500hr Guatemala Yoga Teacher Training

Advanced Yoga Teacher Training
at The Mystical Yoga Farm, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

This Advanced Yoga Teacher Training Course (AYTTC) offers participants a precious opportunity to learn from the wisdom and gifts of several spiritually adept individuals in a small, intimate study environment. The individuals we will work with have been inspired to channel and share their profound connection with the creative energy of the universe. Over the past year, Vedantin has made two visits to this magical place and is eager to share this mystical Mayan location with you.

Although we are calling this program Advanced Yoga Teacher Training, we could just as accurately call it Mystical Yoga Teacher Training. In this month-long intensive course, we will deepen our personal practice and share our connection to yoga and the energy of the universal through an experiential and spiritually-rich curriculum, including:

• Provoking cosmic wisdom seminars
• Topic-specific yoga workshops
• Guided self-practices
• Energetic healing arts practice
• Silent and fasting personal retreats

Many great wisdom teachers will join us for this special course, including local mystical and metaphysical teacher, Cheti, and healing arts practitioner, Catherine. Although these teachers will be invaluable to us, the most important aspect of this AYTTC will be connecting to the wisdom of your own inner guru through deep self-practice and inquiry. The community of teachers and learners that we create together will help us facilitate this process of channeling the universal wisdom of the creative self.

The Soul of SchoolYoga Institute

SchoolYoga Institute is an extended family of yoga teachers and practitioners who have deeply experienced the wisdom of yoga and who feel inspired to share that wisdom with others. We believe yoga transcends physical practice and is ultimately a vehicle for spiritual insight. Our contemporary and eclectic approach brings to life the ancient teachings of yoga through accessible spiritual lessons drawing from many traditions.

A Registered Yoga School with Yoga Alliance at the 200-hour and 500-hour levels, SchoolYoga Institute offers month-long intensive Yoga Teacher Training Courses (YTTCs) at sacred sites around the globe and semester-long YTTCs in California and New Hampshire. The soul of SYI is our mission to spread the beauty and wisdom of yoga as a spiritual and energetic, as well as physical, practice.

General Information

Place: Mystical Yoga Farm, Lago Atitlan, Guatemala
Please check out the Mystical Yoga Farm Guest Manual
Who: This AYTTC is designed for prospective participants who fit the following criteria:

• Individuals who have earned their RYT-200 or 500 through SchoolYoga Institute.
• Individuals who have earned their RYT-200 or 500 through other traditions (please provide a copy of your RYT card or certification via email).
• Individuals who have a long-standing yoga practice and who are interested in exploring the deeper practice of yoga incorporated with healing arts.
• Individuals who are interested in becoming yoga teacher training facilitators through SchoolYoga Institute (SYI 800 or 1000).
• For those who are inspired to step into the mystical path of Yoga and Shamanic Healing Art.

Maximum number of participants: 10

Curriculum Synthesis of AYTTC will be conducted through the forms of ancient wisdom seminars, topic specific yoga workshops, hand-on mystical Shamanic energetic healing and practice, guided self sadhana practice, and satsang.

1) Topic-Specific Yoga Workshops

• Sadhana Yoga (Sadhana Hatha Flow, Sadhana Vinyasa Flow, Shamanic Healing yoga, Restorative yoga, Gentle yoga, and Element Yoga) – modifications, variations, and integration into personal practice.
• Art of Touching (adjustments)
• Art of Teaching
• Pranayama
• Meditation
• Kriyas

2) Ancient Wisdom Semimar–We will discuss the following texts and topics:

• Shakara’s Advaita Vedanta
• Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra
• Bhagavadgita
• Upanishads
• Shamanic Earth Medicine
• Tantric yoga
• The Shift Consciousness of Mayan Prophecy
• Life Science of Ayuveda

3) Mystical Shamanic Energetic Healing Medicine–We will learn about and synthesize practices from the following energetic healing traditions:

• Astral Travel
• Journeying Skills
• Power Animal Retrieval
• Extraction
• Psychopump
• Transfiguration
• Transmutation
• Healing Earth and Human Toxins
• Applied Kinesiology (Level I training)
• Reiki
• Chiqong

4) Guided Self-Sadhana–Every morning we will engage in the following practices:

• Pranayama
• Meditation
• Journeying
• Self energy-healing
• Self-guided Asana practice (choose your favorite location along the lake to deepen your own practice while connecting to the Mayan prophecy).

5) Satsang–will be held at each evening to invoke the helping spirits, to healing our wounds, to transform toxins of the earth and our own, to facilitate healing for others, and to reflect our daily sadhana practice and surrender to our day of love and light..

Yoga Style – Sadhana Yoga

SchoolYoga Institute teaches Sadhana yoga, a spiritually grounded practice. We believe yoga transcends physical practice and is ultimately a vehicle for spiritual insight.

Sadhana yoga draws primarily from the following traditions:

• Ashtanga yoga
• Sivananda yoga

Sadhana yoga’s secondary influences include:

• Iyengar yoga
• Anasura yoga
• Integral yoga
• Kundalini yoga
• Shamanic healing
• Energetic healing arts such as Reiki, Tai Chi, and Chiqong.

Even though Sadhana Yoga is derived from many different traditions, it is designed beyond the forms and traditions. It focus on the essence of yoga tradition, which is an instrument to reveal the truth of our existence, to experience the wonders of the universal consciousness, and to live as a spiritual being in the physical body.

Sadhana Yoga has three levels:

1. Foundation–Level I consists of learning a foundational Flow sequence (Sadhana Hatha Flow and/or Sadhana Vinaya Flow), including breath-connected transitions as well as the fundamental postures of the sequence.
2. Modification–Level II consists of modifying existing postures to more difficult or easier levels based on students’ individual experience of the postures.
3. Integration–At Level III, students start integrating their own personal practice into the foundational Flow. In this way, personal practice and teaching become meaningful pertinent to students’ understanding of yoga.
   For more info, click here.

