WELCOME to the Shanti Yoga School Ltd web site, redesigned in September 2007. It is being constantly updated for content as new people wish to communicate their interest in and enjoyment of the courses--this latest is on 13th October  2009.

 This page sets out the outline of what we do and why we do it, what courses are available and how we go about passing on this amazing resource. We could easily call our courses " how to live well and fruitfully in the 21st Century"--because yoga is really an up-to -the-moment process despite conception thousands of years ago. It was THEN an up-to-the-moment discipline even though the era is utterly different. What is truly wondrous , of course, is that human beings are fundamentally NO DIFFERENT --heart , mind and spirit and indeed, BODY are no different despite thousands of years of history. Yoga today is perhaps MORE RELEVANT than ever before.

A new book by Andy Thomas: YOGA - How and Why it Works, is now available to purchase and download as an eBook OR --you may now directly purchase this from Amazon and read the reviews of the book. The ISBN  is  978-1-84549-367-7 and once again the proceeds from the sales will go to the charity .

Within these pages you will find statements about the yoga courses being run. We intend to transmit to you what type of people we are and our attitudes, ethics and ways of going on! This is to enable you to decide if we are your kind of people, before you let us know of your interest in our courses.  We have been transparent and open and frank about ourselves, in the belief that you will be much more likely to do well with our school if you have understood this . It may be that what we write decides that we are not for you-so this will also have served a useful purpose!

The web site, whilst essentially existing to inform you about the courses offered, has evolved over its short life, to be much more than this. So we have taken the old web site and redesigned it completely to incorporate medical pages, case studies, an additional course and additional teacher profiles. .
 

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During the year a few teachers discussed changes for the future and --hey presto--FULL MOVEMENT YOGA was born. This seemed to be an entirely rational development as one person said--why cant we combine the full movement method of therapy with the way we do yoga--so FMY was created. This is in essence what you would be learning if you decide to undertake Course 2 and the fmm training. There are a lot more therapists in training in our sister company--FMTSchool Ltd ., than is the case in the yoga courses. However, the most successful practioners are those who have already acquired the therapy skills and ally them with the yoga teaching skills. Please do speak with us about this.

There will be current student comments posted in the relevant course details before the end of September --with a bit of luck!    

For those looking at this web site in October 2009 or later and considering participating in a course , please note the change of fees for 2010 students--and that at present we have not worked out how to alter the application form which still shows the 2009 costs!! Apologies for this!

Shanti Yoga School has now produced many new teachers and the vast majority have their own classes. We regularly have days of continuing professional development as lots of teachers seek to deepen their knowledge in order better to help their students. It does seem that teaching creates a greater level of enquiry in the minds of the teachers--it seems thay many wish to never stop learning and exploring. We generally believe that the courses attract the sort of person who is a life long learner and certainly we encourage this atmosphere.

Generally it is true for us that the people who join us are " life changers"--those who have discovered that they wish to change direction or strengthen an existing spiritual direction. We do not attract "note takers"--indeed we could be rightly be accused of positively discriminating against those who want to sit and watch but who do not wish to actually get their hands dirty--we mean this in its spiritual context. We DO attract those who see us being right for them in their current phase of life--we are viewed as important facilitators and sometimes cauldrons in which new potions are to be mixed. The words boring and come-day-go-day and ordinary have never been used!

Love life and the process of yoga. A commitment to yoga is like a first parachute jump--an absolute leap of faith and those who succeed just throw themselves out and do not worry about whether the chute will open--we have not seen anyone for whom the chute failed!!!!

 om shanti.

Course Origins

The first course we ran was what we called the Basic Yoga Teacher training course. All those who enrolled for this first course were the “ pioneers” in the school and the pioneers are now amongst the teachers for the school. Most are running their own successful yoga classes.
 In the second year we ran an additional course called the Advanced Remedial Yoga Teacher training course, encapsulating a great deal of special knowledge gained from decades of teaching , especially at the Yoga for Health Foundation in Ickwell Bury—sadly no more. This special knowledge evolved into a systematic approach to dysfunction and disease in the human being, which we passed on in this one year course. In 2007 it became apparent that students wanted  to understand more about how and why things go wrong in the human frame. An additional course has thus been constructed , again incorporating much special unique knowledge from decades of treating patients .

You will find that we have described the courses offered as well as given course content. If you like what you read ,there are two additional elements you may like to consider. You can initially telephone to discuss the courses and you may also attend a current workshop teaching session  to feel the flavour of our teaching. We have found that amongst the student groups this latter  element provides the “ proof positive” . In this session you can talk to the current students who will welcome you to the group and you can participate for the day just as the others do—this will give you the best possible feel for the way we do things. The teachers , witnesses and existing students in the group will happily tell you what they feel about the courses offered. The teachers were all students on one of the courses so you will get the true picture from a “ new hand” rather from an “ old hand” !!

