Unique
200+ Hour Mindful Yoga Teacher
Dual Certification Program
Eligible Participants will receive:
1. Mindful Yoga Teacher Certificate
CYA-RYT 200 &
2. SMART (Stress Management & Resiliency Techniques) for Educators & Helping
Professionals Certificate
CYA (Canadian Yoga Alliance) Registered
Program Description
This course is specifically designed for those who have a strong interest in sharing mindfulness and yoga practice, including mindfulness facilitators, school teachers, or health care providers, giving you the tools to empower yourself and your participants.
The course merges the two wisdom streams of Hatha Yoga and Mindfulness. As a Mindfulness Everyday Yoga Teacher graduate, you leave our 200+ hour training with the skills you need to lead safe, encouraging and contemplative Mindful Yoga classes as well as facilitating Mindfulness groups in community, educational and professional settings.
Explore and deepen your knowledge of Yoga philosophy and history, anatomy and physiology, yoga ethics/lifestyle, teaching methodology, mindfulness meditation, and breath work through hands-on
instruction, independent study, and assignments. You will learn how to safely and confidently offer modifications, posture options, clarification of contraindications, and create a complete series of classes with progressive levels of difficulty.
The approach is secular, trauma-informed and inclusive, accommodating all body types.
The course will provide information on the Business of Yoga, addressing earning a supplemental income teaching in studios, community centres and private students by understanding the ethical professional obligations, tax benefits and implications.
This comprehensive program blends the best of mindfulness and yoga practices so that you can teach safely and with confidence. Our teachers have a long history of teaching yoga and meditation in a variety of settings.
SMART (Stress Management and Resiliency Techniques) curriculum trains participants to better manage stress, cultivating emotional balance, compassion, and enhanced relationship to self and others, as well as incorporating mindfulness into yoga instruction.
I am now confident that I have a solid foundation of mindfulness, the Asanas, breath work, and guided meditations with plenty of resources to find answers for questions as they arise and continued learning. I am ready to begin my teaching and learning journey. ~Helen Dea (MYTT graduate 2019)
Who Should Attend:
The course will deliver participants who have specific personal and professional needs with the structure and modifications required to deliver both Mindful Yoga and Mindfulness classes.
For example: For mindfulness facilitators, we will provide movement flows that compliment the themes of Mindfulness-based interventions (MBSR, MBCT, SMART), providing you with the training and information required to guide mindful movement/yoga practices safely and authentically.
For high school teachers we will help you write a proposal to present to your principal, a course outline, rubrics, and a student course pack to have this course offered as a grade 11 and/or 12 inter-disciplinary credit.
Specific Learning outcomes:
Upon completion of this program, students will have gained knowledge in the following areas:
Anatomy: An introduction to Functional Anatomy to understand the wide scope of needs for different levels of students.
Philosophy: An introduction to Yoga Philosophy and Ethics, focusing on Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga, the Chakra system and Buddhist Philosophy — that which is relevant to secular contexts.
Pranayama: an introduction to the experience of mind-body-breath integration through yogic breathing and how to incorporate various breathing techniques into posture sequencing.
Asana: Practical skills necessary for teaching, including:
• Balancing between verbal instruction, demonstration, and hands-on assisting students.
• How to design safe, systematic sequencing for a variety of needs, ages, body types and physical limitations.
• Mindful Movement: yoga from the inside out — respecting the body’s need to sometimes do less, not more, in order to heal and integrate.
• Deepening one’s personal practice over time while respecting the cycles of change and the “aging body”.
SMART Curriculum: The scaffolding curriculum is built on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Self–Compassion and Emotional Balance, providing the practices and techniques for embedding mindfulness into your life, both personally and professionally helping you to:
• Manage stress through a greater understanding of emotions
• Employ self-care techniques to cultivate personal and professional resilience.
• Create effective strategies for relating to challenging situations.
• Enhance concentration and executive function (planning, decision-making, and impulse control).
• Revitalize purpose, personally and professionally Improve your overall mental and physical health
• Promote happiness through healthy habits of the mind Integrate mindful awareness into a Yoga class
Sample Agenda
The schedule will be adapted to accommodate breaks and evolving needs.
