200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training
Starts September 2026
Early Bird Enrollment Update
We are thrilled to share that the Early Bird tuition spots for the Shanti Yoga 200-Hour Teacher Training have officially been filled. We are so grateful for the incredible response and the beautiful group forming for this inaugural training. Applications remain open while space is still available. We would love to connect with those interested in joining this training.
Master the Art & Science of Yoga
At Shanti Yoga, we believe yoga is not something you perform — it is something you embody.
Our collaborative 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, led by Katie Kelly (RN, BSN, HN-BC, 1000 CYT) is designed for the modern practitioner who wants to root deeply in ancient wisdom while skillfully meeting the realities of contemporary life. This program weaves classical yogic philosophy, breathwork, meditation, and subtle body awareness together with the science of anatomy, physiology, neurology, psychology, and trauma-informed care.
Rather than training teachers to replicate shapes, we cultivate discernment. This experience is built to support deep, sustainable transformation from the inside out and extends far beyond the mat.
This program offers a grounded, somatic, and science-informed approach to teaching. You will learn how the nervous system responds to stress, how breath and movement influence regulation, and how to design classes that are physically intelligent, emotionally attuned, and accessible to real humans living real lives.
Anatomy, physiology, and embodied awareness are integrated throughout the training so that every cue, sequence, and teaching decision is rooted in integrity, clarity, and understanding.
The Schedule
The training unfolds gradually from September through April, with immersive weekends spaced to allow integration between gatherings. Each component — Intensives, Integrations, and Labs — serves a distinct purpose in shaping thoughtful, embodied teachers.
Intensive Study & Foundational Depth (96 hours)
Our four Intensive weekends are the immersive anchor points of the training. These full Friday–Sunday gatherings allow us to dive deeply into philosophy, anatomy, sequencing, nervous system education, and embodied practice without rush or fragmentation.
Intensives are where the core curriculum lives. We move between lecture, discussion, movement, breathwork, and applied teaching work — integrating both the science and art of yoga.
Intensive Weekends (Friday–Sunday, 9:00am–6:00pm)
• September 4–6
• November 6–8
• January 8–10
• March 5–7
Lunch breaks are built into each day.
Each Intensive is spaced to allow integration and reflection between gatherings.
Application, Discussion & Skill Refinement (40 hours)
Integration weekends are designed to deepen understanding and translate knowledge into practice. These Saturday–Sunday afternoons focus on applied teaching skill, group discussion, case studies, sequencing refinement, and embodied integration.
Where Intensives build foundation, Integration weekends help you synthesize and apply what you’ve learned.
Schedule:
Integration Weekends (Saturday 1:00pm–6:00pm, Sunday 12:30-5:30 pm)
• October 3–4
• December 5–6
• February 6–7
• April 3–4
These weekends are intentionally shorter to support balance and real-life commitments.
Practice Teaching & Real-Time Feedback (21 hours)
Teaching Labs are monthly 3-hour weekday evening sessions dedicated to practice teaching, peer feedback, cue refinement, and confidence building.
These labs create a structured, supportive environment to experiment, receive feedback, and develop your authentic teaching voice.
One weekday evening per month (dates shared upon enrollment).
Labs ensure you graduate not just with knowledge — but with real teaching experience.
Contact & Non-Contact Hours
This 200-hour training includes immersive in-person study, structured observation, guided independent learning, and ongoing practice within the Shanti community.
Contact Hours (20 hours)
Students complete 20 contact hours through the structured observation of at least 10 yoga classes.
Observation is not passive attendance. Each class requires written analysis using a guided framework that explores nervous system pacing, biomechanics and load, cueing language, philosophy integration, and a rewritten transition or teaching moment. A full unlimited membership is included in the tuition for this training so no additional cost is incurred to observe classes at Shanti Yoga.
Non-Contact Hours (23 hours)
Non-contact hours consist of guided independent study, including required reading, written reflections and essays, completion of the lab manual, exam preparation, and capstone development. These hours create space for integration and deeper personal reflection between in-person gatherings, allowing learning to settle and mature over time.
How This Training is Structured
This training is designed to feel steady and supportive — immersive when needed, spacious when appropriate.
From September through April, we gather in a natural rhythm. Intensive weekends occur every other month, offering deep immersion in philosophy, anatomy, practice, and teaching development. In the months between Intensives, we meet for shorter, half day Integration weekends to reflect, apply, and refine what you’re learning.
