Through our program, you'll immerse into practices and philosophies while learning how to guide foundational yoga classes. We emphasize critical engagement with the material and won’t be giving you scripts to memorize or pre-made class sequences. Instead, you'll engage with information, experiential exercises and group-work to encourage your curiosity and creativity.

This is an opportunity for you to slow down, tune in, deepen, and BE with yourself, your fellow trainees and the yoga practices, with integrity. Upon completion, you'll have the tools to integrate these practices into your daily life, work, and communities.

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Ultimately, we hope you leave with more questions than answers, and with embodied resources to be with those questions.

300-hrs of training, spanning 7 months.

Applications due: April 2, 2022

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May 1-20 (Warm Up)

• Practice at least 3 times a week 

• Complete weekly assignments and reflection prompts

• This regular practice will continue throughout the training

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May 20 - November 21 (Deep Dive)

• Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings: 6:00am - 8:15am, Online 

• Monthly immersion weekends 

  • Fridays   5:45pm - 8:00pm, Online

  • Sa / Su   8:00am - 12:00pm and 2:00pm - 6:00pm, In-person

• Weekend immersion Dates:​

  • May 20, 21, 22

  • June 10, 11, 12 

  • July 8, 9, 10

  • August 12, 13, 14

  • September 9, 10, 11

  • October 7, 8, 9 

  • November 10, 12, 13

• There will likely be additional one-off workshops that we will highly encourage you to attend​

• We will provide teacher support for optional affinity space for Black and brown students 

An immersive experience that fits within a 9 - 5 work schedule 

Program cost: $3,500

Equity Pricing

If you are in the financial position to pay more, please opt to pay the sustainer rate of $3,750.

Additional sustainer funds go to our Community Practice Fund, which supports students who need financial assistance to participate in our programming.

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Limited partial scholarships are available and prioritized for Black and brown students. Please reach out to discuss availability of equity pricing. Payment plans will also be available.

Explore the earth-based nature of yoga through outdoor learning

Online and in-person, outdoors

We'll adapt as the COVID-19 situation shifts. For now, we plan to hold M / W / F classes online and spend Sa / Su in person. Our outdoor in person practice will help keep us safer and offer an experiential opportunity to integrate the earth-based teachings and philosophies of yoga. 

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Vaccination Requirement

Up to date COVID-19 vaccination is required to participate.

Power dynamics in yoga and in our world 

Central to our approach is contextualizing the material and practices within history, culture, and present-day realities. We resist the narrative of a pure ancient form of yoga and explore the historical power dynamics that have shaped the practices and philosophies. We carry that exploration into modern times and consider how cultural appropriation, colonialism, and white supremacy and other forms of supremacy and oppression show up in ourselves and these practices.

Yoga can be an antidote for the ways that systems of power play out in our bodies and minds.

Human Anatomy 

Our teaching staff have decades of collective experience practicing, teaching, and training others in yoga and embodiment practices. We have a strong emphasis in anatomy- many of our staff are body workers and somatic practitioners with backgrounds in movement science, anatomical dissection, and study of the subtle body anatomy of yoga and Ayurveda. 

Yoga Philosophy & History

Our curriculum has a strong philosophical component. This is a vast topic that holds a multiplicity of perspectives and lineages. The beauty is that yoga philosophy acknowledges that different people will resonate with different approaches and that this is okay. So we encourage getting multiple perspectives and learning how to engage critically with the material. With that said, our philosophy teachers are most influenced by Tantric and Bhakti lineages. We also have teaching staff with lived experience of yoga's ancestral lineages.

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Rāja Yoga: Ethical Precepts, Āsana, Prānāyāma, Meditation

You will have the opportunity to turn your attention more fully to the practices of yoga and discover their nuances and transformational potential. Rather than focusing on breadth, our program focuses on depth, by offering foundational practices that can be savored, deepened, and expanded upon overtime with continuous practice. 

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Trauma-informed approach and restorative practices

You will receive an introduction to trauma informed approaches to yoga. You'll learn and practice how to be responsive and adaptable so that your offerings can be more relevant and accessible to different people at different times in their lives. Together, we'll explore tools to balance the nervous system and utilize restorative practices to counter every day stresses, wounding, and trauma. 

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Teaching Methodology

Develop your ability to share these practices with others from a heart-centered, grounded, and skillful place. You will learn ways to structure classes, adapt practices, and use props to reach different types of learners and people with different needs. This training will prepare you to teach the foundational practices of yoga and level 1 classes. You'll get to practice these skills from day one!

Learn to share these practices from a
grounded and skillful place.

Decades of collective experience 

Our faculty is made up of teachers with decades of rich experience. Collectively, our teachers have experience in various lineages of yoga, advanced human anatomy, bodywork and. massage, Āyurveda, community organizing, environmental and racial justice advocacy, public health, somatic psychology and trauma resolution, therapy, and acupuncture. We bring wisdom from years of teaching experience and the passion, curiosity, and receptivity of a beginner's mind. As perennial learners, we value the exchange of teaching and learning with and from each other as a vital way to build a more liberated world.

Tara Sonali Miller

Topics: Holding ritual nature-based space, connecting with ancestral support, unpacking the history of yoga, and examining appropriation, colonialism, and brahminical supremacy. Learn more about Tara...

Jeevan Singh

Topics: Mindfulness meditation techniques, cultivation of the heart of the student/teacher, exploring "beingness" with self and others. Learn more about Jeevan....

Khushi Malhotra

Topics: Introducing yoga philosophy, yogic texts, Sanskrit pronunciation, and the anatomy of the energetic body. Learn more about Khushi...

Danielle Hanna

Topics: Restorative practices, pranayama and Āyurveda. Learn more about Danielle...

Danielle Jones

Topics: Applying real-world contexts and themes into yoga practices. Supporting students as they practice teaching. Learn more about Danielle...

Monica Fong

Topics: Anatomy and the science of movement . Learn more about Monica... 

Britt Rhoden

Topics: Experiential anatomy with complimentary movement practices such as strength-based and functional movement. Learn more about Britt... 

Zeyah Rogé

Topics: Exploring the ins and outs of teaching methodology and asana lab. Learn more about Zeyah...

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“I chose to study at The Bhakti Yoga Movement Center because of the specific elements around trauma-informed teaching as well as equity and racial justice. It was important to me that I had access to teachers of color and that the studio had more than a surface level commitment to equity and inclusion. As a Black woman tired of spaces where white fragility is more important than my life, I would not deal with a teacher training drowning in spiritual bypassing.

Reflecting back on my learning journey, I can’t imagine going through a different teacher training here in Portland. The teachers are knowledgeable, humble, and invested in students’ growth. It is definitely a time commitment; it means working hard and developing a more comprehensive understanding of what yoga has been and could be. I continue to take classes and workshops at The Bhakti Yoga Movement Center because I feel part of the community. Nothing is perfect, annnd I know that The Bhakti Yoga Movement Center’s teachers will continue to trudge through the messiness of injustice to unlearn and counter the appropriation and exclusion in westernized yoga practices — that means the world to me. ”

— Danielle Jones