We launched our first Yoga Teacher Training — here's how it happened

For the first two years of Phoenix Yoga, we were a studio that taught classes. That was enough — more than enough, honestly. Building something from scratch, finding our community, learning how to run a small business and a yoga practice in the same breath — that took everything we had.

But somewhere in year three, a question kept surfacing: what if we could help people become teachers?

Why it took a while

We didn't rush into this. A Yoga Teacher Training is a serious thing to offer. It's not a weekend workshop or a new class style — it's a commitment to someone's professional and personal development. We wanted to make sure that if we were going to do it, we were going to do it properly.

That meant being honest about what we could offer that a larger training provider couldn't: depth of community, genuine mentorship, a space where students could practice teaching in a real studio with real students from day one. The size that might have seemed like a limitation turned out to be the point.

We wanted to train teachers who think carefully, teach with warmth, and build the kind of connection with their students that keeps people coming back to yoga for decades.

The first cohort

When we opened applications, we weren't sure what to expect. We got more interest than we'd planned for, which was both gratifying and slightly terrifying.

The first cohort was everything we'd hoped. A mix of backgrounds, experience levels, and reasons for wanting to teach — but a shared seriousness about what they were doing. Watching people who'd come to Phoenix as students start to find their own teaching voice was one of the most genuinely moving things we've experienced in running this place.

Some of them went on to teach at other studios. Some came back to teach at Phoenix. All of them, as far as we can tell, left with something they didn't have when they arrived — not just a qualification, but a relationship with yoga that's become part of how they move through the world.

What's next

We're continuing the YTT programme. Each cohort is small by design — that's not going to change. The things that made the first one work (the intimacy, the mentorship, the real teaching opportunities from early on) only work at a certain scale.

If you've been thinking about training as a yoga teacher — and you've been practising at Phoenix, or you're looking for a training that's rooted in community rather than volume — we'd love to hear from you.

This is one of the things we're most proud of. Not because it's a revenue stream or a clever business move (though it helps), but because it's genuinely extending what Phoenix is for. Teachers who trained here carry something of this place with them. And that feels like exactly the right way to grow.