300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Certification · Hamburg, NY
Elevate Your Teaching, Expand Your Impact
Knowledge deep enough to change how you teach. And more than one way to deliver it.
Beyond the Group Class.
Most advanced yoga teacher trainings prepare you to do one thing better: lead a group class. This one is different.
A teacher who can only lead group classes is limited in her ability to serve students and to make yoga a career.
The student in chronic pain doesn't need a louder cue in a vinyasa class — she needs a private session designed around her body. The teacher heading into burnout doesn't need another class on her to-do list — she needs a retreat that restores her. The healthcare system looking to integrate yoga doesn't need a thirty-minute class twice a year — it needs a partner who can design and present a program that will convince leadership to do it.
Each specialty module pairs clinical or somatic subject matter with a teaching format you'll learn to deliver:
Foundations: The Teacher's Guide To and Through the Body — functional and energetic anatomy, applied across every teaching context.
Rest & Retreat — restorative yoga and yoga nidra, paired with how to design, market, and lead retreats.
Chronic Pain, Cancer & Private Sessions — evidence-based pain protocols, paired with how to structure and price private work.
Women's Health & System Integration — hormonal health across a woman's life, the pelvic floor and deep core, paired with how to build partnerships with healthcare and community organizations.
Fascia & Somatics — the science of why yoga relieves stress and pain, with deep dives into somatic technique, myofascial release, and yin.
If we believe the teacher is responsible for the student's success — and we do — then we have to prepare teachers for the full range of formats students need.
Two ways to study with us
Take Trainings as They Come
Apply for the 300-Hour Certification
How to build your 300-hour certification
Your Required Hours
Every student wanting a 300-hour certification completes the same core. This is what makes the program what it is. The philosophy for what a teacher needs is here. You build from this foundation.
Foundation Module: Yoga Teacher's Guide to and Through the Body, 55 hours. Eight Saturdays, October through May, exploring the physical and energetic body and learning how the body works, doing yoga so you can customize your teaching to the student in front of you.
Two or More Specialty Modules, 30 hours each. Each module pairs clinical or somatic subject matter with a teaching format you'll learn to deliver — retreats, private sessions, organizational partnerships, or somatic modalities. You choose which modules based on the work you want to do. Two is the minimum.
Individual Mentorship with Sara, 4 hours minimum. Scheduled across the certification at your pace and according to what you need.
Teaching Practicum, 5 hours minimum. Whatever modality you are interested in, whether it’s teaching alignment-based classes, private sessions, retreats, or something else, I’ll observe you teaching and provide feedback. Your plan and revision based on feedback will become part of your Body of Work.
Retreat, 12 hours. An immersive experience where you get to know each other and have the space to not only absorb the information, but also to decide what you most want from the experience.
Independent Study & Your Body of Work, 15 hours minimum, 30 maximum of reading, research, sequence development, and portfolio work outside of class. This will become a part of your Body of Work.
Final Presentations 10 hours. A 45-minute presentation of your teaching philosophy, your specialty, and a teaching demonstration. Presentation will be made to your peers, and you will participate as a peer.
Required total: approximately 160 hours.
Not ready to apply? Every module and elective is open to any teacher with a 200-hour certification; no application required. Simply enroll in the individual components. If you decide later to pursue the certification, the hours you've already done count toward it.
You Build the Rest
The remaining hours — roughly 140, depending on which modules you choose — come from a menu designed to let you shape the training around the teacher you're becoming:
Additional Specialty Modules — 30 contact hours each. Go deeper into more populations and formats.
Weekend Electives — 5 to 12 hours each. Self-contained deep-dives into specialized topics: teaching beginners, healthy aging, the business of yoga, hands-on assists, philosophy, sequencing, and more.
Teacher's Circle — a weekly teachers' class (1 hour, designed to teach you something specific each week) and a monthly case-study circle (1-2 hours, where we examine real teaching situations together and problem-solve as a group).
You're building to 300 hours. Everyone exceeds it — most land between 305 and 330 — because this approach is much less about collecting a certificate and much more about learning. It’s addictive!
Two Ways This Might Look
A teacher heading toward private work with chronic pain patients should not be taking the same 300 hours as one building a retreat business. That's the principle. Here's what it looks like in practice.
The Generalist
This is the teacher who wants depth in multiple populations — chronic pain and women's health, or rest and somatics — and plans to build a practice around that expertise, providing a variety of services—privates, retreats, community partnerships, and classes.
They might add the following onto the requirements to gain that level of knowledge:
Four specialty modules ( rather than two)
Six weekend electives,
Teacher's Circle ( especially the case studies).
The Specialist
This is the person who has a population they want to work with and an approach they want to learn to deliver. If this person is interested in Women’s Health and delivering private sessions.
They would add the following onto the required components:
Module 3 (chronic pain and private sessions)
Module 4 ( women’s health and integrating systems),
10 or more electives, which would teach them different ways to work with their population.
This teacher would also want more mentorship hours and more time to develop their Body of Work and presentation because they would want to know everything they could about how to best serve their population.
The program looks different for each person because you are different. The required core is the same because the standard is the same.
