300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training

Somatics, Mindfulness, Yoga Philosophy & Therapeutic Practice

January - October 2027 (Dates TBD)

Tula’s 300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training is designed for yoga teachers who want to teach with more depth, discernment, accessibility, and therapeutic intelligence.

This training moves beyond formulaic sequencing and performance-based yoga. Rooted in somatic awareness, functional anatomy, breath, meditation, yoga philosophy, and trauma-sensitive teaching, this program explores yoga as a practice of relationship: with the body, breath, mind, nervous system, and lived experience.

This is a Yoga Alliance 300-hour advanced teacher training. It does not certify students as yoga therapists. However, the curriculum is being thoughtfully designed with future yoga therapy education in mind and may serve as a strong foundation for teachers interested in deeper therapeutic study.

Why This Training Is Different

Many 300-hour trainings emphasize advanced postures, complex sequencing, or refinement of teaching performance.

Tula’s 300-hour takes a different approach.

Our focus is on therapeutic application, somatic inquiry, accessibility, contemplative practice, and the ability to adapt yoga for real people in real bodies. Students will learn to observe more clearly, cue more skillfully, offer meaningful choices, and design practices that support steadiness, self-awareness, agency, and resilience.

This training reflects Tula’s core philosophy: yoga is not simply something we perform from the outside. Yoga is something we experience from the inside.

Who This Training Is For

This training is for 200-hour yoga teachers who are ready to deepen their teaching and practice.

It may be especially supportive for teachers who want to:

  • Teach in a more therapeutic, somatic, and nervous-system-informed way

  • Work more skillfully with beginners, aging students, chronic pain, stress, anxiety, and physical limitations

  • Move beyond rigid alignment cues and teach through function, sensation, inquiry, and adaptation

  • Integrate pranayama, meditation, philosophy, and subtle body teachings with more confidence

  • Create classes that are accessible, inclusive, and rooted in self-awareness rather than performance

  • Explore yoga as a path of healing and transformation while staying within the ethical scope of a yoga teacher

Subjects Covered

Somatic Yoga & Therapeutic Movement

Students will explore somatic movement, Hanna Somatics, pandiculation, interoception, slow strengthening, prop-supported practice, chair-supported movement, and ways of teaching movement as a process of awareness rather than correction.

Functional Anatomy, Biomechanics & Pain Science

This training includes a deeper study of the spine, pelvis, hips, shoulders, breath mechanics, nervous system, aging, chronic pain, and common movement patterns. The emphasis is on how anatomy informs adaptation, safety, accessibility, and skillful teaching.

Breath, Pranayama & Subtle Body

Students will study breath anatomy, pranayama, nervous system regulation, subtle body frameworks, contraindications, and how to sequence breath practices responsibly for different students and settings.

Meditation, Mindfulness & Inner Practice

This training includes mindfulness, body scan, compassion practice, interoceptive awareness, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and the role of meditation in supporting steadiness and self-relationship.

Yoga Philosophy & Yoga Psychology

Rather than repeating the basics of a 200-hour training, this program will go deeper into the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, the kleshas, samskaras, gunas, koshas, dharma, discernment, self-study, and the relationship between practice and daily life.

Trauma-Sensitive & Mental Health-Informed Teaching

Students will learn principles of trauma-sensitive teaching, invitational language, pacing, choice, nervous system states, grounding, scope of practice, referral boundaries, and how to create safer learning environments without overstepping the role of a yoga teacher.

Accessibility, Aging & Chronic Conditions

This training explores how to adapt yoga for students with different levels of mobility, aging bodies, chronic pain, arthritis, osteoporosis considerations, balance concerns, stress, fatigue, and other common life experiences that require a more thoughtful approach.

Teaching Methodology & Therapeutic Class Design

Students will learn to design classes that are intentional, accessible, and therapeutically informed. This includes sequencing, cueing, observation, use of props, pacing, group dynamics, and adapting practices for mixed-level groups.

Ethics, Scope & Professional Practice

Students will examine the difference between yoga teaching and yoga therapy, ethical boundaries, consent, student-teacher power dynamics, professional language, intake considerations, documentation basics, referrals, and responsible communication around therapeutic yoga.

Practicum, Teaching Labs & Integration

The training includes practice teaching, observation, feedback, case reflections, therapeutic group class design, peer learning, and a final integration project. Students will apply what they are learning in practical, embodied, and reflective ways.

Required Book List (proposed)

The required reading list is intentionally focused and designed to support the major pillars of the training: classical yoga philosophy, individualized practice, breath, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, cultural responsibility, and yoga for aging and real-life bodies.

  • The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Edwin F. Bryant

  • The Bhagavad Gita, Eknath Easwaran

  • The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, T.K.V. Desikachar

  • Svādhyāya Breath Journal, Robin Rothenberg

  • Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, David Treleaven

  • Embrace Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice, Susanna Barkataki

  • Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, Baxter Bell and Nina Zolotow

Not required, but strongly recommended:

  • Trail Guide to the Body: A Hands-On Guide to Locating Muscles, Bones, and More, Andrew Biel

Additional Course Reader

Students will also receive selected excerpts and articles on breath, pranayama, accessibility, ethics, scope of practice, subtle body, yoga therapy foundations, and selected Upanishadic passages.

Possible supplemental authors may include Donna Farhi, Jivana Heyman, Amy Weintraub, Michael Stone, Deb Dana, Stephen Porges, and others.

Relationship to Yoga Therapy

*Tula’s 300-hour training is not an IAYT-accredited yoga therapy training and does not certify students as yoga therapists.

At the same time, this program is being designed with Tula’s long-term vision in mind: to build a serious, ethical, and well-documented pathway for advanced therapeutic yoga education.

If Tula develops a future IAYT-accredited yoga therapy program, this training may be evaluated as possible prerequisite or transfer credit, subject to future program structure, accreditation standards, and individual student records. Transferability is not guaranteed.

Our Intention

The intention of this training is to prepare teachers to offer yoga with more depth, humility, clarity, and care.

Graduates will leave with a stronger understanding of therapeutic yoga principles, somatic practice, functional anatomy, breath, meditation, philosophy, accessibility, and trauma-sensitive teaching. More importantly, they will learn to teach in a way that honors the whole person.

If you are interested in learning more once details are finalized, please fill out the form below: