hatha yoga Archives - Kate Covello

Online Yoga Teacher Training after Covid

Online Yoga Teacher Training.

Yoga Teacher Training after Covid

The frantic story of adapting yoga teacher training to an online format.

The Before Times

In February 2020, PANDEMIC was smeared on the front page of the news. Prior to that, headlines like “Wuhan Lock-down” were catching my attention, but I was distracted, like all Canadians, by railroad blockades, the Wetsuweten Hereditary Chiefs and the unimportant discourse about JLo’s outfit at Super Bowl. The Facebook militia was rioting about these polarizing issues, but the Wetsuweten Blockades and JLo’s crotch were ignored by many. There was still diversity in the media – sports, movies, celebrity gossip, travel – and our individual interests trumped any unifying issue.

That was the Before Times. Before everyone was sent home from work and our collective interests were aligned by the impact of Covid. Before my inbox was bursting with trivial emails from every business I’d ever patronized. Thank you, HeadKandi Hair Salon for letting me know you’ve made the “difficult but necessary” decision to close. And hello, Scotiabank, I send well-wishes to your family too.

Everywhere and Nowhere.

At first, Covid was everywhere and nowhere. It was in my emails and front of mind, but I didn’t know anyone with Covid. Then it was somewhere: a sign on the door of my yoga studio: CLOSED due to Covid. The lively yoga studio I co-own and where I teach yoga teacher training was abruptly silenced on March 17.

In this together.

Loneliness punctuated the early days of Covid. Scotiabank underscored the concept of community with their well-wishes and “we’re all in this together” digital platitude, but the mass emails did little to acquiesce my gloom. Our studio was empty, and I passed the lonely hours swiffering the floor and tinkering with my website. I often just sat at the desk, listlessly refreshing my email. Another unread message at the top, this one from the Yoga Alliance. Oh great, another instruction to “stay safe in these troubled times.” I rolled my eyes in anticipation of more insipid platitudes.

Real problems. Real solutions.

But the Yoga Alliance email was different. It had real solutions to my real problem: online yoga teacher training was approved! For the first time. Change. I’d advocated before for approval of online yoga teacher training, but was always met with reluctance. Maybe the administration to implement online yoga training had been too daunting. Whatever their former reason for disallowing online training, the abrupt global disruption prompted the Yoga Alliance to adapt. For the first time in weeks, I felt inspired by change.

Stay home.

Along with loneliness, a frustrating feeling of inertia had been my constant companion. Stay Home was the online rally cry. Being alone coupled with the uncertain future for my business was wearing on me. So following the Yoga Alliance’s approval for online yoga training, I was eager for action.With no regard for the daunting logistics or for my sanity, I resolved to get my 200-hour yoga-training curriculum online in two weeks. Step one: get a learning management system. I host my website through WordPress, so I chose LearnDash, a learning management plugin. I trusted WordPress because their reliable online support solved many frustrations over the past decade.

Organizing yoga content into a learning management system

Community support. Virtually.

Part of learning online and mitigating the accompanying loneliness is knowing there’s a like-minded support community. Immediately after installing the LearnDash plugin, all my custom formatting disappeared. I gasped. Audibly. The sound reverberated around my empty studio. My website took ten years to mould to my satisfaction. I clicked around in the now-barren shell of a website. Anguish. Despair. Acute helplessness. But WordPress has a live chat with Happiness Engineers. I pounded into my keyboard,

“Please help. I just installed a new plugin and all my formatting disappeared!!!!”

“Oh no! (Hi!) I’ve seen that error before, I think I know what we need to do,” came the reply from WordPress Live Chat. The faceless Happiness Engineer solved the problem for me with a few keystokes (my website had inadvertently migrated to a new server).

“THANK you. Are you a real person? Where are you?” I typed.

“I think I’m a real person! Hard to tell these days 🙂 I’m in the Eastern US,” came the response. And my anguish dissolved. Here was a real person, a Happiness Engineer, solving a problem for me. We were alone, but together. The transition from the Before Times to the unknowns of Covid was abrupt and jarring, but for the first time since Covid barged into my life, I felt supported by another individual.

Alone. Together. Reading emails and chatting virtually. I considered the possibilities of life after Covid. Driven by innovation, infrastructure like live chat with a trained WordPress agent was already in place. I brainstormed about how online yoga teacher training could be meaningful. It needed to be more than a one-sided broadcast like email and blog content. It needed to be a two-sided discussion. It needed to mimic a community. Students needed to feel like we were together while they were alone.