SMART Overview
Eight 2-hour classes, one 4-hour retreat | Each 2-hour session breakdown:
- Opening practice (30 minutes)
- Discussion/Q&A, starting with pairs followed by whole group (total 30 minutes)
- New material/activities (45 minutes)
- Practice and closing (15 minutes)
Summary of Requirements
| 130 hrs | Yoga in-class component: Supervised practice teaching sessions with constructive feedback |
| 20 hrs | SMART Program in-class component |
| 50 hrs | Yoga Self-Study/Homework/Personal Practice includes reading texts, journal assignments, external classes — including DVD’s, external and online classes, etc.) |
| 20 hrs | SMART Program home practice |
| 10 hrs | An independent study /research project: pertaining to your own specialized area of interest co-developed with the Staff |
Please note that competing the above training components does not guarantee certification. Additional training and or mentoring may be recommended.
Mindful Yoga Program Lead Teachers
Natalia Fister, B.Eng., B.Ed.,Yoga Teacher CYA-E-RYT GOLD, Assocate MIndfulness Teacher
NATALIA FISTER has been teaching Hatha Yoga since 2002 and has studied yoga, meditation and breathwork extensively, both locally and internationally, travelling to India several times, Kripalu in Massachusetts Nosara, Costa Rica and Lake Atitlan Guatemala to attend yoga retreats, and to Vallecitos, New Mexico to continue her yoga teacher training.
As a high school teacher, now retired, Natalia pioneered a credited yoga and mindfulness course in high school for the York Region District School Board (YRDSB). She taught a grade 11/IDC3O “Mindful Yoga and the Art of Happiness” course and a grade 12/IDC4U “Mindful Yoga and the Philosophy of Wellness” course for 4 years.
She is a certified facilitator for SMART: Stress Management and Resiliency Techniques.
She has facilitated numerous professional development workshops for educators on mindfulness in the classroom, and presented at the “Bridging Hearts and Minds” conference on Mindfulness for Educators and Health Care Providers in San Diego. She is an instructor for University of Toronto, Continuing Studies, for the "Teaching Mindfulness to Teens" course and teaches a 10-week mindfulness program called “The Mindful Edge” to high school students.
Natalia currently teaches a 200 hour Mindful Yoga Teacher Training, uniquely applying the attitudes of Mindfulness to the teaching of hatha yoga. SHe also offers Mindful Yoga online weekly classes, incorporating mindfulness into yoga instruction.
Natalia is committed to sharing the benefits of mindfulness and yoga to students and teachers alike in the conviction that it will transform their lives as much as it has hers.
Heidi Bornstein, Founder Mindfulness Everyday, Director SMART Ontario, MBSR & SMART Facilitator, Mindful Movement & Yoga Teacher
Heidi Bornstein is a Hatha yoga and meditation teacher, who received intensive training at the International Meditation Institute while living in India. She is a certified instructor in Hatha Yoga, Yoga Science, and Yoga Ed for Elementary Schools, High Schools, and For Working with Those At-Risk. She trained as an MBSR teacher under the direction of Roy Hintsa, MBSR Toronto, and Dr. Diane Reibel, the Director of the Stress Reduction Program at Jefferson University’s Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine. She participated in the 7-Day Professional Training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Mind-Body Medicine under the direction of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Dr. Saki Santorelli. Heidi trained in Mindfulness for Kids at Risk with Vinnie Ferraro, Street Yoga training for Kids at Risk as well as smartEducation™ (Stress Management and Resiliency Techniques) with Linda Wallace.
Heidi is the co-creator (with Heather Elson) of the Yoda-Yoga Program for kids, a program specifically designed for use in the 20 minute DPA (Daily Physical Activity) in elementary schools. Heidi is the co-creator and teacher for The Mindful Edge® – Stress Reduction and Life Strategies for Teens program in high schools. Heidi is on staff of Yoga Community Toronto, and is on the steering committee for Mindfulness Toronto. She has been teaching yoga and meditation in Toronto since 2002 and continues to support yoga, meditation, and mindfulness programs for children, youth, teens, and adults.
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