Teachers Education Program
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Atmavikasa has now
completed twelve years. This year is special in another way- This is Yogacharya
Venkatesha’s 25th Year as a Yoga teacher. Being a professional Yoga
teacher, and staying so needs a lot of courage, commitment and expansion.The
TEP is a summary of wisdom we have acquired along the path of teaching.
The world has witnessed
many Wonderful Yogis before and the huge responsibility of preserving the
purity of their teachings rests with the new generation yoga teachers.
Hence when we design a Teachers program, we try to uphold our responsibility
with utmost care.
Before we proceed to the
details of the Teachers Education Program, we would like you to spare a few
minutes on this write-up and give it a serious thought. It helps you understand
the way we work and also the ideology behind the TEP.
Having lived and taught in
Mysore, the “Yoga Hub” of the world, it is both amusing and painful to see what
a joke the teachers training programs have become now- a- days.
Twelve Years ago,
Atmavikasa introduced the first ever Teachers training in Mysore .Here,
certifying someone as a “teacher” implied motivating someone to walk the yogic
path we have walked for years with dedication and discipline. It is the
establishment of a pre-eminent relationship. We believe that being a “teacher”
in the true sense, is a lifetime learning experience, and is an ongoing
process.
Now there are hundreds of
Teachers Training Programs available here. Running a TTP is considered as a
successful business opportunity and every novice with apparently no or very
little expertise is eager to start his very own teachers training.
We had no idea about what
was happening till a lady walked into our shala asking if she could get a
Teachers Certificate in five days time and “how much’ would it cost to get it.
She was an absolute beginner and wanted to open her own shala in her
country..All she wanted was a certificate!!!
No amount of explanation
would convince her that becoming a teacher is not that easy. Infact, she showed
us some other certificates in different systems from some other schools.
She had already managed to get [buy] five of them and asked why we
couldn’t do the same. when soooo many others would do it. She finally
left the shala muttering angrily about it. God help her students if she opens a
studio!
We were
shocked. It also brought along a very painful realization. People have forgotten
that, in order to be Yoga Teachers, they should first become good
practitioners. It is impossible to teach what we don’t know!!!!
A further research on the
current Mysore Yoga –scenario gave the horrible revelation that now, there are over
a hundred places without standard or quality where one can simply buy a
Teaching certificate.
When we started our first
Teachers Training, little did we dream that, the phrase “teachers training”
would get translated as “a mass, one-time money making, certificate selling
business. . Sans standards”
This is not a healthy development… Atmavikasa
discourages this approach to yoga. With such things happening, in another
decade, there won't be any pure Yoga left.
Remember! How good a teacher one makes depends on how
well they practice and not just where or which system they study or how many
certificates they have. A true teacher of Yoga is primarily an honest and
dedicated practitioner for life. DO NOT BELIEVE A TEACHER WHO SAYS THAT HE
DOESN’T NEED ANY DISCIPLINE ANY MORE
With more than 60,000
hours of teaching experience over quarter a century, we safely guarantee that,
no teachers training program can perform the miracle of “TRAINING” a novice
to become a good teacher in a few weeks time...no matter how much you pay or
where you get certified .
In the end of a good
program, you should find some improvement in your practice, body, mind and
confidence. At the least, you should get some clarity about your faults. If
not, you just wasted your Time and Money and got yourself a useless bit of
paper!!
REMEMBER!!!..!!
The certificate is
just a by-product.
However,
practising intensely with an honest and dedicated teacher can unlimitedly inspire
you to stay disciplined, dedicated and focussed in your practice. It will be a
life changing experience to practice under the guidance of a teacher who has
dedicated his/her life to yoga and is walking the path of infinite growth
and expansion or ATMAVIKASA.
When we study the lives of
exemplary Yogis and teachers who lived in the past, we can observe a very
interesting fact- Excluding a few, most of them were common people by birth and
had no exceptional talent. Neither did they have any extra portion of good
fortune that made their achievements easy..
On the contrary, they
indeed had everything against them.
But unlike many people,
they did not yield to the difficulties. Instead, they maintained their
sincerity, and integrity. They stayed through their problems and focussed
on effort and continuous expansion.
And that made all the difference.
Great men became great by learning to recognize their
faults, by courageously accepting their outcomes and by having the patience and
consciousness to outgrow them.
So..it simply means that, unlike the popular belief,
“Great Teachers were not born..... They
were made”
The only good fortune such people ever had was the motivation
from their teachers to choose the right direction and their inspiration to stay
on that path patiently through the difficult times.
At Atmavikasa, we believe that every Yoga practitioner
has the same great potential as those great ancient Yogis. All we intend is to
motivate you to harness that potential through well-established traditional
techniques, dedication, discipline and focus.
For us, Yoga is not just a
"business", it is life.
We do not intend the T.E.P to
become just another mediocre teachers training program. Instead, we intend to
give you the right ingredients for practice and life.
The experience you gain
during the program is priceless...it will motivate you to become an honest
teacher and a good Yogi; most importantly, it will simplify your life and
enhances your health and inner strength.
It is sad but true that the phrase “Teachers Training”
no longer means what it used to mean a decade ago.. However, we hope that the
concept is not redundant. Hence, we are retaining the concept and discarding
the phrase..we have decided to upgrade our programs and move on to the next
dimension We believe that there are still some dedicated, “old
fashioned” practitioners left in this world and they still like to practice
yoga the ancient way.
Atmavikasa Teachers Education Program is
for such people. Hope you are one among them
IF YOU FIND OUR IDEOLOGY INTERESTING,
PLEASE WRITE TO atmavikasa@gmail.com for more details about the program.
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26 March -29
April 2012: 4 weeks, 200 hrs*
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25 June-22 July 2012: 4 weeks, 200 hrs*
NOTE: THE DURATION OF
THE COURSE CAN BE EXTENDED BY ANOTHER TWO WEEKS ON REQUEST
Please write to atmavikasa@gmail.com for
further details about the program
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