Alone. Together.

Covid is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pivot and try something new. I had the approval from the Yoga Alliance, I persevered through the frustration of installing a learning management system, now I had to get interactive with video. The textbook and written content was done, but how would I replicate the spontaneous interactive group learning that is central to yoga teacher training? How would I promote community in an online medium?

4K video. Mirrorless cameras.

My self-imposed frenetic schedule was filled with spontaneous interactive learning. Online forums and chats educated me on sufficient RAM for 4K video; mirrorless and full frame cameras; lavalier microphones and colour rendering index for lighting. Even the vocabulary was new to me. But every panicky problem with bandwidth, choppy video and shadowy lighting was calmly answered in online support groups. I was acquiring a new skill set, and the difficulty of getting my yoga modules online was mitigated by online community support. My sanity was compromised by my frenzied work pace and the volume of unfamiliar tasks, but I felt supported by an online community.

Community at 2019 Yoga Teacher Training.

Mutual support.

Community is what keeps us sane. Community is about aligning feelings through shared objectives and mutual understanding. I thought about the idea of community as I set up a corner for filming video in my studio. Lights. Camera. Action. I was teaching yoga to a tripod. It didn’t feel like community. Can online learning really replicate the real life experience of being part of a yoga training cohort?

Yoga teacher training is about community and about belonging. As I learned to make videos, I asked the forums if I should film in 24 or 30 frames per second; I asked how to backlight my set. No matter the question, there was an online community to support the process of making yoga videos. Martin Luther King Jr described community as a web of mutuality. Community is a shared responsibility to take care of each other. Making videos was rewarding for me because I was supported by online people: mutual support was available through shared objectives.

Online Yoga

Dynamic shared learning.

I paced around the studio and pondered how to create a web of mutuality for online yoga teacher trainees. Students needed to track and share their learning progress. Teaching yoga is dynamic because of the community of yoga students. Learning how to teach yoga is rewarding because it’s a shared experience with a cohort. Online Yoga Teacher Training will be dynamic if students chronicle the process through an ePortfolio. There. Midway through the second frenetic week of filming, I typed in the instructions for the mainstay of the program. Dynamic shared learning. Represented in an ePortfolio that students would work on during the program. Alone but together students would document the journey in an ePortfolio.

Online learning: Dynamic shared learning

I’m so glad you’re here.

As March passed and April blossomed, the Covid isolation orders eased. People emerged into spring. I emerged into the brand new world of online yoga teacher training. Buoyed by the opportunity to innovate and reimagine yoga teacher training, I overcame the inertia and loneliness of Covid. I negotiated with my computer’s RAM, set up appropriate lighting and taught myself how to teach to a camera. I advertised a powerful brand of yoga that emphasizes dynamic and interactive learning. And five students signed up. After the hustle of changing the studio around; after the frustration of organizing a learning management system; after acquiring the vocabulary to understand audio/visual setups; five students bravely showed up on the first day of Land and Heart Online Yoga Teacher Training. “Welcome yogis…” I calmly smiled at the webcam. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

I’m so glad you’re here

Adapt and innovate.

Covid’s disruption was swift and universal. There was a pause. But community and possibility propelled us to think of new ways to do old things. New yoga teacher training is about dynamic shared online learning. A yoga studio is more than cork floors and soft lighting. A studio is a community sanctuary for the dynamic practice of yoga. Covid is more than a health crisis. It’s an opportunity to adapt and innovate after disruption.

Our yoga studio was once a sanctuary with pleasant ambiance and quiet music. The soft lighting is disrupted now by glaring set lights; the quiet music competes with humming cameras. The process of teaching yoga used to be one step of unrolling a yoga mat but now includes sound checks and battery charges. The ambiance of the studio is disrupted by the piles of audio/visual equipment, but the community sanctuary has been replicated in the virtual world.

Author Bio:

Kate Covello created Land and Heart Yoga Teacher Training in 2019. It’s a yoga school founded on examining personal reasons for teaching yoga. Students develop their own voices in the dynamic art of describing yoga. Online Yoga Teacher Training launched on April 25, 2020 with five students. Online learning is productive when there are opportunities for lively interaction and shared understanding.

Yoga Teacher Training is also hosted live, in-studio! The next session is June 2022 in Yellowknife. Register here

behind the scenes

The Wheel of Yoga

What is yoga, anyway? This week marks nine years since I started teaching yoga. And I still have only a vague idea what the practice is all about. It’s somewhere between renouncing all worldly possessions in the pursuit of a higher understanding of the universe and ensuring that you aren’t overinflating your ego as you admire your ability to do hatha yoga poses. I’ve been examining the practice and chronicling my observations for more than a decade. Here’s a sample.

