Young Yoga Masters

Kids Yoga Teacher Training and Certification

Recent Post

Kids Yoga Survey – Everyone Wins!

Give your feedback and get a Yoga Alphabet mailed to you. Complete the survey before May 31, 2023

Giveaway Complete!

Thanks to everyone who completed the survey and provided feedback for our planning. Your free Frog Yoga Alphabet postcards are in the mail and the grand prize winners are announced here:

  • Grand Prize mailed to winner: Amy L. of New York
    • Yoga Alphabet Cards,
    • Big Yoga Alphabet Book,
    • 40 Pack of Stickers
    • PLUS The Yoga Scavenger Hunt Game (online resource)
  • 2nd Prize: Yoga Alphabet Cards mailed to winner: Emma W. of Ontario
  • 3rd Prize: Big Yoga Alphabet Book mailed to winner: Kajsa K. of Ontario
  • 4th Prize: 40 Pack of Yoga Stickers mailed to winner: Michelle F. of California
  • 5th Prize: The Yoga Scavenger Hunt Game (online resources): Nancy of Ontario
  • Guaranteed Prize – 6″ x 9″ Yoga Alphabet Postcards mailed to everyone! With a note from Aruna. (address must added to survey to receive this prize)
Everyone who entered with their address is guaranteed a prize.

Survey Results

Check out the survey results here.

Contest Closed

The contest is close but we got some very interesting feedback from you that we’ll share as soon as all the envelopes are mailed out!

What Does It Take To Be a Kids Yoga Teacher?

What you need to be a Kids Yoga Teacher is kind of confusing because there are a lot of different levels of certification and training.

In this replay of the Monthly Mini-Training, you’ll get answers for many of the frequently asked questions about teaching kids yoga.

Watch the full replay and download the Guide to Becoming a Kids Yoga Teacher PDF, click here.

Here’s a transcript of the questions covered:

How do you divide the age groups for kids yoga classes?

I usually divide kids ages in the same as schools. Here in Canada, we have preschool, usually around walking, two, three, or four years old. We have junior and senior kindergarten who are four to six years old. Then we have junior school age, and senior school age.

In terms of partner poses, preschoolers don’t love partner poses.

Once you reach senior school age, they’re reading, and you can play games with them. You can do more puzzles, have them up, and teach them partner poses.

When you get into teen yoga, you’ll realize that teens like partner poses. You can have them teach the class as well with notice. That’s how I usually divide the age groups.

A group of 6 children and 2 teachers are standing with their arms over their head and leaning in to touch all their fingers to the centre to make a tent. One person is smiling as they crawl into the tent.
School age children do a group/partner yoga pose creating a human tent!

What time is best a kids yoga class?

I’ve taught morning classes and afternoon classes. Afternoon classes are tricky if you are trying to teach younger ages because they nap.

I did teach an adult/tot class at 2:45 in the afternoon, right before pick up from school for our area. The adults and tots came, did the class, and then went and picked up their other kids. But sometimes, they would miss the beginning of class because of naps and a child sleeping late.

I suggest scheduling your class not too late at night. The latest I would go is a seven o’clock class or before dinner.

What is the maximum time you can teach a yoga class for kids?

The maximum time for kids yoga class depends on the age group. I find 30 minutes is a nice size class for the youngest age, like toddlers and preschoolers.

In the school age, juniors, and seniors, teens, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour can be excellent.

If I teach for an hour, I will bring in a storybook, a craft or colouring, or play a game for the last 15 minutes. All 60 minutes are not doing yoga poses, but we doing other mindful activities like all the ones covered in our teacher training.

Levels of Certification

There are quite a few people asking about registering with Yoga Alliance. Yoga Alliance is a voluntary registry. It’s not required that you register with them to teach.

However, if you’re looking at teaching yoga as a long-term business, you might consider registering as a Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher.

16 Hour Module

Most Kids Yoga Teacher Training gives a certificate of completion at the end of a course, regardless of the length of the training. Young Yoga Masters provides a certificate after each completed 16-hour module, so you can start teaching right away.

If you’re looking to finish the 96-Hours Kids Yoga Teacher Training, you can take the modules in any order.

