Institute for Living Yoga

The Institute for Living Yoga offers both 200-hr and 300-hr yoga teacher training programs designed by Sarahjoy Marsh. Sarahjoy designed the 200-hr amrita yoga Teacher Training and the 300-hr Advanced Yoga Teacher Training to be trauma-informed trainings. Sarahjoy also provides an 800-hr IAYT Yoga Therapy Training of which the first 300hrs of that training are also the 300-hr Advanced Yoga Teacher Training registered with the Yoga Alliance.

Our school training programs incorporate excellence in yoga asana with the depth of philosophy, pranayama, mindfulness, and Ayurveda.  We teach our trainees to teach people, not just poses; to teach yoga, not just exercise.  Throughout the courses, we provide instruction, training, supervision, and small group exercises set up to support students to develop their teaching skills: skillful use of language, observations, verbal and hands on support, sequencing, classroom management, and the development of a teacher's authentic voice, personal presence, and confidence.  We also teach the Life Skills of Yoga in each of our training programs.

Programs are limited in size to create a training program with ample one to one support from our trainers.  Programs include training manuals (150 - 200 pages, depending in the training program), materials pertinent to each module, and recordings of the dharma/philosophy talks, anatomy lessons, pranayama, and even some of the yoga sessions provided during the training (we record live material for the continued reference for our trainees).

Our lead trainer, Sarahjoy Marsh, MA, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, has a Masters in Counseling and has been training yoga teachers, yoga outreach volunteers, and mental health providers, including clinical psychologists and socials workers in the therapeutic benefits of yoga for since 2000. She is a student and scholar of yoga with 32 years of professional teaching experience and 35 years of yogic study. Sarahjoy is the founder of the DAYA Foundation, a non-profit yoga center with outreach into the public health and social justice margins, and Living Yoga, non-profit yoga outreach organization supporting prisons and rehab centers. From her extensive background, Sarahjoy created “amrita yoga”, a form of vinyasa yoga that integrates Ayurveda, neuroscience, yoga philosophy and psychology, pranayama, and mindfulness.

She is the author of Hunger, Hope & Healing, a yoga approach to reclaiming one's relationship to the body and food, released by Shambhala publication in February 2015.  She is also the author of the VHI* series, for health professionals to provide proper exercises to their patients.  (*VHI: www.vhikits.com)