Accessible Yoga + Spiritual Development
200hr Yoga Teacher Training | Independent Yoga Network
About the Program
If you have experienced the profound healing of any of the tools of yoga in your life, you may start to want to deepen your knowledge and start to share these tools with others.
This is a natural progression for many of us.
Some of us choose to take a yoga teacher training to go deeper into the philosophy of yoga, to get a deeper experience of the transformational effects of yoga in our lives. Others know from an early stage that they want to build a career based on sharing yoga with the world.
This course is designed to take you to the next step of that yoga journey in whatever shape or form it comes, whether you want to teach or not.
It is designed to enable you to move deeper into the transformation that yoga tools can give you for body and mind. To help you to venture into self enquiry in a safe, loving and supportive space, at your own rate of growth.
The course is designed to inspire you to look beyond asana, to take you off the mat and into the world, to create ways of sharing yoga with different people of all ages, beliefs and physical abilities. To offer tools inclusively and to open yoga out away from our modern body based media portrayal and back towards its role in understanding the mind, combatting stress and developing a healthy sense of ego, self, devotion and reverence for life.
If you have had some experience of how yoga has changed you, benefited your mental health, created spaciousness and ease in your body that you are keep to explore further then this course is for you.
If you are inspired to make yoga more accessible and bring it to more diverse groups of people then this course is for you.
If you are keen to go an a deep journey into your own conditioning, patterns of behaviour and personal 'mindstuff' then this course is for you.
You do not have to be super fit and healthy to become a yoga teacher. You do not have to be perfect at asana to be a yoga teacher. You do not have to be perfect. Fullstop. And you can learn to mirror that back to your students and those around you.
TESTIMONIALS
As I am coming to the end of my Yoga Teacher Training and reflecting on the whole experience, I can honestly say that meeting Steph and studying her course has been an absolute life changing experience.
The course content itself is completely inclusive for teaching EVERY body and covers so many flavours of yoga in which she encourages and supports us as students to find our own yogic teaching path. Her teachings are warm, funny, inspiring, intellectually stimulating, emotionally galvanising, spiritually conciliatory and taught in the most beautifully life enhancing way.
— Sandie Garrad Parry, founder Inside out: Yoga & Recovery
What you will Learn: Course Modules
How to Teach Inclusive & Compassionate Yoga
Teaching Yoga online in a COVID world
Practicalities: How to Structure Classes
Introduction to some of the main traditions of yoga; their blessings and their curses
Karma Yoga, selfless service
Intensive Chakra Development
Yoga Philosophy
Anatomy & Physiology
TESTIMONIALS
It's not easy to describe Steph's Yoga TTC because she offers a huge experiential component. It may be safe to say I doubt anyone comes out the other end unchanged. Certainly for me it's been a challenging and rewarding spiritual journey, where Steph has held the space with grace,honesty, openness and integrity.
For context, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 2 years ago which compromises my body and am in my mid 60's. However, I found Steph's teaching refreshingly accessible and accepting in both theory and practice. She allowed time and space to absorb everything and work at your own pace.
This course and the whole experience has opened up the concept of Yoga for me in so many different ways. I will always be grateful to Steph for her support and encouragement on this path.
— Jackie Trauffer
Course Details & Dates
Our 2021 course is now open for registration. Due to the intimate nature of this course, it is only open to 10-15 students.
This course will form a mixture of online and in person learning, although more modules will be moved online if we are unable to meet due to COVID 19.
In person training will take place at St Werburghs Community Centre, Bristol one weekend per month for 6 months between October and March. These meetings will for the most part be Saturday afternoons, (2-6pm) and all day Sunday (9-6pm) .
There will also be Wednesday evening online sessions about twice per month between 7 and 9pm. Please note that the Practical Yoga Anatomy module will take place on Monday mornings from 10am-12pm towards the end of the training from 28th Feb to 4th March.
All students will also be given a 90 minute one to one coaching session with Stephanie Shanti.
Finally there will be an intensive immersion graduation retreat at the end of the training at Shanticentre in Italy which will run from Sunday 24th April to Sunday 1st May 2022. Here are the full dates of the training:
3 Types of Education Sources
1. In-Person Meetings in Bristol
Saturday 2nd October 2-6pm & Sunday 3rd October 9am-6pm
Saturday 6th November 2-6pm & Sunday 7th November 9am-6pm
Saturday 11th December 2-6pm Sunday 12th December 9am-6pm
Saturday 22nd January 2022 2-6pm & Sunday 23rd January 2022 9am-6pm
Sunday 13th February 9am-6pm
Saturday 19th March 2-6pm & Sunday 20th March 9am-6pm
Venue: St Werburgh's Community Centre BS2 9TJ
2. Online Sessions: Wednesday 7pm - 9pm (via Zoom)
October 6th & 13th
November 3rd, 10th & 24th
December8th & 15th
January (2022) 5th, 12th & 26th
February 2nd & 16th
March 2nd, 9th March & 23rd
Practical Yoga anatomy online training
Mondays 10am - 12pm (via Zoom)
February 28th
March 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th
April 4th
90 minute one to one online coaching call with Steph (by arrangement)
3. Graduation immersion Retreat at Shanticentre in Italy
Sunday 24th April -
Sunday 1st May 2022
PLEASE NOTE
This retreat will be held live and online, so if travelling to Italy is inaccessible for you for any reason, you can complete it from your home.