95-Hour Kids Yoga Teacher Certificate

Yoga Alliance set 95 hours of specialty training in kids’ yoga as the standard for a Registered Children’s Yoga School (RCYS). An RCYS must follow specific training requirements and provide training in various categories to create a well-rounded training. Young Yoga Masters is a Yoga Alliance-registered children’s yoga school.

Yoga Alliance Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher (RCYT)

Yoga Alliance’s standard for Registered Children’s Yoga Teachers is:

  • 200 hours Adult Yoga Teacher Training plus
  • 95 Hour Children’s Yoga Teacher Training
  • then 30 hours of practical experience teaching children that you track on your own and add to the Yoga Alliance website

To learn more about the Level of Certification read here.

a group of kids yoga teachers holding their certificates
If you want to become a kids yoga teacher trainer, your students will want a Yoga Alliance Registered Training

Still have questions?

If you have any other questions about Kids Yoga Teacher Training and Certification, and as a kids yoga teacher, I’ve turned the comments on here so you can drop them in the comments.

If you are looking for a Kids Yoga Teacher Training, we hope all the ongoing support we offer at Young Yoga Masters will encourage you to choose our RCYS training.

Kids Yoga Survey Results and Logistics

Young Yoga Masters held a survey for the month of May, 2023. In that time we got almost a hundred responses from kids yoga teachers and those who want to become teachers. Here are the results to these questions:

  1. Who is teaching kids yoga?
  2. Where are they located?
  3. What kind of training do they already have?
  4. Plus, the logistics of the survey (what program I used, etc)

Don’t Make this Mistake

Before you read on, it’s important to note that the numbers are easy to misinterpret. For example:

  • In the first question about connection to kids’ yoga, the number one response, 41 people, said “I’m already a kids yoga teacher.” (51 people did not choose this response).

  • The question about training had the number one answer as people had 0 – 20 hours of kids yoga training (coincidentally also 41 people).

You might think people those 41 people with 0 – 20 hours of training are the same people who answered that they are already kids yoga teachers, but the individual responses show this is not the case. Only one person identified themself a kids yoga teacher with 0-20 hours of training, and this person indicated they’ve been teaching yoga for 20+ years (before the children’s yoga teacher designation existed at Yoga Alliance!).

Most people who answered 0-20 hours training did not identify as a kids yoga teacher… but we hope they will eventually.

As you look at the final tallies, review each question on it’s own, you can read the answers below each graph.

Now, let’s take a look at what people answered:

Who is Teaching Kids Yoga?

Q. Describe Your Connection to Kids Yoga:

Participants could check all the boxes that apply, so there were 185 answers! Here are the responses:

  1. Already a kids yoga teacher: 41
  2. Kids in my family (eg. parent, aunt, grandparent): 40
  3. Yoga Teacher interested in teaching yoga to children: 28
  4. School Teacher (grades K-3): 18
  5. Work with children (not a teacher or ECE): 17
  6. School Teacher (grades 4 – junior high): 14
  7. Early childhood educator: 13
  8. Other: 14

Q. Where are you located?

Respondents could give one response.

  1. USA: 36
  2. Canada: 31
  3. England: 5
  4. India: 4
  5. Ireland: 3
  6. Australia: 2
  7. Chile: 1
  8. Serbia: 1
  9. Czech Republic: 1

Q. What Kids’ Yoga Training do you already have?

Participants could check one.

  • 0 – 20 hours kids yoga teacher training: 41
  • 21-94 hours kids yoga teacher training: 23
  • 95+ Hour Graduate from a Registered Children’s Yoga School (RCYS): 8
  • 95+ Hours of Training but not with an RCYS: 7
  • RCYT (Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher = 95 HR + 200 HR + Registered with Yoga Alliance): 5
  • Other: 8

Logistics of the Survey

For those thinking of running a survey, here’s how I ran it:

