About this Retreat
Swami Ramananda, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, YACEP, is the Executive Director of the Integral Yoga Institute in San Francisco and a greatly respected senior teacher in the Integral Yoga tradition, who has been practicing Yoga for over 50 years. Ramananda offers practical methods of integrating the timeless teachings and practices of Yoga into daily life, and transforming the painful aspects of human experience into steps toward realizing one’s full potential.
He leads beginner, intermediate, and advanced Hatha Yoga Teacher Training programs in San Francisco, as well as Meditation and Raja Yoga Teacher Training programs. He offers a variety of programs throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. Ramananda co-developed the Stress Management Teacher Training program with Swami Vidyananda and has trained many teachers to bring Yoga into corporate, hospital, and medical settings. He has also taught mind-body wellness programs in numerous locations. He is a certified Yoga therapist whose warmth, wisdom, and sense of humor have endeared him to many.
Swami Vidyananda, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, YACEP, has taught Integral Yoga to thousands of students from Australia to Zimbabwe since 1973. She has served as a Yoga Therapist since 1979. She has taught Yoga for Stress Release for many different populations, including people with cancer through Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, children with learning disabilities at Montreal public schools, and university students with eating disorders. She trained as a chaplain at the University of Virginia Hospital, where she served in Cardiac Intensive Care helping patients, families, and staff cope with the stress of life-threatening illness.
She became an Integral Yoga teacher and trainer in 1973, and taught at the Integral Yoga Institute in Montreal for a decade before moving to Yogaville, VA. Vidyananda co-developed and has taught the Integral Yoga Stress Management teacher training program with Swami Ramananda since 1994. She has also taught Yoga, Meditation, Yoga for Emotional Resilience, and Raja Yoga in studios, schools, businesses, and healthcare settings. She served as a video producer for Integral Yoga for 20 years, and recently as the director of the Integral Yoga Therapy training program.
Details of this retreat
Bring Yoga to people under stress, wherever they are.
In this online training, you will gain the essential skills and confidence to teach Yoga as stress management in a wide variety of settings, including the workplace, healthcare facilities, schools, and Yoga studios.
Learn Yoga practices that help your students recover from past stress, cope with stress as it arises, and build resilience for the future. You will learn to adapt Hatha Yoga poses, relaxation, breathwork, and Raja and Karma Yoga so they are accessible to any population.
Stress is a part of nearly every illness, as a cause or an effect, so this course is also part of the Integral Yoga Therapy curriculum. It gives a solid foundation for other specialized Yoga Therapy trainings, including cardiac and cancer. It also builds good basic skills for working with PTSD, though further training is recommended if you want to specialize in teaching for PTSD.
Co-developed by Swami Vidyananda and Swami Ramananda, who have taught it together since 1994.
What You’ll Learn
How to adapt Yoga postures, breathwork, meditation, relaxation, and mindfulness for stress relief, including standing and seated chair poses for different levels of physical capacity
Breathwork, both adapted and remedial, designed to lower stress quickly
Meditation and mindfulness as stress reduction tools
The scientific evidence on the benefits of Yoga-based stress reduction
Adapted relaxation techniques
The mental and emotional practices of Yoga for stress relief
Strategies for designing and marketing classes, workshops, and courses
Methods for leading group discussions for peer support
The fundamentals of trauma-sensitive Yoga practice
Also Included
Live Hatha Yoga and Chair Yoga classes
Support for teachers not trained in Integral Yoga
Recorded Integral Hatha Yoga classes, meditations, and inspiring talks with Sri Swami Satchidananda
An online community to connect and communicate with other participants
You Will Leave With
A toolkit of adapted practices for stress relief, ready to teach
The skills to bring Yoga into corporate, healthcare, and community settings
Confidence teaching people of every level of physical capacity
One of the required modules toward certification as an Integral Yoga Therapist
Who This Is For
Yoga teachers and health professionals who want to bring Yoga-based stress relief to their students, clients, and patients.
Schedule
Live sessions meet online, Eastern Time:
Thursdays, 7–9 pm.
Saturdays, 11 am–1 pm and 2–4:30 pm
Sundays, 11 am–1 pm
No sessions on Memorial Day weekend, Saturday, May 29, or Sunday, May 30
Attendance at most live sessions is required. Sessions are recorded and usually posted within a day, and some can be viewed afterward to accommodate time zones and schedule conflicts. Recordings stay available for six months after the training ends, until December 27, 2027. Expect 3–7 hours of homework a week.
Prerequisites
A 200-hour Yoga teacher certification and at least six months of teaching experience. Certified clinicians with a good background in Yoga practice may also apply. Online reading assignments and videos begin before the first session. These count toward your course hours.
Continuing Education
Yoga Alliance: 90 contact hours, which you can enter with your YA login
Integral Yoga 300-hour: counts for 90 hours toward the RYT 500 designation
Integral Yoga Therapy: one of the required modules toward certification as an Integral Yoga Therapist
IYTA CE certificate: $10 fee (free for members), ce@iyta.org
What Past Participants Say
“I would 100% recommend Integral Yoga Stress Management Teacher Training to Yoga teachers and health care providers. It was one of my favorite trainings. There was so much information and excellent resources were provided. It was clear and logical. I use something from the training almost every day.” ~Trudy
“I would highly recommend the SMTT Program for EVERYONE. It doesn’t matter your background, your profession, age or current situation in life, this program brings you the tools to make living everyday life easier. These tools that you learn in the SMTT course build your resilience and are accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime. And the best part is that you learn how to share this information!” ~Raisa Punkki
“Integral Yoga Stress Management Teachers Training is an invaluable resource for our times. I am grateful to all of the teachers and staff who made this online experience so very rich, and for the community that was formed. It is already proving to be very helpful to me and those who I serve. Thank you.” ~Montina Sraddha Cole