It sounds like no news to some who know that I have been around Purna Yoga since 2011. I was doing the 200 hour teacher training with the College of Purna Yoga in 2012, teaching at Purna Yoga Helsinki ever since and am currently in the 500 hour teacher training with Aadil. Until now, all of that did not make me a Purna Yoga teacher.
The standarts of the College of Purna Yoga and the founders Savitri and Aadil Palkhivala are not much what we see in the yoga world today. Certified Purna Yoga teachers have at least 2000 hours of training plus more courses to be able to teach someone to be a teacher. They are supposed to train with master teachers like Aadil himself. Behind their practice and teaching is a real purpose and only by going through those thousands of hours of training, they are allowed to teach new teachers. Certified Purna Yoga teachers teach from integrity and their years and years of personal experience proof what a good yoga teacher is.
You see I am only in the beginning of this journey. After having trained with some other yoga school more than ten years ago, I was going on a search to find a deeper meaning about yoga and a school which teaches with integrity. I learned a lot about yogic philosophy then, did some nice yoga poses and even got into meditation a bit. I noticed how my diet affected my body and my curiosity led me into studying a lot about nutrition. The prenatal yoga teacher course was a transition while being pregnant and having small children myself and it is a great benefit to be able to assist mother's to be in this amazing process. I also love the postnatal classes and helping mothers to recover after birth.
When I found Purna Yoga I knew the search was over. I am through the first third of the 500 hour teacher traning now, the first time ever Aadil is teaching this course on that level and outside his studio in Bellvue, WA. I feel deep gratitude for having such an opportunity to study with Aadil himself.
As a new years surprise I got to know through Tove from Aadil that I am now officially a Purna Yoga teacher. The College has the following graduate permissions. At the 200 hour level I am permitted to teach alignment-based yoga and am allowed to use some of the Heartfull meditation snacks as part of an asana class. At the 500 hour affiliate program I become a "Purna Yoga teacher" where I can teach more of the meditation snacks, but not until I studied 2000 hours with them I can be a "Certified Purna Yoga teacher". All of those courses are Yoga Alliance approved. If I would like to open a Purna Yoga studio or use the name Purna for my studio I would have to get approval from Aadil and Savitri. Tove Palmgren the owner of Purna Yoga Helsinki is the only Certified Purna Yoga teacher in Europe.
I am very grateful to study a yoga system which evolved from a lineage of true masters like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, BKS Iyengar and Aadil and Savitri.
