Students who need the flexibility of complete a course online or via distance study might find a CYT course works better for their schedule and budget.
Those planning to teach yoga as independent yoga teachers or for facilities not requiring an RYT find value in earning a CYT. Students who are the most successful with the CYT course are those who have at least one of the following:
- Previous yoga experience as a student
- Learned to teach from an individual who didn’t offer credentials
- Has teaching experience, but needs credentials
- Is already an RYT, but wants further study and CECs
- Desires to deepen their personal practice and possibly explore teaching
- Read/view all materials
- Practice teaching and complete all activities in the manuals
- Complete written assignments (given to you when you purchase the program)
- Pass open book exams
- Pass a practical exam (via video)
Our CYT-200 is as widely recognized as any other CYT course on the market. Please note that there is no legal definition of the word “certified” or “certificate” in the yoga or fitness industries. The term is used to indicate you’ve completed a program of study, but the amount of study varies greatly from course to course.
We have students all over the globe who have completed our course and are now teaching yoga. We do believe live training is the best option for most students, and that’s why we offer RYT programs. However, we recognize that not everyone will be able to make an RYT program fit their schedule or budget, so a CYT offering is a way of filling that need.
We believe our CYT program to be the strongest in the market. We work hard to bring you relevant content, to take both written exams and practical exams seriously, and to be available to answer your questions. You are not alone to complete your work without us; we are there every step of the way and pride ourselves on being responsive to questions.
In addition to reading and watching videos, you’ll be given plenty of activities in the teacher’s manuals to reinforce your knowledge. For example, you may be asked to journal or discuss how you are living certain tenets of yoga or how you might handle real-life yoga class situations.
We ask students to take quizzes to test their knowledge (which may be re-taken as many times as needed…it’s not about a grade, it’s about learning). We provide plenty of videos to appeal to visual learners and ask you to practice hands-on activities to prepare you for real-world teaching.
Essays are written as part of your CYT program; we want you to take the opportunity for reflection on the materials you’ve read, watched and studied. We also require students to submit a video of themselves teaching so we may offer constructive feedback. Don’t be nervous about this video! We are not looking to nitpick, but only to offer encouragement and useful feedback that you can use to make yourself the best teacher possible. There is no such thing as a perfect yoga class and we don’t expect you to be perfect! Just be yourself and be open to constructive feedback and it’ll be a wonderful growth opportunity.
When you submit homework, we will review it as quickly as possible and offer feedback. This is normally done within 3 business days (and often much sooner). Your quizzes are auto-graded and the answers/explanations will be given to you as soon as you take the quizzes. Your final video will be graded within 10 business days.
While you are going through the course materials, you are always welcome to reach out to us with any questions. If anything is unclear or you need further explanation, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We are here to support your learning process.
To our knowledge (at the time of this writing), the answer is yes. You will be able to purchase liability insurance with either a CYT or RYT designation. This applies to the USA and Canada. Students in other countries will need to ask prospective insurance companies if a CYT is acceptable for insurance purposes.
Our lineage is outlined on our About Us page. As you will read there, we are heavily influenced by Thirumoolar’s Ashtanga Therapeutic Yoga. Ashtanga means “eight limbed” and it is not what most Westerners think of when they hear “Ashtanga”; this usually conjures images of challenging sequences fathered by Pattabi Jois. While you will learn how to create vinyasa flows (poses that flow together, linked with the breath), and you may decide to make them a challenging sequence (or even a faster paced sequence), a ‘workout’ is not our primary focus.
Our goal is to teach you to offer mutli-level hatha yoga classes that encompass all eight limbs, including breath work and meditation. This means you will be taught to cater to both the least physically fit person in the room and the athletes in the room in the same class. You will learn to offer modifications that make the poses easier and options that make the poses more challenging. We’ll teach you how to meet people where they are; meaning we show you how to ease students into the eight limbs in a way that feels comfortable for them.
Once you understand the basics of making yoga accessible to anyone, yet challenging enough for more advanced students, you’ll be able to decide if you want to offer more specialized classes that cater to a specific group, such as athletes, seniors or meditators. We equip you with the tools you’ll need to grow your teaching skills in any direction you’d like!
See “Lineage and Class Styles” on our RYT-200 registration page.
You have 12 months to complete the course. If you go over this time, you’ll need to apply for an extension. There is a fee for extending the course.