On and Off the Mat

Yoga is a complete system of living. I, like many of my students, started yoga because I wanted to “stretch.” Yoga is a good physical activity, but the practice has been around for millenia; there must be more to it. Indeed, as I delve into the more esoteric aspects of the practice, I’ve discovered there’s a lot more to it than just stretching.

There’s several types of yoga. The wheel of yoga represents the unity between disciplines. The techniques for practicing are diverse, but every discipline agrees the intention is freedom from suffering. Students return to the practice again and again with the aim of reducing suffering by shedding the habits of the ego.

Pain is an inevitable part of the human condition. Heartbreak, loss, failure, rejection…are just a few examples of experiential suffering. The attachment to this suffering is optional. As children, our personality structure is based on seeking love. Seeking and finding love is a strategy of the ego and children must pursue acceptance as a survival technique. As we reach adulthood, however, the pursuit of love, acceptance and pleasure creates a false sense of self. Constantly seeking approval and love from external sources represents the inherent idea that we are “not enough” as we are and thus suffering ensues when external circumstances of love change or disappear.

The intention of yoga is to understand the Self in relation to the self. The Self is the underlying nature of bliss and shared with all living beings. The self is the personality and ego unique to each person. The strategy for navigating difficult emotions and suffering less is to train the mind to be free of misunderstanding of the true Self. Yoga addresses this freedom from misunderstanding through six different disciplines: Raja, Karma, Jnana, Bhakti, Hatha and Mantra Yoga.

Raja Yoga

Called the king of yoga, Raja yoga is inclusive of all yoga brands. It’s a goal rather than a technique and teaches that the intention of yoga is to unite the self with the oneness of the universe.

Raja yoga can be practiced in any way and at any time and does not require any particular poses or rituals. The absence of “process” means that this type of yoga is accessible to anyone, regardless of training or knowledge. Raja yoga devotees teach themselves to find harmony between themselves and the universe as a whole. They practice self-mastery by turning inwards towards love and light and eschewing external stimuli.

Try…

Right now, without changing anything in your surroundings, close your eyes and listen to your breathing. Withdraw from the sounds, smells and external stimuli around you. Without judgement, observe yourself. No blame if your mind doesn’t settle right away. Thoughts will come to you, but regardless of what they are or what circumstances they represent, repeat the following: “my well-being and my freedom is not attached to any outcome.”

Raja yoga is the ability to withdraw your senses from your circumstances and find freedom within.

Karma Yoga

The yoga of action is karma yoga. It is participation in selfless service without expectation of receiving anything in return. True karma is diligently doing your work without feeling attachment to any outcome. Participating in karma yoga teaches kindness and compassion without expectation. It is selfless generosity of spirit without needing payment in kind. As with all types of yoga, the intention is freedom from selfishness and release of the self-serving ego. According to the Bhagavad Gita, life gives infinite opportunities to act, but you must never allow yourself to be affected by the results. Karmic action is a selfless contribution to the world without expectation.

Try…

It’s difficult to find volunteer opportunities that do not offer anything in return. There’s always parties or gifts for people who volunteer their time. But most volunteers don’t do it for the gifts. What are other ways to provide selfless service? Picking up garbage? Shoveling your neighbour’s sidewalk?

Practicing karma yoga provides freedom in the form of selfless service. It’s an active reminder that everyone is equal.

Jnana Yoga

The yoga of knowledge. Practitioners of jnana yoga use the mind to understand the greater truth within the mind. The premise is that all knowledge and truth already exists in the mind. Just like an ice sculpture artist who finds a shape within a block of ice, students of jnana yoga learn how to access knowledge and truth within their own mind. Practicing jnana yoga demands great concentration and strength of will – you must figure out how to transcend your own thoughts and ego.

The process of jnana yoga is to consistently question the self and reflect on the limits of the ego. Through this process, you arrive at a place of yearning for freedom from suffering. The process of jnana is a six-step process. Patience is the key to success in the process.

Try…

The Six Steps of Jnana Yoga:

Tranquility The perseverance to maintain peacefulness in spite of external stimuli.

Control Ongoing mental fortitude against the senses. Train the senses to be used only as instruments of the mind, rather than the other way round.

Withdrawal Renounce everything not directly related to your duty. Jnana requires a lifestyle of simplicity where there are no distractions from the spiritual path.

