Intensive Meditation Teacher Training: Mindfulness and Concentration

'Yoga is meditation; and meditation is yoga.’ (B.K.S. Iyengar)

Covering the same syllabus as our successful and popular Meditation Teacher Training: Mindfulness and Concentration course, we are delighted to offer a more intensive way of training to teach meditation with Yogacampus.

This live online course is offered over two 3 day weekends, two weeks apart, and offers you the chance to train to teach meditation with two leading teachers from different meditation backgrounds. Unlike many meditation trainings, we explore a variety of approaches and techniques, from the concentration based meditation practices of the early yoga traditions to Buddhism and contemporary mindfulness.

If you prefer, you can also take the course over three two day weekends, each approximately one month apart, beginning in October, click the link below to view the course.

Live sessions will include:

• taught practices of āsana, prāṇāyāma, and meditation
• small group practical teaching exercises
• group discussions and feedback
• lectures
• teacher led discussions.

Pre-recorded lectures will cover:

• the historical context of meditation across a range of traditions
• the neuroscience of meditation and mindfulness.

As a member of the community of Yogacampus meditation teachers, you will also have the chance to join live online sessions with one or both of the course teachers after the course finishes, in order to share with fellow graduates your questions and insights about teaching meditation, and to discuss topics of interest.

It is important that you are actively involved in the course, by participating in the forum, your group assignments, and the Teaching Weekends. This is not a self-study course.

Course Structure

There are two teaching weekends on the following dates:

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 7, 8 and 9 July
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 21, 22 and 23 July

Timings: The FIRST DAY, Friday 7 July, will run from 9.30 to 16.30 UK time. Otherwise, all days will run from 9.30 to 15.30 UK time (with an hour lunch break).

Preparatory work and assignments

Please note that, before the first weekend, you will be asked to watch a series of short videos (approximately 2 hours in total length), to complete two short online quizzes, to contribute to two online discussion fora, and to prepare to teach two short guided meditations during the weekend. You will also be asked to do a small amount of reading.

Between the two weekends, there will be further videos to watch, quizzes to complete, meditations to prepare, and reading, and you will also be required to record yourself guiding a meditation and to review the recording of one of your fellow course participants. You should also begin to attend regular meditation classes and/or listen to, and practise, a variety of online guided meditations as soon as possible.

In order successfully to complete the course, you will need to submit certain written assignments after the second weekend and before 31 August:

• a summary of your reflections and insights from maintaining a diary of your own regular meditation practice
• a reflective report on 5 guided meditations of minimum 20 minutes each, either in person with a teacher or online
• a design for a 4 week meditation course.

Required Reading

There are two required books for the course:

• Moving Inward: the Journey to Meditation by Rolf Sovik
• Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson.

Both are easily available in paperback or Kindle versions. Please ensure that you have access to both books during the course and ideally read them before the course starts.

What Will I Learn?

This course will empower you to:

• develop and maintain your own personal meditation practice and integrate meditation into your daily life
• find your own way to structure and teach guided meditation in a number of different styles
• understand the historical context of meditation within a number of different traditions
• understand the effects of meditation on health and wellbeing
• assess the benefits and risks of different meditation techniques
• develop your own business delivering meditation classes and courses.

Who is the Course for?

This course is ideal for you if you are:

• a yoga teacher or trainee yoga teacher
• an experienced meditation practitioner
• a professional from a relevant related field (e.g. school teacher, counsellor, therapist or health care professional)
  

and you wish to:

• add or deepen your ability to bring meditation into your regular yoga classes
• share standalone meditation practices with others, in an individual or group setting
• develop and teach your own meditation courses.

To be eligible for the course, you will have a regular personal meditation practice.

Replay

Certain parts of the course will be recorded, and the recordings shared with participants. However, participation in all live sessions is essential for certification.

Course Resources

During the course, and for a period of six months after completion, you will have access to:

• introductory videos
• recorded guided meditations
• recorded lectures
• the online discussion forum
• recordings of the Teaching Weekends.

You will also receive a detailed course manual containing articles, textual extracts, and lecture notes.

Course Assignments

During the course, you will be required to:

• contribute to the online discussion forum
• maintain a diary of your own regular meditation practice and submit a summary of your reflections and insights
• be observed teaching 5 different meditations to one or more fellow participants during the course weekends
• complete an online quiz after each weekend and after each pre-recorded lecture
• practise guided meditations of minimum 20 minutes each, either in person with a teacher or online, and submit a reflective report on 5 of those
• record yourself teaching a guided meditation and receive peer feedback
• design a 4 week meditation course.

After the Course

On satisfactory completion of the course, you will be ready to:

• incorporate meditation into your yoga teaching
• teach meditation as a standalone practice to individuals and groups, in yoga and other (e.g. corporate) environments
• design and deliver your own meditation courses.

Certification

On satisfactory completion of the course, you will receive a Yogacampus Certificate of Completion for 85 Hours, which are eligible for Continuing Education Credits through Yoga Alliance Professionals.

Yogacampus Diversity and Accessibility Bursary

We are offering one part-funded bursary (50% off the full course price) to a dedicated student with a demonstrated financial need and active involvement in a community that could benefit from meditation.

The bursary is provided by Yogacampus – The Life Centre Education, a not-for-profit educational body committed to sharing knowledge and making yoga and meditation accessible to all.

Bursary places will be awarded to trainees who have the ability and commitment to take the course teachings into a disadvantaged community and play their part in the drive to increase accessibility to these profoundly healing practices.

Priority will be given to those who themselves are from marginalised or vulnerable groups or are from a minority ethnic background.

To apply, please fill in this google form before the deadline of 25 May 2023. We look forward to hearing from you.

Notification of bursary acceptance will be sent out as soon as possible.

Meet the Teachers

The course will be led by Isabell Britsch and Graham Burns, with contributions from specialist teachers.

Dr Graham Burns has taught yoga professionally since 2001, and has had a daily meditation practice for the majority of that time. He teaches the meditation component of the Yogacampus Yoga Teacher Training Diploma course. He has also taught on the MA course in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation at SOAS University of London, from where he holds a PhD in ancient Indian philosophy.

Isabell Britsch teaches meditation, mindfulness and self-compassion in regular meditation classes and dedicated courses. She has been practicing Vipassana (Insight meditation) and mindfulness since 2003. She is particularly interested in exploring the relationship of our felt experience in meditation, with an understanding of our internal psychology. Isabell also teaches yoga at a senior level and is involved in training new teachers.