SOMATIC YOGA TEACHER TRAINING Student Testimonials
Read our student’s reflections. Each voice reflects a lived experience of embodied learning, inquiry, and trauma-informed practice.
Student Testimonial: Marissa | Online Training
Her Experience in Our Online Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training
I have always loved yoga and have come in and out of regular practice over the past 25 years. In the beginning of 2021 after a back injury from a Crossfit workout, I committed myself fully to yoga as my lifelong practice for sustained strength, mobility, and flexibility that I can do for the rest of my life.
My yoga practice coincided with a particularly difficult period of my life where I was working through some deep emotional pain and focusing on my own trauma healing. I began to dive deep into somatic trauma therapy and how I could use it to help heal myself and help my daughter who was having OCD symptoms at the time.
With my experience in fitness, nutrition, and health coaching, I have always understood the value of the mind-body connection in wellness and have long term goals of owning a wellness and healing retreat center in the future.
Because yoga was such a big part of my life and my own healing journey, I knew I wanted to be a certified yoga teacher at some point as that would also be a part of my future retreat center. When I started researching trauma and took a course on Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy, I learned about Trauma-Informed Yoga and was instantly intrigued.
Through my research I found School Yoga Institute and saw that they offered a 200-hour Trauma-Informed Teacher Training. Nowhere else offered a full 200-hour course, only continuing education classes for Trauma-informed Yoga. I knew immediately that I wanted to be a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher!
This course was one of the most amazing programs I have been through and was a catalyst for a new path in my life. Not only was the program so well put together, but it also gave me everything I needed to know for how to be a successful and authentic yoga teacher in different types of yoga like Yin, Slow Flow and Vinyasa through the trauma-informed lens. Jeanine and Brooke were wonderful teachers! They created such an inclusive and engaging environment that even though we were online via zoom, it opened all of us students up to connection and bonding with our fellow classmates. I loved how they empowered everyone to find their authentic voice as a teacher and encouraged us to show up with our unique gifts just as we are.
I enjoyed every aspect of this program, the yoga labs, the small group discussions, the anatomy lessons with Zach, the social justice aspects and the Prison Yoga Project, the future planning, the one-on-one teaching with partners, and the way Brooke and Jeanine led the class. My favorite part was learning about somatic trauma-informed psychology. It inspired me to go back to school! I am now enrolled at WSU and working on a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. I plan to go on to get a master’s degree in counseling and use yoga and somatic resources in therapy with clients in the future.
In the meantime, I am going to start teaching a self-created Somatic Sensations yoga class at a new yoga studio that opens in my city next month. Through the training and feedback that I received through SYI Trauma-Informed YTT, I feel confident I can bring value to my future yoga students and create an empowering and welcoming trauma-informed classroom environment.
I can’t say enough good things about SYI Trauma-Informed YTT! Even though the program was online, it far exceeded my expectations for any type of yoga teacher training. The training was of high quality, the environment was accepting and inclusive, the other students were inspiring and wonderful to work with, and the teachers were experienced in yoga and trauma education. I was impressed by the extensive materials created for the program that included an Asana Manual, an Anatomy Manual and Trauma-Informed Teacher Training Manual. I still reference them all the time and probably will for years to come. I am proud to have graduated from SYI and be officially certified in Trauma-Informed Yoga. I can’t wait to share this knowledge with my future students and be a small part in making the world a better place!