What is the difference between 200, 300, and 500hour yoga teacher training?

Yoga teacher training is essential for aspiring yoga instructors. Whether you’re considering a 200-hour, 300-hour, or 500-hour yoga certification, understanding the difference between 200hour and 300hour yoga teacher training is super important.

Yoga teacher training is to a Yoga teacher what a paintbrush is to an artist. It’s a tool. A 200hour yoga teacher training is similar to a broad brush or even a roller - the one used to paint walls. It is the perfect tool for covering a large surface relatively quickly. A 200hour yoga training aims to touch on the main pillars of Yoga without going too deeply. 200hour yoga teacher training offers a broad, basic understanding of Yoga, which underpins all subsequent learning. It can also be compared to an undergraduate or bachelor's degree.

A 300hour yoga teacher training is like a finer paintbrush. Designed for detail. The type of brush that allows you to get into the corners and explore the edges. A 300hour yoga teacher training allows you to narrow in on nuance, contract your focus, and hone in on the specifics. Most 300hour yoga teacher training, at least those accredited by the Yoga Alliance (find out what that means here), require students to have already completed a 200hour yoga teacher training. Certain schools will also require you to have a certain number of teaching hours under your belt.

Another significant difference between 200hour and 300hour yoga teacher training is the students' prior experience. Most 200-hour yoga teacher training courses have little (to no) requirements to join. This means the students' ability and exposure to Yoga can be drastically different. Most students in a 200hour yoga teacher training (in short, YTT) are usually blissfully unaware and have no idea how much they do not know.

A restaurant serves food of a particular cuisine, and a musician plays music of a specific genre. Each cuisine is still food; every genre is music. Similarly, each 200-hour training, though generic, may have a focus, a “major” of sorts, such as the style of Yoga taught (Ashtanga, Hatha, or Vinyasa).

A 300hour YTT is the next level. A program for existing yoga teachers to advance their career and practice. It offers more depth or an opportunity to explore a niche. It could be compared to a Master's or postgraduate degree. Usually, someone who is referred to (by themselves or others) as a ‘senior teacher’ has completed at least 500 hours of training, plus 1,000+ teaching hours. Students joining a 300hour teacher training have a better understanding of what they do not know. They are more realistic, less idealistic, about their chosen careers.

By now, any romanticized idea about the  ‘Life of a Yoga Teacher has dissolved.

300hour Yoga Teacher Training may, but doesn’t necessarily, include more advanced asana practices, whereas 200hour YTT usually sticks to the basic asanas. But again, not necessarily. It depends on the course.

In our 200hour YTT, we teach Ashtanga and Vinyasa Yoga, both dynamic yoga styles. Once you have a solid foundation in your yoga practice, you can teach it to others. In our 200hr YTT, you will deepen your practice with Ashtanga Yoga and learn how to teach Vinyasa classes.

The simple answer is time and money. Both of these are limited resources, right? Considering that most people who took a 200hr YTT will never take a 300hr yoga training, the 50 hour yoga teacher training is the perfect solution for them. The 50hour yoga course is considered continuous education, and the Yoga Alliance recommends that teachers take at least 35 hours of training every three years. To me, that is too little. Having more than 500 hours of teacher training under my belt, I always complement with short courses here and there. I am not only a yoga teacher but also a student.

That’s why, at Alpha Yoga School, we created a 50hour yoga teacher training. If you don’t have the resources to move on to the 300hrs YTT, joining such a course for one-week advanced teacher training in Greece is the perfect solution. It’s a Yoga Alliance-certified course, and it is suitable for:

• Current Yoga Teachers: Those looking to deepen their sequencing, hands-on adjustments, cueing, demonstration techniques, and deepen their practice.
• Serious Practitioners: Experienced yogis who want to deepen their practice and get challenged and inspired. Learn how to apply philosophy off the mat.
• Specialized Training: Participants interested in exploring specialized areas of yoga, which they didn’t study in their 200hr YY.
• Personal Growth: Individuals seeking personal transformation and a more profound connection to their practice and themselves.
• Creating Community: Building relationships with the other participants, developing friendships, and last but not least -  having a friend’s sofa somewhere in Paris or London.

Some schools offer 500hour yoga teacher training, taking a student from zero (entry-level) to 500 hours. Two courses are added together in one long training. Therefore, the foundational 200hrs YTT and the advanced 300hrs YTT occur back to back. I found a 200-hour intense enough, let alone 500 hours in one go.

Whilst it may be true that you cannot overinvest in education, consolidation is also important. Information alone is not the answer. After my first 200hour YTT, my brain was overflowing. I had no space to absorb new information, let alone integrate all I had learned. Adding more knowledge would not have made me a better teacher. What I needed was to put the theory into practice. That’s the culmination of a 200hr YTT: To integrate the knowledge you learn and be able to share it with others. When the information is fully absorbed, teaching yoga seamlessly follows that understanding.

Another difference between 200hour and 300hour yoga teacher training is timing. Let us say that you decided to do a 300hour yoga teacher training.

How much time, if any, should there be between completing a 200 and beginning a 300hour training? As usual, there is no universal rule. It all depends on how the time between the courses is spent.

If you are putting off teaching because you don’t “feel ready yet”, then chances are you won’t feel ready after completing the 300hour course. To feel more comfortable teaching Yoga, you need to…… wait for it……. teach more Yoga. More education, though helpful, isn’t the only option.

Do you know that we get students in our 300hour YTT who tell us they taught one posture in their 200hr YTT? And they still received a certificate that says: Yoga Teacher Training. In all our courses, whether the 200hrs YTT, 300hrs YTT, or the 50hrs YTT, students start teaching each other from day one. They receive constant feedback, support, and encouragement. They make mistakes in an environment that is there for precisely this reason. To make mistakes, to learn from them, to repeat, and improve.

Some students who attended the same 200hrs training as me completed a 300-hour at the same school immediately after their 200-hour. Back to back, no space between. One girl said, “I wanted to get it all out of the way now,” and another said, “I am already here, and they offered me a discount.” Both are acceptable reasons. However, the magic of the 300-hour is the value of experience. When students have first-hand experienced what being a teacher is like, then they are even more invested in learning. Not only do you learn from the teaching faculty but also your peers since the ‘students’ are also teachers in their own right.

When I did my 300-hour yoga teacher training, one girl in my group had just finished her 200-hour YTT. So she was doing both courses back to back. One week in the course, she asked me:

Joanna, is this course good? I was shocked. She had no idea what was happening. She was so lost... Let me give you an example of what was happening. When the teacher said a pose in Sanskrit, she looked in the manual to see what pose we were discussing. The discussion was already over by the time she found the pose in the manual. So, doing the courses back-to-back was not a great idea for her.

A 300-hour yoga certificate mainly shows the teacher’s commitment to the practice and profession. A teacher with 500 hours of training may appear better on paper. In many cases, 300hour yoga teacher training, combined with years of teaching experience, can transform a teacher from good to great. This additional investment in education makes them more credible in the eyes of employers, studios, and retreat centers. Plus, if you ever want to teach your yoga teacher training programs, you must be certified for 500 hours.

Good teachers know what to teach and what not to teach. They know when to teach something and when not to. They know why to teach one thing over another. No training can prepare you for this. This is learned through direct experience, on the job or, in this case, on the mat.

Though inter-related, learning about Yoga and teaching Yoga are very different things. Attending a class is different from leading one. Having knowledge is not the same as sharing it.