  • Set goals for the survey: my main goal was to get feedback about what people are thinking about teaching kids’ yoga. My secondary goal was sharing the Yoga Alphabet postcards, a really useful resource, which is also part of our kids yoga training. My third goal was to promote the kids yoga teacher training.
  • Methodology: I thought about running social media ads and decided I didn’t want to pay that money to social media. Social media is designed to be addictive and some of the yoga on social media is a problem. I also decided to offer prizes to entice people to fill in the survey, then had the brainstorm to do a mail out as well. This felt like a great way to actually support people who are making an impact in the real world by teaching yoga in a way that empowers kids!  I got excited about sending the actual postcards so I decided that everyone could get this prize and added 5 additional grand prizes to be drawn from the entries.
  • JotForm for the survey. Once I set my goals and knew what info I needed, I developed the survey. I wanted it to be short (5 questions). I used my paid version of Jotform for the survey, it’s a tool I’ve used for years for registration, intake forms, waivers, contracts, and surveys. It’s quite easy to use and it gives good reports and spreadsheets to review answers and keeps my contracts organized and in one place.
  • Got the word out: once I had my great mail out offer and the survey ready, I set about telling people about it. In one month I included the survey 5 times in my email newsletter, and posted anywhere I could for free on social media.
  • Mailed out Postcards: after the survey was over, I drew the prize winners and mailed out postcards to anyone who added their address. Yes, hard copies in the actual mail! Almost 1000 postcards went out into the world. My hope is that people will share a few of the postcards with others who are interested in kids yoga and they will see how dang useful our resources are!

Thanks for Completing the Survey!

I’m drilling down into the other responses about people’s goals for kids yoga. There’s a lot of interest in games and the business side of teaching kids yoga.

Watch for an email series on these topics and possibly some new courses.

Your feedback means so much to helping us serve kids yoga teachers!

Opening Doors for All Abilities Yoga

Today, I want to take a moment to share some wonderful news that has me feeling happy and proud.  One of the graduates of our recent 200 Hour yoga teacher training was featured in the news last week.  His name is Robert Zwarun. Since graduating last February, he has helped a ton of people at his local YMCA in Cape Breton by teaching chair yoga classes.

Check out the news story about it here:

Learning to Teach All Abilities

I found new joy when I started teaching yoga. It’s very rewarding to help students discover how good yoga makes you feel. Now, as a trainer, graduates connect with new students and take yoga to so many new places I could never reach on my own! It feels like a dream job for me.

As with everything, there was a learning curve to teaching all abilities yoga. Robert told us that when he signed up for teacher training, he didn’t think he could become a yoga teacher because he had never met a yoga teacher who had a disability like his.  When he graduated, the certificate he earned opened up so many possibilities he had once thought were impossible.  

When we first set out to teach all abilities classes, we also wondered if it was possible. We had heard over the years that chair classes should be separated, and believed that was true, until we discovered the work of Jivana Heyman and his book, Accessible Yoga as well as his training and even his Instagram account is a great resource. Our limited beliefs got shattered.

Discovering Jivana’s work led us to the Accessible Yoga Silent Auction where we bid on and won a consultation with Shannon Crow of The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast.  Shannon connected us and with our tiny little YouTube channel we got to interview Jivana! Here’s how it went: 

Check out the Silent Auction

This year we’re supporting the Silent Auction with a donation of our Mindfulness for Children Kids Yoga Teacher Training (you can probably get a good deal on this training in the auction).

Chair Yoga with the Frog Yoga Alphabet

It just goes to show how working together, we can do so much good stuff, including things we thought were impossible!

Last week we held a Chair Yoga training using the Frog Yoga Alphabet and I was thrilled to have Robert attend and even teach a pose. The replay is here.

Give the Impossible a Try

We encourage you to consider giving yourself a chance to do something big, maybe even impossible, like introducing yoga to the next generation as a kids yoga teacher. If you’ve never seen a kids yoga teacher like you, we need you!!! Yoga is so much more than a physical practice.

Putting yourself out there, whether you’re teaching at the YMCA, supporting a movement, or becoming a teacher, can lead to amazing accomplishments and new possibilities for everyone.

Chair Yoga for Children

When I first started teaching I had so much passion for yoga because it has transformed my life. Once I became a yoga teacher, I wanted everyone to discover it’s miracles. Finding a niche in children’s yoga, I began teaching in after school programs, community centers, and daycare centers.

The learning curve is steep to jump from adult yoga to kids’ yoga, but there was help out there to figure it out.

That curve became steeper the day I walked into one of my kids’ yoga classes and met a new student who used forearm crutches every day. 

