Anusara Yoga Teacher Training
Our mentorship training helps experienced yoga teachers strengthen their knowledge and sharpen their teaching skills, developing a deep, authentic, transformative teaching style with master teacher Susan Allen – a former student of Anusara yoga founder John Friend.
The Yoga Transition takes a collaborative partnership approach to Anusara yoga teacher training, working with you to help you “flow with grace” every step of the way.
Contact us to find out more.
Do you want to improve and innovate your teaching?
While many students begin their yoga journey seeking physical wellbeing, the path a teacher walks offers further self-realisation and purpose.
Yoga teachers constantly seek to improve their knowledge of yoga as well as their relationship with students but this can be difficult when you do not have a community of teachers or a mentor for collaboration.
Our yoga teacher mentorship breaks down the common challenges faced by yoga teachers and provides a customised framework for progressing their practice and their teaching skills.
We are here to guide you beyond your initial training and experience. Our objective is to strengthen your teaching skills, refine your understanding of the practice, and to provide a community where you can flourish.
Are you longing for community and collaboration?
By the very nature of teaching yoga, teachers are often isolated with minimal interaction with other yoga teachers. In this environment, improving and maturing your craft can be difficult as you lack opportunities to connect and learn from peers.
That’s where a structured mentorship environment can help.
The Yoga Transition invites yoga instructors across the globe to join a collaborative community to learn, connect, and enhance their teaching skills with a master teacher - Susan Allen.
How to convey the transformative benefits of Anusara Yoga
As Anusara yoga teachers, we have been fortunate to experience the transformative benefits of the practice. But imparting this acquired knowledge and understanding to our students in clear, succinct language can be a challenging skill to develop.
The Yoga Transition can help you develop your cueing skills, which will allow you to teach Anusara yoga without demonstrating. We will also show you how to cultivate a keener awareness within your own practice so you can accurately convey your personal insights to your students.
This ability to instruct a practice with relevant, precise and creative cues allows you to be more interactive within the class environment and thereby cultivate a more intimate relationship with your students.
Why consider mentorship
Mentoring with a master teacher provides you with a clear path to professional development. You will receive personalised guidance on topics ranging from your personal practice, to your teaching skills, to how to move forward with your yoga career.
Seize the opportunity for development and to share in Suze Allen’s 20 years experience running multiple yoga studios, teacher trainings, immersions and retreats.
What will our mentorship cover?
Our mentorship program will cover the following key topics:
- How to teach a holistic practice with the incorporation of the 8 limbs and move the focus away from a primarily physical practice.
- How to develop an authentic teaching style by drawing on your personal experiences
- Developing your capability to create effective, artful sequencing, including safe sequencing that respects the body’s biomechanics and patterns
- How to cue effectively without demonstrating so you can be more interactive with your students.
- How to incorporate the principles and practice of meditation into your asana classes
- How to respect the physiology of breathing and understand its significance within the asana practice
- Develop a framework for progressing from the superficial to the subtle both within your own practice as well as in your teaching skills.
- How to start a yoga studio, organise retreats, workshops and immersions
- How to turn your yoga teaching into a successful business
In order to effectively craft your yoga career path, we will work with you to:
- Identify the knowledge and skills you need to improve
- Develop your personal practice and understanding of yoga
- Set achievable and measurable goals
- Be accountable for your development
What our experience means for you
At the heart of The Yoga Transition is master teacher Susan Allen.
A former student of Anusara founder John Friend, Susan’s yoga journey continues to evolve after two decades of practice, teaching, and guidance, and credits her most meaningful growth to the gift of mentoring from those world-class master teachers she has been fortunate enough to study with during her travels.
Susan brings all of this experience to her mentoring. Harnessing her practical and technical skillset, she understands and teaches yoga pragmatically, creating a safe and collaborative space for personal development; disseminating all she has learnt over the years in easy to digest modules, covering personal and professional growth goals.
Develop your yoga teaching style with mentorship
At The Yoga Transition we celebrate individuality through:
- Steering your practice and teaching in the direction that most interests you
- Encouraging you to discover your unique voice
- Guiding you to develop a teaching methodology that has both integrity and individual authenticity.
