yoga and your own unique teaching
voice. The work was underpinned by
meditation and mindfulness, taught
by Daizan, London’s leading Zen
teacher, and presented in a retreat-type setting. I had to sign up. I loved
the total immersion schedule. We were
truly living and breathing yoga. The
learning was integrated into what I
would consider a perfect yogi lifestyle.
As well as the standard yoga stuff, we
did a lot of energy work, spontaneous
yoga and unlocking the self-healing
potential of the body. I really enjoyed
how the teaching points were often
wrapped in ancient teaching stories.
Most of all, what I remember is the
fun and laughter. Now, six years on, I
still keep my course-notes by my bed
on the pile of yoga books and refer to
them often in my own weekly teaching.
I treasure being part of the Zenways
Yoga family.”
Discover more at zenways.org2
We combine this physical alignment
with present-moment, non-judgemental
presence or mindfulness. We say
in Japanese, ima koko, meaning literally
‘now-here’. In this now-here mind there is
utter acceptance of the reality of what is
arising, and in this acceptance, there is,
paradoxically, powerful transformation.3
A key engine of this transformation is
a direct felt sense of the energetics
of the body. Through working with
our vitality we can bring about wellbeing,
emotional balance and non-dual or non-
separative awareness – the direct knowledge
that reality, right now, expresses perfection.When these three principles are brought
together, an innate human creativity is
triggered. Life becomes rich and vivid,
moment-by-moment. Sharing and igniting
this in others is the work of a teacher. Each
teacher’s expression of the three principles,
within the fundamental ethical intention to
first do no harm, becomes absolutely unique
to them and yet can be very successful in
the yoga marketplace where students sense
the freshness and authenticity. We have
Zenways teachers in Japan, USA, Europe and
the UK. For all of us, the journey continues.