The Best Kundalini Yoga Courses Online
hile yogi practices have been known for many centuries now, Kundalini Yoga has appeared quite recently. However, it was not invented in the 20th century but it was only uncovered and made public in the 1960s. Practices of Kundalini Yoga are much older, and for a long time, they were kept in secret.
Kundalini Yoga is the step-up for anyone who is interested in yoga. But unlike in traditional yoga, to practice Kundalini Yoga one needs a lot of knowledge and guidance. Finding the right teacher and course can help you develop an understanding of this hard practice.
The Best Kundalini Yoga Courses Online are:
Kundalini Yoga has a lot of complicated concepts. Based on the actions and practices of traditional yoga, it adds a whole new layer of spiritual knowledge, philosophy, and practices that can help you link to inner selves and uncover your energy, clearing your mind for raw emotions that are so often being held up inside us. Read on for a list of the best Kundalini Yoga teacher training online.
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How Do You Teach Kundalini Yoga?
Kundalini yoga is very much based on the contemporary version of traditional yoga called Kriya Yoga. Kriya is Sanskrit for “action,” and kriya is a combination of a physical pose that your body takes (asanas) and breathing or meditation (pranayama). It is a pair of the action of your body and the action of your mind.
Kriya is also a set of these actions that your body and mind take throughout a yoga session, and as a teacher, you need to know both physical poses and mental actions. Yoga can be confusing at first for your students, both physical and mental aspects of it. Students can easily have problems with the physical side of it because yoga involves a lot of movements and positions that are unnatural for human bodies.
Take Kapotasana or Pigeon pose. It can be a bit challenging for somebody, who has never done yoga before. Moreover, some people will not even believe that they can do it. Again, after all, they have never tried putting their legs at such an unusual angle in their everyday lives. As an instructor, you will need to help them understand that a pose is safe and show them how to do it without discomfort.
Unlike a more Westernized version of yoga, as a Kundalini Yoga teacher, you also need to understand a more spiritual side of Kundalini Yoga.
- It is not only about strength and physical activity.
- Kundalini Yoga is about a mental connection with your inner self and bringing energy through your chakras.
To teach Kundalini Yoga, you must become the best kind of teacher: understanding, caring, and selfless. If you want to succeed, you are going to need to keep your ego outside of this process. However, the meaning of success is different from your usual understanding of success on this path.
Is Kundalini Yoga Dangerous?
If done properly and with professional supervision on the initial stage, Kundalini Yoga is not dangerous. Potential dangers can lie with improper execution of yoga directions like taking or holding a pose in an improper way. What can complicate things is the mental side of it.
Tuning to emotions is crucial for your mental health but when it comes to particularly complicated and vivid emotions like strong anger, tuning into it should be done carefully and slowly. There are some reports of very complicated side effects from the improper practice of Kundalini Yoga. Some users even reported experiencing the following after trying Kundalini Yoga:
- Panic attacks
- Psychotic episodes
As a teacher, you are taking responsibility for inexperienced trainees and their emotional state during a session. That means that you yourself should master yoga and take serious steps towards mastering and understanding the spiritual and emotional sides of your future clients. Perhaps the most important task for you as a teacher is to guarantee the safety of your students.
Since yoga is a combination of physical and mental actions, safety should be practiced on both physical and mental sides. Physically, you need to make sure your students are doing their movements and are holding their poses right. A pose that is not taken right and not held properly can cause physical damage to the bodies of your students.
As for the mental side of yoga, things can get tricky and even dangerous. Opening up and allowing the following emotions to flow freely can often be scary and dangerous if not handled properly:
- Anger
- Fear
- Anxiety
Meditation and breathing techniques will help your students to link to their inner selves and their strongest emotions. This can be beneficial but should be done very carefully.
How is Kundalini Yoga Different from Other Yoga Styles?
There are many different styles of yoga that have been practiced around the world for centuries. Nowadays, in the Western world, yoga is used for a variety of reasons:
- Some people use it as an effective workout.
- Some people want to increase their flexibility and mobility.
- For some, yoga is a spiritual ritual. After all, that is why yoga was invented in the first place.
When it comes to the spiritual side of humanity, Kundalini Yoga might be one of the best ways to explore the inner worlds. Kundalini Yoga takes a physical aspect of traditional yoga and adds a special accent on the mental side of it – the physical side, such as poses, or even breathing and meditation are only supporting instruments for an initial goal: reach your inner energy and link it to proper chakras.
That is where the word chakra comes into play. Chakra is a center of spiritual energy in the human body, and usually, there are seven of them. Kundalini comes from the Sanskrit word “kundal” which means “circular,” meaning a circular snake that rests at the bottom of the human spine. Kundalini Yoga helps to discover and connect this energy to proper chakras and balance them.
The 3 Best Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training Online
Teaching Kundalini is a fulfilling experience. In order to teach, you will need to know the discipline backward and forwards. It takes a great instructor to learn to be a great instructor yourself.
Below are the best Kundalini Yoga teacher training sessions available online.
Brett Larkin has been practicing yoga since 2015 and offers many different programs in various styles of yoga including Kundalini Yoga Instructor class. While she is offering her own classes, she has been partnering with many other teachers to produce programs for yoga enthusiasts and to educate the next generation of yoga teachers.
One of these classes features Guru Singh, a master spiritual trainer and Kundalini practice teacher with staggering 50 years of experience. Guru Singh is not your ordinary yoga instructor. Instead of stressing his yoga experience, he centers around the spiritual world and spirit-based teachings in general. Kundalini Yoga is just a way to reach his goal of spiritual clarity.