Once you have completed your initial teacher training, contact us to find out how mentorship can bring you to the next level.
Our mentorship options
Anusara yoga is a modern-day Hatha yoga system founded by American John Friend and is one of the fastest growing styles of yoga today.
The word Anusara means “to flow with grace” in the ancient language of Sanskrit. The founder of Anusara established a framework called the three A’s: Attitude, Alignment, and Action. These are used in conjunction with the Universal Principles of Alignment which can be applied to all of the physical asanas as well as our daily lives.
Anusara yoga is rooted in Tantric philosophy that focuses on spiritual balance and intrinsic goodness. The practice focuses on the heart’s attitude to cultivate positive intention. Anusara yoga shows us that goodness and divine beauty can always be found through this alignment; then, we can harness our inner beauty and perceive life as a gift.
The three major components of Anusara yoga are knowns as the 3 A’s:
Attitude (heart) – The approach you take towards life, setting a foundation through intention and mindfully following where the heart leads.
Alignment (mind) – Being in alignment physically, energetically, emotionally and mentally.
Action (body) – Our positive attitude and alignment enables us to take action towards manifesting our intentions.
We all share an inherent universal attitude; to be happy in life. When our attitudes and intentions inform our actions, we become more aligned in our daily lives. Often, our egos stand in the way of positive alignment in favour of instant gratification. This manifests as an ongoing imbalance that requires constant setting of intentions and self realignment.
When we have a dedicated practice of the 3A’s on the mat, then there will be an organic progression and flow of energy from the mat into our daily lives.
Anusara emphasises the Universal Principles of Alignment as a framework for the practice . Each posture is set-up and organised adhering to these principles of alignment.
The first universal principle of Alignment in the Anusara practice is:
Opening to Grace and setting the foundation
The sequence of the Universal Principles of Alignment are essential to the rhythm of the practice. “Opening to Grace” as the first principle, asks us to tune in to our inner being; to become more aware of our breath, our movement, our feelings, our senses and how they all connect and relate to the world around us.
This opening intention serves as a foundation for the physical and energetic practice. We are open to freedom, spaciousness, receptivity, happiness, bliss and deep contentment. All the other principles organically evolve from this intentionality.
While practising Anusara, we focus on aligning our hearts and minds with the physical postures. When each is aligned, we experience a feeling of harmony and contentment. When challenges are then introduced into the posture, the practice then becomes about sustaining this equilibrium, to maintain our stability, ease, and spaciousness. When we practise in this intentional way, we are enabled to carry these same skills into our daily lives to face inevitable obstacles.
The Universal Principles of Alignment in Anusara facilitate us to practise with intention and intuitive awareness. They provide a tangible and practical framework for the alignment of our heart, body and mind. When we apply these principles in our daily lives, we are empowered to take positive actions towards a more abundant way of life.
The Anusara invocation offers a centering in the heart and helps to set the intention for the practice. It is sung or chanted at the beginning of an Anusara yoga practice to express the opening of our hearts and recognise the path to transformation.
Here is the Anusara invocation in its original Sanskrit language:
Om Namah Shivaya Gurave
Saccidananda Murtaye
Nisprapancaya Shantaya
Niralambaya Tejase
Om
Here is the reflection in a general English translation:
I bow to the presence of the Divine within
Our true and highest teacher
That lives in and around us as
Being, consciousness and bliss.
It is ever-present and radiates peace
Lighting the way to transformation.
Om
John Friend is an American yogi and yoga teacher, and the founder of the Anusara School Of Hatha Yoga (commonly referred to simply as Anusara). As a student of yoga philosophy and practitioner of asana yoga at age 13, Friend credits much of his early learnings to Swami Satchidananda’s book ‘Integral Hatha Yoga’.
After years of extensive study in various yoga styles and philosophies including Hatha, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, and Iyengar, Friend set up Anusara yoga in 1997 as a style of Hatha yoga. Based on the biomechanical principles of alignment, Anusara means “flowing with grace”, and was founded on the tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness.