We will discount £450 if you prefer to complete the training via the online retreat. Please let us know in advance if you want to take this option.
TESTIMONIALS
I completed my 200-hour TTC with Steph in 2019 now teach Yoga as my main job. The training course was based on accessible and inclusive practice and I had not appreciated how important this would be until I began working with real bodies in the community.
I hadn’t realised how in depth the training course was until I began collaborating
and interacting with other Yoga teachers who presented a very limited understanding of anatomy and how to modify / adapt asana. On completion of the course, I felt confident to teach more than asana, and continue to have a daily personal practice that was encouraged throughout our course.
Steph has a wonderfully engaging energy, her passion for people and keeping yoga authentic and purposeful is refreshing and inspiring. When I’m teaching and witness somebody struggling, I often think, ‘what would Steph do’ because she taught us to work with every individual in the room for their needs.
— Hannah Chaudhri, founder of Ananda Health and Wellbeing
Suggested Reading for the Course
Teaching Yoga by Mark Stephens
Accessible Yoga by Jivana Heyman
Yoga Myths by Judith Hanson Lasater
Opening to Spirit by Caroline Shola Arewa
Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith
Walking the Ancient Path of Yoga by Lila Lolling
TESTIMONIALS
I've done yoga in different parts of the world for a long time but it was meeting this lovely lady (and the other yoginis on the way) that finally made me take it more seriously and bring yoga into all parts of my life - as it should be!
Steph is truly inspirational and motivational and she makes you feel like there's nothing you can't do. Namaste!
— Lindsay Ratcliffe
Main Training Instructors
Stephanie Shanti
Stephanie Shanti Bosanko is the director and co-founder of Shanticentre. She has taught yoga and Reiki retreats and trainings as well as organized 100+ visiting teachers.
Her original teacher training was with Sivananda organisation in 2000. Since then she has completed many yoga programs in UK and India.
Lila Lolling
Lila Saraswati Lolling is an advanced classical yoga teacher with 20 years experience. Her specialities lie in the fields of yoga philosophy and spirituality as well as climate activism.
She is the author of Walking the Ancient Path of Yoga, a devotional book on Raja Yoga and is known for her passion for sharing yoga for people and planet.
Visiting Course Instructors
Mel Skinner
Mel has been teaching yoga since 2014, and after studying and practicing a variety of styles she now focuses on slow, therapeutic styles of yoga, with emphasis on softening the body, creating space for the breath and developing awareness of one's self. She teaches online and face-to-face classes, workshops, retreats and one-to-ones and incorporates reflexology, menstrual cycle awareness, and astrology in her work, supporting people with anxiety, depression, stress, low self esteem, chronic fatigue, menstrual difficulties and more. She also teaches on teacher training courses on restorative yoga and yoga nidra.
Gladey Rowan
Yoga became a way of life for me after I had my third child in 2007. I was struggling to cope with three young children and yoga became the medicine that held all the pieces of my life together. I trained in 2009 and went straight into teaching hatha flow, vinyasa flow, pregnancy and mums and babe's yoga, continuing to study more along the path of my yoga journey. I love bringing people together and holding space: this is where the magic happens. Yoga is a deeply transformational journey that works on so many levels, through the physical body, to the mind and emotions and ultimately brings us home to ourselves. I am so grateful for this practice and love sharing it too
Michelle Oliver
My teaching was born out of my love for yoga and the beautiful and profound personal journey I found myself on. I simply wanted to keep learning and keep sharing the knowledge with as many people as I could.
I draw inspiration for my classes from nature and the seasons. I enjoy exploring how we can adapt our lifestyle and yoga practice in harmony with the rhythm of nature. . I also like to connect with my celtic roots creating themes and weaving in poems and stories from the celtic world.
Georgina Rose
Georgina is a Yoga Therapist, Bodyworker and Mother of three, initiated into the lineage of Kriya Yoga and with a 16 year background of learning and teaching Hatha, Kundalini and Movement Meditation.
With a passion for nature and rewilding her goal is to empower the individual to consciously navigate their unique pathway through the wilderness and architecture of archetype and interwoven experience; owning our catharsis, feeling alive and taking the middle path
Course Pre-Requisites
Some experience of yoga, meditation and self development experience is needed, as well as a willingness to go deeply into self enquiry and an open heart to the transformative effect of all the tools of yoga. The more experience you have the easier the course will be for you, however, if you are open hearted, keen to learn and willing to work on yourself honestly both on your own and in a group setting then this course will work out.