“You are not a drop in the ocean.  You are the entire ocean, in a drop.” –Rumi

Shasta Yoga Teacher Training was Created by Amy Cooper, and the training curriculum provides a holistic and enriching authentic foundation for yoga practice and teaching. Originally and still often called, VajraPani Yoga Teacher Training, this 200-hour program brings the focus of yoga training to the integration of the physical health generating practices of Hatha Yoga with the compassion and wisdom cultivated from the essential Yogic and Buddhist teachings. Through this training students deepen their commitment and apply their studies, both inward and outward, in the spirit of serving others.

The principle of VajraPani is a Bodhisattva, a Being true to the awakening mind/heart. According to specific Buddhist teachings, his wrathful appearance in paintings, sculptures, and writings is in a warrior pose, dancing wildly around flames depicting the transformative power of awakening, and holding the Vajra, the thunderbolt scepter, representing truth and the power to cut through the darkness of delusion. For the yogi, the image of VajraPani symbolizes the steadfast determination required to remove obstacles and rise above negativity.

INTENTION

The intention of the Shasta Yoga Teacher Training/Advanced Studies program is to provide a skillful training with emphasis on deepening one’s personal yoga practice as the source from which grows informed, creative teaching and lifelong learning, as well as to train each aspiring teacher/student to become an effective and authentic vehicle for the teachings of yoga. As a registered Yoga Alliance school, this training upholds the 200-hour standards intended to strengthen the integrity of a certified yoga teacher.

WHAT “STYLE” OF HATHA YOGA DO WE TEACH?

Informed originally by the teachings of T Krishnamacharya – specifically by the methods of BKS. Iyengar and influenced by the Vinyasa Yoga methods of TKV. Desikachar and K. Pattabhi Jois, this Teacher Training program teaches developing practice, and technique in Yoga Asana (alignment principles and vinyasa sequencing), Pranayama, and Shamatha Meditation with emphasis on both personal practice as the basis for authentic teaching and evolving into yoga instruction. Graduates grasp a deeper knowing of the 8-Limbs and an integrated yoga approach – balanced sequencing, attention to functional alignment, cultivation of presence, breath consciousness and greater freedom in stillness.

Click Here to Download 2018 YTT READING LIST

All who comprise the great assemblage of Bodhisattvas are equally powerful and equally beneficial to countless beings, so that all things seem to be at their command. Sometimes beautiful lotuses and lotus trees are caused by them to grow from the middle of the ocean, or a teardrop is transformed into an ocean. Everything in nature is at the Bodhisattva’s call. Fire can appear as water; water can appear as fire. It is all because of the strength of the Bodhisattva’s attitude, the aspiration and action. For us this says that the practice of compassion must be given full consideration, and it must at all times be in our awareness and at all times performed.”
–16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, teaching on Compassion.