Endurance Hardiness in the face of external forces that create suffering. Success/failure, pain/pleasure are examples of these forces. Endure all forces and resist the urge to suffer.

Faith Be confident that this is the correct path and that the teachings of jnana will guide the way.

Concentration Complete focus and attention on the greater truth of the universe. Abandon all attachment to thoughts and perceptions of the world.

Bhakti Yoga

The practice of bhakti is union through devotion and love to a personal god. Bhakti is also described as “love for love’s sake,” and includes ceremonial offerings, devotional meditations and reminders of gratitude.

Bhakti yoga includes references to “the lord,” “the divine,” and “god,” but note the lowercase letter. For the secular, bhakti is the belief that love is all around, available in abundance to be given and received. Bhakti Yoga teaches that the divine exists in whatever form you choose; the yogic divine is formless.

The intention of bhakti is to create love and gratitude outside of the self. Recognize that attachment to relationships and possessions is fleeting, but receiving and giving love to a divine energy is absolute and permanent. Bhakti devotees describe their practice as “romance with life itself, rather than a specific person or object.”

People come to bhakti yoga as a remedy for heartache due to loss of love. In the face of extreme loss, people seek to understand how to love again. Bhakti teaches that love is abundant and that by spreading love and receiving love from all sources, suffering from heartache can be alleviated.

Sufferers of heartache feel heavy because they’re carrying around a feeling of love and loss. Bhakti yoga is the practice of finding an outlet for that love – regardless of which relationships or possessions are present. Bhakti yogis give love to the earth and the sky and everything in between.

The practice of Bhakti includes devotional meditations such as Kirtan chanting, ceremonial offerings such as flowers or sand represent love for the earth, and offerings of gratitude such as giving thanks before a meal.

Try…

Remember a time that you were consumed by grief. As a tool to focus on the abundance of love, ask yourself the following: If the world around you – the trees, the stars, the moon, the sun, the earth, the water – could speak to you to console you, what would they say? What would you say to them?

Practice bhakti yoga as a reminder that love is formless and abundant.

Hatha Yoga

Alternately referred to as “forceful yoga,” Hatha yoga is focused on developing strength and tenacity in the physical body. Like every yoga practice, hatha aims to transcend consciousness and find freedom by understanding a divine reality. The practice of hatha is a physical pursuit that prepares the body for the rigours of transcendence. Transcendence must not be mistaken for a purely mental achievement. Arriving at a mystical state of consciousness has profound effects on the nervous system and other bodily systems. Hatha yoga is the tool to prepare for these effects.

Hatha yoga is the technology to realize transcendence. Tread cautiously though. Due to the intense physical nature of hatha, practitioners are susceptible to body-focused egocentrism. The intention of yoga is to transcend the ego. Be careful not to inadvertently inflate the ego through admiration of yourself in the postures of hatha yoga.

Use hatha yoga as a tool to prepare the body for the rigours of the finite life and the infinite reality. Be cautious though. The poses are a tool to transcend the ego. Don’t admire yourself in the poses. Don’t overinflate your ego on the path to freedom.

Mantra Yoga

Mantra is a tool to focus meditation. Mantra yoga is the use of a phrase or a sound in the practice and its use protects the person who is using it! Traditionally, Mantra is passed from teacher to student when the teacher clearly sees what the student needs. In a moment of revelation, the teacher knows exactly which mantra to provide. The student receives the mantra and repeats it over and over in meditation. Its use creates a shield and protects the user whenever protection is needed.

If you haven’t been offered a mantra yet, start with OM. With practice and patience, a personal mantra will be revealed to you, either from a teacher of from your own intuition (the teacher within).

So what is yoga?

Yoga is a multi-faceted technique for existing in a mindful state. To do yoga is to adhere to a set of guidelines for coexisting with the world around you. Life is full of challenges, surprises, victories and moments of euphoria and sorrow. Doing yoga is allowing the moments to happen around you, but not being reactive to their outcomes. Also, life includes possessions. Things, relationships, jobs, friends, experiences. All of these possessions contribute to a rich and fulfilled life, but their presence is temporary. Doing yoga is observing those things and experiences as they gracefully come in and out of your life but not allowing their absence to cause you suffering. Pain from their loss is inevitable, but suffering due to that pain is optional. Doing yoga is peacefully accepting that everything is impermanent. Yoga is the template for freedom in the face of all worldly experiences, whether they be exhilarating or debilitating.