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200-Hour Kripalu Yoga Teacher Certification: Curriculum Overview

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The Kripalu Yoga 200-Hour Teacher Certification includes both a solid grounding in technical skills and the development of an empathic, intuitive approach to teaching.

It prepares you to teach any population to which you feel called. You will graduate a certified yoga teacher with a solid foundation and the tools you need to support your ongoing personal evolution and excellence in teaching. You will learn

  • To teach a complete repertoire of postures (asana)
  • Creative ways to condition the body for deep asana practice (pratapana)
  • How to cultivate body awareness
  • To design creative, well-rounded classes
  • Comprehensive approaches to posture assists
  • Skills for leading groups with confidence and authenticity.

Graduates of Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training are in great demand for their indepth knowledge, clear instruction, intuitive insights, and ability to guide students to the experience of inner peace that is the true essence of yoga.

Tools of the Kripalu Approach


Anatomy class

Benefit from Kripalu’s 30 years of experience.

Tools of the Kripalu approach include…

  • Meditation-in-motion
  • Nonjudgmental awareness
  • Breath coordinated with movement
  • Prana responses
  • Creative sequencing
  • Micro-movements
  • Breathe, relax, feel, watch, and allow
  • Functional imagery
  • Finding your edge.

woman taking notesSkills for transformational teaching Help students develop a heightened sense of body awareness to deepen their practice on the mat and show them how to take that awareness into their lives off the mat.

How to create inspirational, creative, experiential yoga classes Develop skills for teaching an inspirational 1-hour or 1½-hour yoga class: how to pay proper attention to pratapana, how to motivate students and pace your class according to students’ skill levels and experience, and how to create lesson plans for a complete series of classes with progressive levels of difficulty.

Principles of anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology Focus on safety, joint movement, range of motion, and a functional understanding of the skeletal and muscular systems.

students between class

Pranayama techniques Enable students to experience body-mind integration through yogic breathing and teach them how to connect consciously with prana, or life force—the inherent wisdom of the body.

Relaxation and meditation methodology Gain skills for centering yourself and your students, creating sacred space, and guiding the class in a deeply restorative savasana.

Practice teaching Develop confidence as a yoga teacher through an integrated program of practice teaching.

Required reading All students will receive a training manual. In addition, the following books are required reading:

  • Richard Faulds, Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat (Bantam Books)
  • Susi Hately Aldous, Anatomy and Asana (Functional Synergy Press)

We recommend that you read Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat prior to coming to your program. You can purchase it at the Kripalu Shop online. You can purchase Anatomy and Asana at www.anatomyandasana.com. Both books are available at www.amazon.com, or in the Kripalu Shop.

Breakdown of training hours:

Instruction in Yoga Asanas, Pranayama, and Meditation 100
Teaching Methodology 30
Anatomy and Physiology 20
Philosophy/Ethics/Lifestyle 30
Practicum 15
Other 5
Total 200

Upon successful completion of the training, you will receive certification as a Kripalu Yoga teacher. First-year membership in Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA) is included in tuition. KYTA assists yoga teachers in building their career and creating a thriving teaching practice.