Most students arrive at our Yoga Therapy Foundation training with experience behind them. They have completed their yoga teacher training. Many have been teaching for years. They know how to sequence a class, use pranayama and meditation, and adapt practices for different bodies.
Naturally, they expect Yoga Therapy training to build on that knowledge. It does. But first, we sometimes have to dismantle some of it.
Because one of the biggest differences between a yoga teacher and a Yoga Therapist isn't simply the practices they use; it's how they think about the person in front of them, the practice itself, risk, adaptation and what they are trying to achieve. That can require some unlearning.
Some of these shifts can feel quite uncomfortable at first. After twenty years as a Yoga Therapist, and having taught and mentored hundreds of students, I see the same moments of surprise again and again.
These are the seven mindset shifts that begin to change the way you think from yoga teacher to Yoga Therapist.
Shift 1: From tradition to enquiry
Yoga teachers often come to us deeply rooted in the lineage or school in which they trained. There can be a strong sense that this is where their yoga comes from, and that certain ways of practising are the way things should be done.
Our Yoga Therapy training does not follow one lineage. We take the values and knowledge of yoga as a whole, drawing from different schools and lineages, past and present. We see yoga as an evolving ecosystem that can support the human beings of today, rather than something that must be practised exactly as it was hundreds or thousands of years ago.
For some students, that is difficult at first. As a Yoga Therapist, your starting point becomes less about asking, "How was I taught to do this?" and more about asking, "What does this particular human being in front of me need?"
Shift 2: From more to less
This may be the biggest surprise of all. Students arrive expecting that working with complex health conditions will require increasingly complex Yoga Therapy practices. During their training, they often worry about whether they will know enough to deal with the difficult cases they may encounter.
And then they start working with clients. Again and again, they discover that the simplest practices can have the biggest effect. In fact, the more complex the case, the simpler the approach may need to become.
"Less is more" is perhaps the piece of feedback I hear most often from students during their final evaluations. They didn't expect it.
Yoga Therapy is not about demonstrating how many techniques you know. Sometimes the greatest skill lies in knowing how little is needed.
Shift 3: From novelty to repetition
As yoga teachers, we can feel enormous pressure to keep our classes creative. We come up with new sequences, themes, new variations to keep our students interested and challenged.
Yoga Therapy can require almost the opposite. Repetition is not only acceptable – sometimes it's necessary.
When you are working with someone affected by a serious health issue or nervous system dysregulation, familiarity, certainty and predictability can be incredibly important. Repeating the same simple practices may be far more appropriate than continually introducing something new.
This can be a surprisingly difficult shift for a creative and experienced yoga teacher, who has spent years committing to offering more. Now you may have to become comfortable offering the same thing again. And again. Because that may be exactly what your client needs.
Shift 4: From the plan to the person
Get comfortable with perhaps the most famous answer in Yoga Therapy: "It depends."
Yoga Therapy students often expect to be taught a protocol – one solution they can pull out of the bag for someone with lower back pain, another for someone with anxiety, a set of "must-dos" for someone with arthritis.
But Yoga Therapy is adapted to the individual. There is no single "fix it all" practice because there is no single type of person with lower back pain, anxiety or arthritis.
I once worked with a client with clinical obesity who had a deeply rooted sedentary lifestyle. We never sat down in our sessions. Instead, we opened standing and we closed standing, and it had the most energising effect on her.
With another client experiencing significant fatigue, I might do the entire session lying down. And sometimes you make a beautiful plan and then throw it straight out of the window depending on how the client shows up on the day.
Perhaps you have prepared an active movement session for a client with rheumatoid arthritis. They arrive with a flare-up of pain and inflammation and they are menstruating. And so we change of plan.
The difference is fundamental. You don't adapt the person to the practice. You adapt the practice to the person – and you keep adapting as their needs change, sometimes even within the same session.
Shift 5: From "yoga is good for you" to "is this safe for you?"
This can be one of the most challenging pieces of unlearning. Many students arrive with a deeply held belief that yoga is good for everyone. Yoga heals. Yoga helps. Perhaps a practice needs modifying, but fundamentally, yoga is safe.
Then they begin studying contraindications. Every single yoga practice has potential contraindications. That includes asana, breathing practices and meditation. Even chair yoga has contraindications! The simple truth is that yoga can be harmful.
Pranayama can be particularly surprising. Students may imagine using Alternate Nostril Breathing or Ujjayi with clients experiencing respiratory conditions such as asthma, COPD or lung cancer, only to discover that these practices may be contraindicated.
In fact, as a Yoga Therapist, you might never use some of the classic pranayama techniques with certain clients. Introducing somebody to the most basic breathing practice may be the greater achievement.
The question therefore changes. Instead of "Which yoga practice can I use for this condition?", a Yoga Therapist asks: "Is this practice safe and appropriate for this person, today?" Safety comes before technique, before tradition, and before our own ideas about what yoga should look like or feel like.
Shift 6: From your yoga experience to their lived experience
Most people arrive at Yoga Therapy training carrying a very heavy suitcase. It is filled with their own experiences of yoga: the practices that transformed them, the teachers who inspired them, the philosophy that made sense of something in their lives, the poses that helped their pain or the breathing practice that calmed their anxiety.
All of that experience has value, but it can also get in the way. Just because a yoga practice was good for you does not mean it is good for your client. In fact, for them, it might be harmful.
This becomes particularly clear when students begin working with people who may never have practised yoga before and who may be living with serious health conditions, pain, disability, fatigue or significant physical limitations.
You cannot assume they will understand yoga terminology or feel comfortable in a yoga environment. And if you are working within a clinical setting, you may never use Sanskrit terminology, talk about chakras or bring out your sound bowls.
You have to be able to see the person outside the lens of your own yoga experience. Bottom line: Your story is yours; their story is theirs.
Shift 7: From yoga knowledge to clinical depth
Finally comes a realisation that can be both exciting and overwhelming: just how much there is to learn!
Many students begin Yoga Therapy training expecting something similar to their yoga teacher training. Then they encounter anatomy and physiology, pathology, contraindications, assessment, therapeutic relationships, adaptation, psychology, nervous system regulation and the many different ways that health conditions can affect a human being.
The depth can surprise even people coming from medical backgrounds. One of our graduates, Linda Khalid, a retired medical professional in the UK, told us that studying Yoga Therapy was comparable in depth to her medical degree. Dr Yasmin Bedi was surprised by how much she learnt through Yoga Therapy training that she had not encountered during her medical education!
That does not mean a Yoga Therapist is a doctor, or that Yoga Therapy training is medical training. They are very different professions.
But becoming a Yoga Therapist does require you to understand that good intentions and personal experience are not enough. If you are going to work responsibly with people experiencing complex health conditions, your knowledge and skills have to deepen too.
So what is the difference between a yoga teacher and a Yoga Therapist?
It isn't that one knows more yoga than the other. And it certainly isn't that everything you learnt during your yoga teacher training was wrong. Yoga teaching and Yoga Therapy simply ask different things of you.
As a teacher, you may be thinking about the experience of a whole group: how to sequence, communicate, inspire, challenge and support.
As a Yoga Therapist, your attention shifts more deeply towards the individual. What is happening with this person? What is safe for them? What might need to change today? What happens if the practice I love is not the practice they need?
That is why our Yoga Therapy Foundation training can sometimes feel like both learning and unlearning. You arrive wanting more tools. Instead, you may discover that becoming a Yoga Therapist is as much about learning when not to use them.