Why: All major certifications and registrations expire and need to be renewed. We keep this best practice, which is designed to make sure all teachers are continuing their education. This helps make sure we are learning about the latest research in human movement studies and keeping our students safe.
When: Your certification is good for 12 months from the date of completion. You must renew each 12 months to stay current.
How To Renew:
1) Complete 10 hours of yoga-related studies. This can be self-study or workshops, as long as it is at least 10 hours in length. It doesn’t have to be through White Crow Yoga. It could be reading on your own or attending other workshops.
2) Purchase a certification renewal on our website.
3) A ‘class’ will be added to your student portal, where you’ll tell us about your 10 hours of continuing education.
4) You’ll receive a certificate (online PDF) that is good for another year.
We recommend you read the Level 1 book, then the Level 2 book. After that, you can read the other books in any order, and you can watch the videos in any order. This is because you can independently study the Gita or Sutras, as well as Meditation and Adjusting/Assisting.
Most students do best if they read through the books once to get a high level overview and then go back and study each book more deeply, doing any activities in the book, taking quizzes, writing homework essays, etc. For example, if you’ve read/studied the Level 1 and 2 books and the anatomy material at a high level, when you go back to the Level 1 pr 2 book for a deeper study, you’ll be able to start thinking about the poses in terms of the anatomy you learned. The opposite is also true; when you have read the Level 1 and 2 books and are studying the anatomy, you’ll be able to absorb more anatomy thinking about it in terms of the poses we are practicing.
No. We no longer offer hard copies of certificates. If you complete a certification program, you will receive a PDF. If you take a CEC course, there is no certification, but you will receive instructions on how to enter your CEC hours. If you require an emailed letter stating you completed the course, we are happy to provide that.
If you need more than the allotted time to complete your online course, you must purchase a course extension or reinstatement.
You can video yourself ‘practice teaching’ to the camera. It doesn’t have to be a live class of students (for aqua yoga, it does not have to be in front of a pool; teach in your living room if you’d like!). A typical class is an hour, but anywhere from 45-75 minutes is fine for your teaching video.
It is better to create 4 (four) short 15 minute video segments than one long one (easier for you to upload). After you create your videos, put them on Google Drive, Drop Box or Vimeo, grant us permission to view them and send us the link.
We offer remote classes only
There are several really cheap RYT’s online right now. Please remember that most of the time, you get what you pay for. We offer a lot of hours of Zoom content (which you may watch after the calls or during the calls, depending on the schedule). We are also available to jump on a Zoom call for clarity or demo if needed (outside of the regularly scheduled calls). We offer a lot of individual coaching and feedback. We treat you as if you are in our live RYT class and you get the same level of service.
We spend about 8-10 hours preparing for each one hour of content, so it literally took us 1800-2000 hours to prepare the course, and if you add the live Zoom hours that Mary will present, that’s a lot of time! We are not, in any way, disparaging others programs because they might be wonderful, but we can’t imagine selling a course that we put this kind of time and effort into for a few hundred dollars, which makes us wonder how thorough the cheaper program materials are.
Of course, it is possible these programs are trying to offset their expenses with a high volume of students. That’s one way to approach business – high numbers. That’s not wrong or bad, but it is not our model. We know we won’t get the high numbers because there will always be students who see a low price elsewhere and buy it because they will get the same piece of paper at the end of the class (RYT). If that’s what is important to a student, that’s a smart choice. We know we will draw fewer students with higher prices, but we are ok with that because we want to offer high quality and doing so means charging more to make the same or less money. Again, that’s not a judgment, but simply a choice each of us must make.
We respect your choice and know each student has to do what is right for them at the time, but we can guarantee you high quality and personalized service. We consistently get great ratings on our course – both online and in each city where we teach. Read our testimonials and check us out on Yoga Alliance.
We’ve had students take our RYT200 who already held an RYT200 designation, but didn’t feel prepared to teach (or who were teaching but felt something was missing) who have told us that they learned more in one weekend of training/study with us than they learned in their entire RYT200. That is not meant to boast or brag, but to let you know that there are great RYT courses and some that are not as well prepared.
Our founder, Mary Irby, holds a Master’s degree in Education and a Bachelor’s in Health, Physical Education and Recreation. She has thousands of hours of yoga training and continues to travel to India for further training. She is currently further her spiritual studies and plans to return to India as soon as feasible so that she may continue to enhance the programming each year.