When Amelia and Liz met over 20 years ago, we felt an instant spark. As yoga teachers in training, we discovered a shared passion for spreading the positive benefits of yoga for physical and mental health. We seemed to intuit, in our connection, the growth and healing that yoga had already played a huge part in during our late teens and early adulthood.
Some years later, as experienced graduates of Yoga Synergy, Amelia moved to the Bellingen shire where she established her thriving school, Yoga Bellingen, and Liz settled in the Northern Beaches where she continues to run Balanced Practice Yoga and practices as a physiotherapist and yoga therapist at Therapyworks.
Both women became mothers and despite juggling work and parenting, started their Total Escape Yoga Retreats , taking students to exotic locations like Bali, Fiji and India.
It was while running yoga retreats together that Amelia and Liz began to develop Balanced Practice Yoga Teacher Training.
When we created the course content we said we wanted to bring together the best aspects of our own trainings and the unique skills and knowledge that we have, to create the best possible yoga teacher training, and we are proud of how that has evolved since our first delivery in 2018.
We both have a very in-depth understanding of yoga anatomy, yoga postures and how to vary them when people have certain goals to achieve, or limitations to respect.
With our 40+ years of teaching experience, we have a lot of wisdom to share, especially around the language teachers use to relate to the different layers of each individual person.
The words we use are profoundly important to the student. The students need to know that they are safe on their mat and in their own body, that their yoga teacher has the capacity and knowledge to hold space for that student. Challenges always have physical, mental and emotional layers, and we teach our trainees to be a guide for students, so they can use their practice to help themselves navigate.Our yoga teacher training includes functional anatomy, modern science that focusses on the nervous system, pain awareness and meditation.
Our training involves thousands of hours of mentoring and learning from our teachers. Yoga is a life long journey, and we are both students and teachers on the path.
We don’t teach a prescriptive sequence or a particular “ style” of yoga, as both of us moved on from this approach many years ago.
The responsibility of a yoga teacher is to plan safe, balanced and purposeful sequences, applying the yogic principles that we explore carefully during the teacher training. We love to see creativity and expressivity arise, and nurture the unique style and passion of each teacher trainee, while providing lots of opportunities for practice sequencing, class delivery and feedback from us and the other trainees in a safe and supportive environment.
We observe that people get the most value out of a yoga teacher training, whether to teach others or for personal learning, when they integrate their learnings into their daily life. Our online teacher training is designed to deepen our students connections with their body, to tap into their own wisdom, to the subtle energetics of yoga, with the help of Ayurveda, which is essentially awareness of our livingness in the natural world, and with the help of the practices of yoga beyond the poses, breath work, study, meditation and journalling.
We gather together once a week via Zoom on Thursday evenings over the duration of the 200 hour training, to discuss the online videos and lessons from the printable manual, and for teaching assessment tasks so our trainees have lots of scope to develop their practical skills.
Skills in inclusive, positive and choice-driven language, expressing subtle cues that are appropriate to the students, learning to modifying yoga poses for diverse bodies, these are all hallmarks of a quality yoga teacher. Skills that take time to evolve.
We offer optional ongoing mentoring support for our trainees, and will be running our 100 hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training next year in Byron and a 50 hour online Advanced Yoga Anatomy course, which provides a pathway to 350 hours of Yoga Teacher Training when you can register as a Level 1 Standard Yoga Australia Teacher.
We’re proud of our standards, and of the wonderful graduates of our Yoga Teacher Trainings who are contributing to the wellbeing of their communities, clients and students as advocates and teachers of yoga.
Are you considering yoga teacher training, for yourself and to inspire others?
Balanced Practice 200 our Online Training begins on September 1st and runs till December 17th.
Invest on your own personal growth, learn with us, and you could start a new year and a new vocation in 2022 teaching yoga.
Download the prospectus here:
Please join us for an opportunity to meet your teachers in an online Q &A this Sunday 29th August at 5:30pm. Bookings essential.
If you can’t make the date, Amelia and Liz can set up a phone call or Zoom session with you at a time that suits.
Liz 0405543263
Amelia 0428071379