A cartoon frog sits in a chair doing chair pose. Text: Monthly Kids Yoga Mini-training with topic All Abilities Yoga
Explore Chair Yoga and Monthly Mini Training (click the image to see more details)

Mistakes to Avoid

I was unprepared and untrained to teach all abilities at that time, but I had to learn what I could because we were thrown into it together. What I saw was a need for:

  • Less transitions, e.g. moving from standing to floor to standing again,
  • More options in balancing poses,
  • Practicing in community with everyone together in one class.

I’d like to say I got it right but unfortunately, I made a lot of mistakes. My lack of training led to some bad ideas, including unintentionally singling out the student by offering chair yoga only for her and asking her to be at the front of the class.

We both did the best we could with our limited knowledge until she moved to another school.

If you learn how, you can teach all abilities in one class.

Teaching All Abilities in One Class

Years later, I showed up to teach a class which included a child using a walker. I had learned a few more skills about how to teach All Abilities Yoga by that time including:

  • Putting out chairs for everyone,
  • Offering everyone the option to sit on chairs or mats
  • Offering many options for each pose. 
  • Doing breathing and mindfulness activities with everyone in a chair.

Understanding Able-ism

When I first started teaching, I had an ableist mindset, buying into the common misconception that yoga can heal anything and the “full expression of the pose”is the best version that everyone should work towards. It turns out that is just not true.  My beliefs were more harmful than good and founded in the ableist mentality I had learned.

According to Accessible Living, ableism is “the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. At its heart, ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and defines people by their disability.  Like racism and sexism, ableism classifies entire groups of people as “less than’ and includes harmful stereotypes, misconceptions, and generalizations of people with disabilities.”

 Examples of ableism show up in yoga everywhere.  It starts when Chair Yoga is defined as a modified form of yoga. 

In reality Chair Yoga IS yoga, not a modified form of it.

Asana is not about flexibility, according to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Sutra 2.46 says:

Sthira sudhamasanam.

Asana is a steady, comfortable posture.

The 8 limb path describes asana as only one limb, and there is nothing about flexibility or pretzel poses in the description of asana.

Now We Can Do Better

It was hard to find out about modifying poses when I started teaching yoga, but it is a lot easier now.

A few excellent All Abilities books:

  • Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body by Jivana Heyman.  
  • Yoga for Everyone: 50 Poses For Every Type of Body by Dianne Bondy
  • Teach People not Poses: Lessons in Yoga Anatomy and Functional Movement to Unlock Body Intelligence by Mary Richards

Over time, my original nervousness has transformed into excitement about the idea of being better able to share yoga with all abilities and inspiring other teachers to do the same. I appreciate how much everyone benefits when everyone is welcomed into a class.

Free Monthly Mini-Training: All Abilities Yoga

Learn more about All Abilities Yoga in Kids Yoga using the Frog Yoga Alphabet in the monthly Mini-Training for May, 2023. Details are here. You’ll practice chair yoga poses and understand how to quickly adapt your lesson plans for everyone.

Affirmation Song – Believe in Yourself

We all have times when we don’t feel good about ourselves. We might feel anxious about what’s happening around us, to change, or to a trauma where we feel ashamed or blame ourselves, or any number of things. It can lead to negative self talk.

That’s where affirmations can be helpful.

Affirmation Song

We can remind ourselves of the Affirmations in the song:

  • “There is no one better to be than myself.”
  • “Today is going to be an amazing day.”
  • “My family loves me so much.”
  • “I learn from my mistakes.”
  • “I get better every single day.”

Such beautiful messages to repeat in the morning while you get ready or when you’re upset and think you are not doing your best.

About Doggyland

Doggyland is a 3D animated series created by Snoop Dogg, October London, and Claude Brooks, Executive Producer of Hip Hop Harry. The program includes a colorful cast of dogs in an energetic setting where they sing, rap, and dance to catchy tunes that teach children cognitive and learning skills.

Their songs help promote social-emotional development and age-related cognitive development in the preschool set and older. Along with modern remixes of classic nursery rhymes, they cover various engaging topics like the alphabet, numbers, colors, animals, polite behavior, sanitation, accepting others, and more.

This is our song of the week because it brings kids yoga music into a more modern age. Give this song a try in your classes or with your family!