Roots & River Level 1 Teacher Training

Established 2015

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Roots & River Yoga

Program Instances

Hybrid

Dates: TBD

200 hours • TBD

Led by

Machelle Lee

CYT-L3

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Purpose

The Level 1 Yoga Personal Immersion/Teacher Training is an academically rigorous and spiritually grounded program that honors the ancient wisdom and traditions of yoga while exploring their relevance in contemporary life.

What to expect

Throughout the training, we explore yoga through both traditional wisdom and contemporary scientific understanding. You will study Hatha Yoga while also entering the subtler dimensions of practice through pranayama, meditation, philosophy, psychology, and energy traditions.

Grounded in gentle and flow-based practices, the training also includes dedicated study of Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga as valuable and nuanced approaches to wellbeing.

Style/Lineage

Through this approach, you will:

Develop a strong foundation in asana, alignment, modifications, sequencing, and teaching methodology, with an understanding that yoga can be practiced by many different bodies.
Study the history, philosophy, and wisdom traditions of yoga, including translations and discussion of classical yogic texts.
Develop foundational knowledge of pranayama, meditation, subtle energy, and the relationship between breath, body, and mind.
Study musculoskeletal anatomy, biomechanics, structural variation, and human movement so you can teach with greater understanding and discernment.
Explore the nervous system, neurobiology, and physiology, including stress, self-regulation, resilience, and the ways yoga influences lived experience.
Examine yoga through psychological and Depth Psychology perspectives, exploring embodiment, emotion, identity, archetype, meaning, and transformation.
Become familiar with trauma-informed principles that support choice, autonomy, safety, and self-awareness.
Develop the ability to thoughtfully teach gentle, beginner, Yin, Restorative, and flow-based practices.
Cultivate an authentic teaching voice rather than learning to replicate someone else's style.
Gain practical teaching experience through observation, practice teaching, feedback, and reflection.
Develop the confidence to step into the role of teacher with humility, integrity, compassion, and respect for the practice.
Become part of a supportive, community-centered learning environment where curiosity, friendship, and shared exploration are valued.

Additional Information

This Training Is For You If…

You are a dedicated yoga student who wants to immerse yourself in the practice and understand it more deeply.
You are a longtime practitioner looking for a comprehensive foundation in yoga philosophy, anatomy, psychology, and subtle energy.
You are a clinician, bodyworker, educator, or other professional interested in incorporating yoga, meditation, breathwork, or contemplative practices into your work.
You are considering becoming a yoga teacher.
You are curious about where this path might lead, even if you don't yet have a clear vision of what comes next.

What matters is a willingness to study, practice, question, listen, and discover.

Core competencies

By the end of this program, graduates will be able to…

Teaching Skills	Establish a safe container at the opening of a class, setting tone and expectations before movement begins. Construct a cueing script for a short segment that offers students clear choices, embedding invitational language throughout. Design a themed class outline that weaves a chosen idea through opening, movement, and closing, connecting each part to the central theme. Design a complete sequence around full body integration or a peak pose, arranging preparatory postures and counterposes to build safely. Construct a full class plan following the arc structure, allocating time across each phase in proportion to the class's overall length. Design a complete gentle class and a complete flow-based class from the same theme, adapting pacing and postures to fit each style.
Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics	Evaluate a student's range of motion for signs of compression versus tension, justifying which factor is limiting the movement. Apply an understanding of joint architecture when cueing a posture, adjusting expectations to the joint's structural range. Compare two students with differing joint structures, examining how each expressed within a specific posture. Demonstrate an understanding of muscular action roles when cueing a standing posture, directing attention to the stabilizing muscles at work.
Business Skills	Explain the difference between studio employment and independent contracting, describing how compensation and scheduling differ between them. Explain why sustainability matters when building a teaching practice, describing the relationship between pacing and long-term career health. Explain how disorganized scheduling contributes to teacher burnout, describing the cumulative effect of overcommitment.
Lifestyle & Ethics	Evaluate a described teacher-student interaction for boundary concerns, justifying whether the response maintained appropriate professionalism. Assess a described teaching interaction for consent and scope-of-practice concerns, justifying whether referral should have occurred. Compare an inclusive approach to teaching with an exclusionary one, examining differences in language, imagery, and assumptions about bodies. Examine how a teacher's personal practice shapes their teaching voice, distinguishing borrowed material from lived experience.
Practice Skills	Design a closing sequence that moves through floor postures and an inversion toward final rest, ordering postures to support a gradual settling. Evaluate one's own execution of a balance posture, justifying which adjustment would most improve stability, and construct a personal standing practice sequence, arranging poses to build progressively toward a challenging variation. Evaluate a restorative setup for adequate support, justifying additional prop adjustments that would deepen the sense of rest. Compare a chair-based adaptation with a prenatal adaptation of the same posture, examining how each addresses different physical needs.
Yoga History & Theory	Explain the concepts of dharma and karma within their historical context, describing their influence on the early path of practice. Differentiate the outer limbs of the eight-limbed path from the inner limbs, examining how each group addresses a different dimension of practice; develop a class theme and connect a specific limb to a lived teaching example. Apply a concept from a foundational Hatha text when introducing its historical context to students, connecting the concept to contemporary practice.