If you are looking for some proof, the list of his recommenders will surprise you: Guru Singh has testimony from a lot of his clients including those, who are ready to put their own reputation at stake, like actress Carrie Anne Moss. Maybe that was where she developed her mobility for these tricks in The Matrix?
On this journey, you will not be alone. Yes, like everything after 2020, these courses are available online and are conducted via video call but many pursuers of yoga training will join you in this process of learning, which is a perfect opportunity to share experience and develop your professional network.
A certified school from Jolie Wilson offers several courses on yoga training, and the most extensive course in Kundalini Yoga training is the 300-Hour Yoga Teaching Training. The whole course is divided into 30 modules that you can complete at your own pace: all of them are available on their portal.
Completing a course will consist of different activities that include video classes up to one hour long, a lot of useful reading materials, illustrations of poses, coursework, and so on. Each module will carry you through every side of a successful Kundalini Yoga class, both from physical and spiritual sides.
By the end of this course, like in every school, you are going to need to graduate. To do that, you will need to present your own 75-minute Kundalini Yoga class on video, so after this course, you are supposed to be ready to practice Kundalini even with masters of this art and craft. There is no way you will not be able to teach Kundalini Yoga after this course – you will simply not graduate if you cannot.
However, the course does not stop with just simple lectures and reference materials. If something is unclear, there is qualified customer support, where you can send your questions on this course and on yoga art in general. After completing the course, you will have a lot of supplementary materials to help you with your yoga journey like
- Illustrations
- Printable PDFs
- Materials that you can show to your future students
Perhaps one of the best features is the dedicated Facebook group that unites all students of this course, where they can share experience and develop their network without being tied to video sessions. Everything is done so that you are completing the course at your pace, even networking.
This program is not only for those, who want to dedicate themselves to teaching Kundalini Yoga but also to those, who are struggling with their lives in general and want to find some outlets for their worst emotions. The Soul of Yoga course does not only provide guidance on how to teach but gives a better understanding of troubling emotions like grief or anxiety, potentially helping manage stress or depression.
As for the physical part of yoga, this training program gives their clients a better understanding of human anatomy and physiology. If you are confused with traditional yogi body energy systems like chakras, there is an extensive explanation on that too. Finally, they provide guidance in another crucial component of Kundalini Yoga: sounds and chants that are very different from traditional yoga.
Besides, they offer quite a lot of bonuses to their customers.
- While most programs will require you to pay in full, The Soul of Yoga requires the initial payment of 25% of the course only.
- However, if you are ready to pay in full, there is a $150 discount waiting for you.
- All materials for this program are composed in both English and Spanish – very handy for teachers in the Latino communities.
- 15% discount for Military and Senior applicants.
- For residents of California or nearby states, there is an on-site facility in Encinitas, CA, where The Soul of Yoga has restarted its in-person classes starting Summer 2021.
This program can be perfect for those who want to understand Kundalini Yoga in all its depth first and then develop a training technique. It does not mean that they do not train teachers – they do, but in a bit of a selfless fashion, as they describe their learning program.
Who Are Some of the Best Kundalini Yoga Teachers?
There are some Kundalini Yoga teachers that are renowned for their talent and skill. These teachers are recognized far and wide for their contribution to the practice.
(Some of them may even do some live online yoga courses!)
Below are three of the best Kundalini Yoga teachers out there.
Dharma Mittra
Dharma Mittra was born in Brazil and moved to New York City, where he opened his yoga training school. Mittra has developed a lot of techniques and yoga poses in his books.
If you have ever seen the famous poster with an endless number of yoga poses and a Hinduism symbol in the middle, that was invented by Mittra as a gift for his guru. About a third of these poses he invented himself.
His work has helped to promote yoga practices in the United States and the Western world in general. Aside from spiritual practices, Mittra created a show that highlights yogi practices. That famous handless headstand – that is a part of a show by Dharma Mittra.
Simranjeet Singh
Simranjeet Singh attempts at expanding the philosophy of Kundalini Yoga beyond the normal yoga practices, mixing Kundalini philosophy with the teaching of Ancient Greeks. As such, in quite an unusual fashion for yoga teachers, Simranjeet holds a degree in Philosophy and a Master’s degree in Education. He lives in Belo Horizonte in Brazil, holding multiple positions in yoga teaching.
Krishna Kaur
If you want to talk about spreading yoga and Kundalini Yoga practices around the world, there is hardly anyone who can compete with Krishna Kaur and her passion for teaching yoga. For over 40 years already, Kaur has been promoting yogi practices in all sorts of different places on all continents of the world and in the most distant places.
As of now, Kaur has been working on yoga awareness and spreading it in Africa, also trying to unite Kundalini Yoga trainers and teachers around the continent. Perhaps her most valuable work, however, is with at-risk youth: Kaur has been teaching at juvenile facilities and schools for at-risk children.
Conclusion
Kundalini Yoga is an exciting and interesting concept. It links usual traditional yoga practices with deep philosophy and understanding of yourself that is even unmatched to yoga itself. However, learning and perfecting your craft of teaching this style can take a lot of time and effort. Luckily, modern technology can help everybody to find a perfect way of studying this complicated concept, no matter if they want to teach or not.
(If you are looking for more of the best online yoga courses, check out that amazing article!)