Once each month, we also gather for a weekday evening Lab — a smaller, focused space to practice, experiment, and grow your voice as a teacher. Sometimes we may meet in the studio and other times, we may meet online. This is a fun, flexible way to play and connect as teachers and students.
This rhythm means you’ll be in connection with your cohort roughly every two weeks. Sometimes that connection will be full and immersive; other times it will be brief but intentional. Over time, this steady cadence builds trust, skill, and meaningful community.
The structure is rigorous — but it is also humane. It honors that you have a life outside this training. Our intention is depth without burnout, immersion without overwhelm, and growth that feels sustainable.
What This Training Cultivates
This training is for those who feel called to create meaningful change through yoga — whether that means teaching in studios, holding space in community settings, supporting mental health, or simply living with greater presence and compassion.
Graduates leave with the confidence to guide others with clarity and care, grounded in a strong ethical and philosophical foundation and a deep trust in their own voice. This is not about perfect poses — it is about presence, connection, and leading with integrity.
Through this training, you won’t just learn how to teach yoga — you’ll learn how to listen, sense, and respond. You will develop the skill to read a room, recognize shifts in energy and nervous system tone, and guide others with both steadiness and compassion.
You will also learn to think critically about the practice itself — to question outdated myths, understand the physiology behind what you teach, and make intentional choices rooted in both science and lived experience.
From sequencing and cueing to touch ethics, music selection, pacing, and holding emotional space, this program prepares you to teach in a way that is attuned, inclusive, and deeply human.
Whether you go on to teach publicly or carry this wisdom into your relationships, work, and self-care, the impact of this training will extend far beyond the mat.
If you feel a quiet stirring — a sense of recognition, curiosity, or longing — trust it. Yoga does not call us toward who we should become; it calls us back to who we already are. We would be honored to walk beside you as that path unfolds.
Commonly Asked Questions
What is the curriculum? How does it Stand out from other trainings?
What makes this training unique is that it is designed to bridge ancient practice with modern understanding in a way that is deeply practical, embodied, and applicable to real human experience.
Many yoga teacher trainings emphasize memorizing poses, sequencing flows, and completing required hours. At Shanti, our approach centers on how yoga actually functions in real bodies and real lives. We integrate classical yogic philosophy with modern science, anatomy, physiology, nervous system education, biomechanics, and somatic awareness so that what you learn is not merely theoretical — it is lived, practiced, and embodied.
Katie Kelly’s background as a Registered Nurse and Board-Certified Holistic Nurse informs much of the program’s science-forward lens, while her years of study within traditional yogic spaces — including immersive training experiences in India under respected teachers and institutions — ground the training in both lineage and lived practice. Rather than approaching yoga solely as fitness or performance, this program explores yoga as a multidimensional system that includes philosophy, self-inquiry, relationship, ethics, breath, awareness, and embodiment.
In this program, trauma-informed does not mean clinical. It means deeply respectful of nervous systems. You will learn how stress, environment, pacing, language, and emotional experience shape the body — and how breath, movement, rhythm, and presence can support regulation, agency, and steadiness within practice spaces.
Somatic practice means learning from the inside out. We prioritize sensation, interoception, breath, and awareness over aesthetics or performance. Students are encouraged to become curious observers of their own experience rather than striving toward an idealized shape or image of yoga.
This creates teachers who are not simply skilled at demonstrating poses, but who understand how to:
- adapt practices for different bodies and nervous systems
- teach with clarity and discernment
- create brave, consent-centered spaces
- understand load, pacing, and compensation patterns
- integrate philosophy in meaningful and accessible ways
- support students as whole humans rather than projects to fix
The structure of the training itself is intentionally slower and more immersive than many accelerated programs. Through intensives, integration weekends, labs, observation hours, journaling, discussion, practice teaching, and mentorship, students are given time to absorb and embody the material rather than rushing through information accumulation.
This training is not designed to mass-produce yoga teachers.
It is designed to cultivate thoughtful practitioners, skilled facilitators, and humans who understand yoga not just as something they teach — but as something they live.
What is the cost and what does it include?
Early Commitment Tuition: $3,500
Full Tuition: $3,800
This includes a full 8 month unlimited membership to Shanti Yoga ($1,200+ value).
A $500 non-refundable deposit secures your spot. The remaining balance may be paid in four installments of $825.
Tuition covers the full 200-hour curriculum, including four immersive Intensive weekends, four Integration weekends, and monthly Teaching Labs designed to refine real teaching skill.
Students complete structured observation, written analysis, a comprehensive lab manual, open-note assessments, and a capstone teaching experience. Personalized feedback and mentorship are woven throughout the program.