Shamanic Healing Yoga

In addition to typical yoga teacher training program, the daily Yoga practice and sharing will be infused into the shamanic healing and teaching, simply for a sake of naming, we called Shamanic Healing Yoga but it is formless and nameless. It is an integrative spiritual practice of two distinctive yet similar ancient traditions, Yoga and Shamanic Medicine. It brings the beauty and light of the ancient practices into an experiential level for all to cherish. It uses the principles of Sadhana yoga as a foundation and vehicle to explore the teaching and healing practice of medicine Shamans in the high Andes and around the world. Yoga brings our awareness into the body and from the body we experience the serenity and tranquility beyond the body whereas Shamanic healing brings us the power and wisdom of the universe to heal the past, shadows, and samskaras that keep haunting us.

In our Shamanic Healing Yoga practice, we will move through a Sadhana Yoga sequence integrated with Shamanic Healing tradition. The practice begins with an invocation of the power of energetic healing, followed by an asana series, and ends with journeying into the underworld to retrieve our lost souls. The series of poses is designed to help us experience the medicine wheel and its corresponding power animals in the following four directions:

• The Wind of the South, the Serpent, leads us to shed our shadows and the past.
• The Wind of the West, the Jaguar, shows us how to transform darkness into light.
• The Wind of the North, the Hummingbird, guides us on a journey of sweetness and joy.
• The Wind of the East, the Eagle, flies us above the mountains and clouds to teach us to see the world as it is.

Through this practice, we will explore the healing power of yoga and shamanic medicine.

After we practice Shamanic Healing Yoga, each component will be dissected and discussed so the principles and intricacies of this ancient healing art can be fully understood and experienced. The participants will not only experience the healing for themselves through the practice but will also learn many new tools that can be integrated into our yoga teaching and daily living.

Prerequisites

In order to complete 300 hours of training, AYTTC Guatemala requires that you do an additional 100 hours (total) before and after the program.

Before the Program: Because of the intensity of AYTTC you are asked to 100 hours work before and after the AYTTC in order to complete 300 hours training.

1. Asana–Practice Sadhana Hatha Flow and Sadhana Vinyasa Flow 10 times before starting the training (both sequences can be found on our online site). We will not do the basic instruction on the Flows, so it is important that you familiarize yourself with the sequences independently. Make sure to document your practice. (20 hours)
2. Yoga Anatomy/Physiology–Study Yoga Anatomy/Physiology from our recorded lectures and respond to the questions (video clips and questions can be found on our online site). (10 hours)
3. Yoga Sutras–Study the Yoga Sutras from our recorded lectures and respond to the questions (video clips and questions can be found on our online site). (10 hours)
4. Read and prepare yoga workshop outline and questions regarding Saddhana Vinyasa, Saddhana Hatha, Restorative, Gentle, Shamanic Healing Yoga, Element Yoga, Art of Teaching, Art of Touch, Kriya, Meditation, and Pranayama. (10 hours)
5. Read the following texts and prepare outlines and questions for seminar discussions (20 hours):
   • Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination by Swami Prabhavanda and Christopher Isherwood
   • Tantric – the Way of Acceptance by Osho or Tantric Yoga by Douglas Brook
   • Bhagavadgita by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood
   • Upanishad by Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester
   • Serpent of Light Beyond 2012 by Drunvalo Melchizedek, or Mayan Prophecy 2012
   • Ayurveda: A Practitioner Guide, Science of Self Healing by Vasand Lad

All work should be submitted to us electronically before your arrival.

After the Program: 100 hours of teaching experience in order to apply for RYT-500 with Yoga Alliance.

Required Texts

• SchoolYoga Institute Yoga Teacher Training Manual (download from our online course once you enroll)
• Yoga Sutra by Dennis Hill
• See other texts in the above section.

Typical Day

• 6:00-9:00 Guided Self Sadhana (meditation/Journeying/pranayama/asana/energy healing)
• 9:00-10:00 Breakfast
• 10:00-12:00 Ancient Wisdom Seminars
• 1:00-2:00 lunch and snack (very small portion please)
• 2:00-5:00 Yoga Topic Specific Workshops
• 5:00-6:30 Mystical Shamanic Energetic Medicine
• 6:30-8:00 Dinner
• 8:00-9:30 Ceremony and Satsang (Healing practice, kirtan, and reflection)

Other Costs

• Room and Board Package: $700 at Mystical Yoga Farm ($35/day for extra nights)
• $80 Airport transfer (Round trip from Guatemala City to Lake Atitilan)
• Massage ($25-45)
• Extra costs for day off activities (eg: Weaving lessons, Volcano San Pedro Hike, Spanish lessons, Canopy Zip Line Tour, Hot Springs)
• Please check out the Mystical Yoga Farm Guest Manual

Other Local Attractions

There are many healing arts centers in San Marcos. If you are interested in staying longer, you may enroll in all kinds of healing arts classes, including:

• Many types of massage
• Crystal reading
• Healing touch
• Neurostructural integration
• Auriculotherapy
• Other healing arts from around the world

There are lots of local sites to visit, volcanic mountain hike, and a beautiful lake to swim or kayak in (rentals available). A local boat comes to San Marcos every half hour and can transport you to nearby villages around the lake for additional attractions.

Questions and More Information

• You can call or email anytime.
• Please see our FAQ Section Here.
• Email info@schoolyogainstitute.com
• Tel: 888-964-2123 (toll free from US and Canada)
• Tel: 603-831-2281 (USA)

$2,200 Tuition
$700 Room & Food Package