Every month I offer a free kid’s yoga teacher training. They’re a fun workshop with insights in to one of the elements of teaching kids yoga.

Recently, I had a few emails about how the free training works.  People wanted to know how long they would have access to the replays.

The short answer is, you have until the next free training to watch the replay, which could be between 2 – 4 weeks. Then I replace last month’s replay with the most recent one in the Free Training.

If you miss it, you can get all the replays in the training library in the Business Accelerator and Mentoring (BAM!), a paid membership for kid’s yoga teachers.

Here’s the story behind how the Free Kids Yoga Teacher Training works. 

Why give Training away for Free?

A little history of the free monthly kid’s yoga teacher training, I offered the first one in December 2020 and as of today, there have been over 46 free workshops!

It started as a coping strategy during the COVID lock downs. That was a tough time, very lonely and difficult for so many, including those of us who are used to seeing a lot of students every week!

Connecting live with people about my passion for bringing yoga to youth helped me get through. The silver lining was that a very focused community of kids yoga teachers started to form around the monthly event.

Running a Yoga Business

However, it wasn’t all silver linings.  Like many yoga teachers, I worked hard pivoting online and got hit financially when the lock-downs ended. It was a tough time for everyone, including me, as a self-employed yoga teacher.

Yoga teacher training also changed completely.  Prices dropped significantly and Yoga Alliance changed the training requirements and people no longer had to attend a training in person.

I started working with a business coach to help me get perspective and see what opportunities might be available.

Pivoting the Free Training

One opportunity was the replays I was creating each month.

When I first offered the Free Monthly Kids Yoga Training, I had EVERY replay available in the free course. At the height, it was over 30 hours of free training, the only cost was giving an email address.

With some business coaching, I began to think about opening a membership site for kids yoga teachers. Here’s what resonated with me about it:

• The free replays weren’t organized by topic or category. It was getting unruly!
• Instead of the free training being a quick win for people, it was more of a monumental task because people didn’t know where to begin. Plus all that training didn’t count towards certification,
• There was a gap in my business model and not a lot of support available for people after they graduate to build their classes. Those who were already teaching kids yoga were often on their own too. This membership would help.

Yoga Alliance Certification Changed

But the biggest motivation came when Yoga Alliance changed their training rules for 2024 onward.

The 95 hours Certificate now requires a minimum of 14 hours of real-time training. This is up from 1 hour of real-time training during COVID, and down from 87 hours of real-time training required before 2020.

With just a little more structure, the free training also could count towards the real-time training requirement.

Business Coaching

You can listen to the business coaching I had with Mado from the Yoga Teacher Resource Podcast here.

How the Free Training Works Now

The free training still happens live on Zoom every month.

The biggest changes are:

• The replay is only available until the next free training date (usually about 2-4 weeks)
• Then the replay is only available in the Business Accelerator and Mentoring Membership
• Those registered in the training can count the hours towards their 95 Hour Certificate and as Continuing Education with Yoga Alliance

This is what the 95 Hour Training looks like now. Those elective hours allow people to choose more real-time training or watch the replays of the topics that interest them.

Free Kids Yoga Teacher Training and Certification

If you’d like to get some helpful tools for your teaching toolkit, check out the Monthly Free Kid’s Yoga Training here.

And if the time comes where you are looking to earn a Certificate (or another Certificate), please check out the Young Yoga Masters training!