Feet in the air if you love The Yoga People
I’ve been half toying with the idea of doing yoga teacher training for a while, but with the number of training courses out there (and the cost which seems to be a good couple of months wages) it’s a bit hard to know where to start. A long course based in London, or an intensive few weeks somewhere more sunny if you’ve managed to wrangle a decent chunk of holiday from your boss? And how do you know just what you’re getting from your investment? So when The Yoga People popped up on my Facebook with an ad for their YTT course in London and the option to join one of their classes to see what they were all about, it seemed like too good an opportunity to turn down.
So a couple of weekends ago, I trotted off to Maloca in Putney (hurrah for ticking South London boxes) to join a class with their trainees along with a couple of other inquisitive potential teachers and a few who had completed the course in previous months and were coming back for an extra class.
Walking into the big airy studio where the class was taking place I was greeted by the very gorgeous Dulce, who’s one of the course leaders, and explained that the two hour class was Ashtanga based and we were lucky enough to be accompanied by some live music. Jamie, who was teaching the class, arrived and we began…
Maloca’s bright studio
I thought I could do Ashtanga. While I’d never dream of saying it is (or possibly will ever be) simple, it’s something I thought I knew and could definitely get through a class of. Then I met The Yoga People… The class was Rocket yoga, which combines elements of the first four Ashtanga series (most people stick sensibly at the first) and was quite possibly the hardest class I’ve ever done. It nearly killed me, but I absolutely loved it.
What I hadn’t realised was that it was the final weekend of the teacher training so everyone knew the sequence well and were considerably less flumoxed than me at certain points. Saying that, I found I found the class encouraged me to push myself and ended up in poses I didn’t actually know I could do.
After the class I had a chat with some of the teacher trainees and got a great insight into the course. I also thought it was really telling that former students came back for the class to catch up with old friends and tutors, and based on the conversations about the upcoming exams, the current students were learning huge amounts.
Keep an eye out on The Yoga People’s website and Facebook page for info on their highly recommended open classes and teacher training courses. They run them all over the world, so perhaps I will have to make the London vs sunshine-based YTT decision after all…
South London Yogi 
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