Type of Yoga

We are often asked “ what sort of yoga do you do”? Yoga is a bit like the pathways up a mountain—there are thousands of pathways but no two people put their feet in the same place and no path is necessarily better than another. Broadly, to carry on the analogy, we all want to get to the top of the “ spiritual mountain” so the path we choose is an entirely personal one. We would describe our way as teaching classical Indian yoga, as true to what we believe the original to be as we can get. We ally ourselves closely with Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the precepts of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Yoga has survived in tact for thousands of years so we respect the ancient ways –the original moral purpose of yoga has remained unchanged no matter how many people have applied their own names to the process.

During courses there will be plenty of opportunity to examine your own mind, heart , feelings and discover the fears and obstacles in your life. The courses contain much information but we make it full of life and energy—it is not dull learning  and it is highly participative. Our abiding wish it that you become your true self –and thus you can be enabled to help others to do the same. We feel this to be a key element in our transmission of knowledge—to use it to help you to be just you!

Navigating the Web Site

You can read another couple of pages about us or you can choose right away to discover what  is offered on the  course of your choice . All three courses carry a certificate  at the conclusion, if you pass competently through. If you specifically seek certification then you will be continuously  assessed throughout the year . If we feel that you have fully understood the central theme of the course then certification will follow. Usually, by the second half of the year we have a good idea what help is needed and can then apply this for the second half.

If you click on Select a Course, you will be able to find for each course, the course content and description, the fees, how fees are to be paid, the dates for next year and venue map. An application form can be downloaded and you may accompany your application with a personal hand written letter if you wish, to enable full answers to our questions.

If you are already teaching yoga and wish to participate in Course 3 for example, but are disinterested in certification, you may simply move in and out of the workshops to suit yourself. If you have a strong desire to find out why in your yoga class people are behaving in a manner you do not understand then the Course 2 may be most appropriate. If you wish to partake of Course 2 then attendance at the first 3 modules is vital.
Course 3 is really for experienced yoga teachers and/or therapists.

Course 1 will give you all you need to take up yoga teaching—all our teachers have been through this process and have successfully entered private teaching in their own way.

Accreditation

This is a thorny issue. In 1998 the UK Government introduced the Osteopaths Bill and by the year 2000 it was deemed illegal to call yourself an osteopath if you had not jumped through all the many hoops deemed necessary. Thus no-one now may use the title osteopath unless they are Members of the Register. This process was being discussed during the 50’s!!

There is no comparable process for yoga teachers. Despite The British Wheel of Yoga alluding to being the governing body and thus accrediting teachers and schools, this is not an officially accepted governing body and no such body exists. We have, therefore , refrained from allying ourselves to any other body until we get clear instructions from a nationally appointed council—frankly we have serious doubts that this will ever happen because there are international schools such as the Sivananda and Satchinanda  yoga organisations which have much greater teaching and admin staff and almost certainly would not need to comply and because they are internationally famous and headed by iconic figures it is hard to see that they could be made to comply , by organisations tiny by comparison.

We are  being pressed to ally ourselves to someone—but at present there is no regulatory authority. However, in recognition of the anxiety people have, we have thoroughly investigated  the teaching situation amongst gymnasia and other public places and are informed that the UK Government has from Sept 2007 made it necessary for anyone teaching to have a teaching certificate awarded by an authorised body. The body which has set itself up to provide this is City and Guilds. All local FE colleges will run teaching courses which are not subject –specific, and anyone can acquire this teaching certificate by attendance at day classes—we understand it may be as short a time as 6 months-  achieved in a short day time period or at night school . A certificate from Cand G will allow you to teach anywhere.

If you have an intention only to run your own private classes, as do most of the Shanti teachers, then no teaching certificate is needed and no accreditation is needed.

Becoming a Yoga Teacher

We are asked regularly—“ Can you earn enough money from teaching yoga”? These days we accept that it has to be considered since we do live in money-oriented times when the demands upon our cash resources are always increasing. So –we did not know the answer to this question so asked a few of those Shanti teachers who have qualified within the last couple of years. In outline, it seems there is the usual spectrum of earnings—there are a few teachers who wish to do no more then have one or two classes a week and there are those who teach in 13 classes a week. Clearly the income reflects this. Two teachers doing classes twice a week earn around £ 120 a week from their classes. Those having large numbers of classes earn many hundreds of pounds per week. It is , we feel, most helpful to consider that all this has been acquired within two years—and this is not just because they are good teachers but because the market for yoga teachers and classes seems to be ever increasing!!

The actual process of starting is simple and is much to do with what you wish to happen. There is a huge variety of school halls, church halls, village halls all seeking tenants—you are virtually guaranteed an audience.

Reviewing this situation towards the end of 2009, it seems that the "credit crunch" has had the oppostie effect to that which has occurred in many occupations--yoga has massively increased in popularity . Some of the Shanti teachers have said that they simply cannot take on any more students nor any more classes even though they are being pressed to do so. We did not expect that the level of demand for classes would spiral so strongly--perhaps this is a reaction to increased stress and to more people asking the critical questions of their lives--for example--" why am I doing this when it gives me so little satisfaction?"--this is a common question we come across

 What we see is that Shanti teachers all just LOVE the teaching of yoga and cannot imagine what else would give such joy and happiness.