Teach Yoga While Attending College
Yoga is a path to find your true self and to honor that journey in your life. As you know, yoga teacher trainings can help you strengthen and deepen your yoga practice, delve into your bliss and discover your true nature. Perhaps your daily practice and yoga teacher trainings have guided you to return to a more conventional educational journey.
Teaching yoga while you attend college can serve you well in many different ways. It can help you reduce stress and maintain your focus, while earning money to support your goals.
Whether you’re undertaking a stringent medical school itinerary or paving your way into the arts through a four-year degree, your yoga teacher trainings and a yoga lifestyle will help you to:
- Maintain focus during lectures
- Improve your memory
- Relieve stress
- Help you sleep soundly
- Remember your purpose in life
- Pay the bills
Continue Yoga Teacher Trainings
If you’re a registered yoga teacher (RYT) attending college, you can pursue additional yoga training to both boost your credentials and enhance your class offerings without cutting into your academic schedule. Yoga schools such as the Asheville Yoga Center offer classes on weekends, in the evenings and for brief periods of time.
- During spring break, take a weeklong children’s or senior’s certification course
- Immerse yourself in a 3-week intensive program during summer vacation
- Earn advanced credentials on weekends
- Sign up for flexible weekday and evening courses
Moreover, as a yoga teacher, you can create your own schedule. Whether you offer classes though your own business or work at an established yoga studio, you have the flexibility to teach when your school and study schedules allow, a benefit not always available with other part-time jobs.
Yoga Teacher Trainings to Enhance Curriculum
Yoga is a practice that aligns very well with a number of other career paths. Another benefit of teaching while you attend college is that you can apply much of what you’ve learned to your studies.
Fields of study that are enhanced by your yoga teacher trainings include:
- Chiropractor
- Doctor/PA
- Nurse/Medical Practitioner
- Psychologist/Counselor
- Schoolteacher/Academic
- Nutritionist/Chef
- Business owner/Manager
Doctors and other medical care providers turn to alternative medicine on a regular basis, particularly when they run out of options in their traditional healing methods. By entering into the healthcare field with a deep understanding of how stress affects the body — and how much relief patients can achieve through yoga, you will become a well-rounded physician.
Working in the mental health field, you can enhance your coaching and guidance skills by relying on the discipline you achieved through your own yoga teacher trainings, as well as through the daily practice you enjoy. During and after your college coursework, you’ll possess a wealth of information to share with clients seeking relief in a stressful world.
Caveats to Consider
While going to school and teaching yoga can provide a meaningful and prosperous way to fulfill your dreams, there are challenges and consequences to consider. Remember Buddha’s Five Remembrances that refer to the nature of being human and the frailty that is our reality. Prepare yourself for setbacks, failures, loss and change.
Like many people who wear many hats and take on significant responsibilities, you may find:
- You have trouble concentrating on your studies when you are immersed in yoga practices
- You may be too tired to stick with your yoga routines
- It may take you longer than expected to study
- You may question your resolve
- You could get burnt out
While these all are common challenges that can strike any yoga teacher, students pursuing other paths may encounter contradictions and complications more than others. The call of the secular world may create an inner struggle that becomes difficult to overcome. The challenges may wear you out.
Yoga is a practice that aligns very well with a number of other career paths.
Coping for Students
Fortunately, because of the skills you gained from a registered program like those offered at the Asheville Yoga Center, you know how to cope. When pressure mounts, stop and breathe. Remember why you chose the path you’re on and what you hope to achieve.
Before you burn out, try these tips:
- Carve out time for mini-yoga sessions
- Practice chair yoga while you’re in long lectures
- Reduce the number of classes you teach
- Ask another yoga teacher to take an occasional class when you have a big test
- Wake up 30 minutes earlier each day to meditate
- Reduce or avoid caffeine, nicotine and other stimulating substances
- Go to bed earlier
- Eat warm, healthy meals
- Carve out time to be with supportive friends
Download AYC’s 200 RYT Training Guide