Tuition also includes unlimited studio membership from September through April (a $1,200+ value), allowing trainees to remain deeply immersed in their personal practice while completing the training.
Enrollment is limited to 15 students to preserve depth, rigor, and individualized support.
Is a membership included in the cost of the training?
Yes, a full unlimited membership is included during the duration of your YTT program. ($1,264 in savings!)
Is the program accredited?
No. This training is intentionally independent and is not registered through the Yoga Alliance.
While Yoga Alliance is often recognized within the yoga industry in the west, it is important to understand that it functions as a voluntary registry, not a governing or licensing body. Registration does not necessarily guarantee depth of education, teaching competency, or ongoing standards of practice.
Our decision to remain independent is both practical and philosophical.
Katie Kelly’s own studies included training in India across multiple locations under the guidance of respected teachers and institutions connected more directly to the roots of the practice. Because portions of these studies fall outside Yoga Alliance’s specific registry pathways and approved school structures, they are not always recognized as eligible toward certification through their system — despite being deeply immersive and lineage-informed experiences.
This raises important questions about who gets to define legitimacy within modern yoga spaces, particularly when systems rooted in Western standardization do not always fully recognize traditional or international pathways of study.
At Shanti Yoga, we believe meaningful teaching cannot be reduced to a checklist of hours.
Instead, this program prioritizes:
- embodied understanding over memorization
- critical thinking over scripted teaching
- nervous system literacy and anatomy
- philosophy and ethical inquiry
- adaptive, student-centered teaching
- mentorship, practice, and real-world application
Our goal is not simply to produce graduates with a credential, but teachers with integrity, discernment, confidence, and the ability to skillfully hold space for others.
Many highly respected teachers, mentors, and studios choose to teach outside of the Yoga Alliance system entirely, and we honor the diversity of paths that exist within modern yoga education.
In practice, many studios do not require Yoga Alliance registration in order to teach or obtain professional liability insurance. Instead, they often look more closely at the depth, integrity, mentorship, and comprehensiveness of a teacher’s actual training and lived experience.
We believe meaningful education is shaped through embodied practice, critical inquiry, skilled mentorship, and real-world application — not simply through affiliation with a registry.
This training reflects the values of Shanti Yoga: depth, embodiment, curiosity, and thoughtful practice.
What is the class size?
The size of this training group is kept intimate (no more than 15 students) so that each individual receives the time and attention needed to learn.
Who is the lead instructor?
Katie Kelly (She/Her) RN, BSN, HN-BC, NASM-CPT, E-CYT
Katie Kelly is the founder of Shanti Yoga and the lead guide for this teacher training. With over 1000 hours of training, 15 years of teaching experience, and more than a decade of studio ownership, Katie brings a rare blend of depth, humility, and real-world leadership into everything she offers. Her path has included traditional ashram-based yoga training in India, years of devoted personal practice, and extensive study in anatomy, somatics, and trauma-informed care.
In addition to her work as a yoga teacher and mentor, Katie is a Registered Nurse and Board-Certified Holistic Nurse, which means this training is grounded not only in ancient wisdom but in a deep understanding of the nervous system, physiology, and mental health. Her background also includes certifications in yoga therapy, pre- and postnatal yoga, and personal training through NASM, allowing her to bridge movement, medicine, and mindfulness in a way that is both intuitive and evidence-based.
Katie’s teaching is known for being warm, inclusive, and deeply human. She believes yoga should meet people where they are — in their bodies, their stories, and their nervous systems — and she trains teachers to do the same. This YTT is not about creating replicas of her teaching style, but about helping each student discover their own authentic voice, rooted in clarity, compassion, and embodied wisdom.
What style of yoga is taught?
This training is rooted in strong, intelligent, and accessible Hatha yoga — the foundation from which all modern styles emerge. You will develop a deep, embodied understanding of posture, breath, and alignment that allows you to teach across many expressions of yoga, including Vinyasa, Restorative, Yin, Hot and therapeutic or adaptive practices.
You’ll learn how each style is structured, what it offers the nervous system and the body, and how to skillfully apply the principles you’re learning to teach these practices with clarity, safety, and adaptability. This ensures you graduate not limited by one format, but equipped to meet students wherever they are.
Rather than training you in a single rigid style, we focus on the principles beneath the poses — how bodies move, how breath supports stability, and how nervous systems respond to sensation and stress. This gives you the confidence to adapt any style of yoga for any body, making your teaching both creative and inclusive, while staying rooted in safety, integrity, and presence.