What a Saturday in the Foundation Module Looks Like
One region of the body, five hours of exploration. Say it's the hips.
We start with the bones and the muscles and ask why the psoas runs from the spine through the pelvis to the leg, what its job is, and why it's tight and weak in nearly everyone who sits for a living. We find its pair in gluteus maximus and feel how one lengthens when the other contracts.
Then we feel it in postures. Warrior 3 is the showcase — one psoas engaging while the other lengthens. What changes when you flex the extended foot instead of pointing it? What happens when you squeeze the glute on the lifted leg?
Then you teach it to a partner, and look at what her body needs. You explore. You try different approaches to help make the posture accessible to your “student.” How can you help her grow in this challenging posture based on what you learned today?
The last two hours are energetic: which vayus, which chakras live in the hips, and how to carry that into a cue without losing the anatomy. We lean heavily on Tias Little’s book, which we read together, Yoga of the Subtle Body: A Guide to the Physical & Energetic Anatomy of Yoga
That's one Saturday. There are eight, and each takes a different region
Enrollment closes October 1, 2026
Built like a graduate program
I'm your project advisor. I'm both the teacher you see on the weekends and your advisor across the whole certification. I'll know what you're building, where you're stuck, and what's gotten stronger since October — which is what lets me personalize the reading, the mentorship, and the capstone.
Lecture that goes deep. Every module and elective has its own manual and its own reading list. Everything begins with knowledge, and then it's applied until you know it in your body and teaching it becomes second nature.
Practicum with revision. Whatever you're offering — classes, peer sessions, private work, a retreat — I'll observe, give feedback, and support your revision. Not a performance review. A process of getting better.
Your Body of Work
Most advanced trainings end with a quiz. This one ends with something you built.
Working with me across the certification, you'll develop the thing you want to bring into the world — a specialized workshop, a retreat program, a private practice model, a proposal for a healthcare system or a school district. Not an assignment. The offering you'll be teaching a year from now.
This is the part I'd point to if you asked what makes this training different. A 500-hour credential on its own is worth less than people think; I tell my own teachers to list their trainings and their expertise instead. What's worth something is being able to say I built the chronic pain series that runs at the recovery center. That's what we're making here, and it's required to complete the certification, because a certificate with nothing built behind it isn't worth much.
Your portfolio includes: a statement of your teaching philosophy · research supporting your approach · three signature sequences, private session plans, or other applications, with rationales · a specialized workshop outline · marketing materials for your offerings · a reading list built for you.
"Sara helped me see there was so much more possible than the Saturday morning class. I now teach retreats and specialized workshops. I've created something I didn't know was possible and is really what I want to do." — Emily
If this sounds intimidating…
Some of you just read that and thought this is a lot. Some of you thought this is exactly what I've been looking for. Some of you thought both, at the same time.
If you did your yoga teacher certification with me, you know how this goes: we progress little by little, and I am with you every step of the way.
My trainings have a high standard, and I will expect you to work hard.
I also believe in kindness, safety, and support, because that's the only way anyone learns and grows.
You will not be handed a topic and wished well. We'll work out what you're building, and then we'll build it together.
Tuition
Foundations (required) — 55 hours — $2,060
Specialty modules (2, 3, 4, and 5) — 30 hours each — $1,125 each
Weekend electives — 5 to 12 hours — $150 to $299
Retreat — $300 at Shine, approximately $1,200 for a destination retreat.
Individual advising and teaching practicum — included. Your one-on-one hours with me and your practicum are part of the certification at no additional cost. We size the hours to what you're building: about four for a private-session focus, closer to eight for alignment-based classes, twelve for a retreat, which includes my time attending it. The number is up to you, and we settle it together once we know what you're making.
These are the hours we schedule. In practice, I don't stop when they run out — I want this to be a presentation of your best work, and I'll give you the help you need to see it through. But the scheduled hours are what we plan around.
Standalone mentorship, for teachers not pursuing the certification, is $145 an hour.
You pay as you go, offering by offering. There's no tuition bill for the whole certification and no debt hanging over a three-year process.
If you'd rather commit up front: teachers who commit to the full certification at application can pay for a collection of modules and electives in quarterly installments and receive a discount. Talk to me during your consultation.
If cost is a barrier: limited scholarships are available, and I'd rather work it out than lose a teacher who'd thrive here
Questions?
Do I need a 200-hour certification to apply? Yes, and it can be from any yoga school. The exception is the weekend electives — those are open to teachers by default, and if you're not a teacher but want to explore a subject deeply, write to me first and we'll talk about whether it's a fit.
Do I have to take two specialty modules? Yes. Two gives you the breadth an advanced teacher should have while still leaving room to specialize.
Can I transfer advanced training hours from another school? I'm afraid not. This program is different from most, and our outcomes reflect our content and our practices.
Are payment plans available? The certification is paid as you go, which is a payment plan by design. If you'd rather commit to the whole certification at application, you can pay in quarterly installments and receive a discount.
Is there financial aid? Limited scholarships are available. Talk to me during the application process if cost is a barrier.
How much time will this take outside of class? Reading, personal practice you document, and the work of building your offering. Plan on a few hours most weeks, more as you approach your presentation. This is not a training you can attend and absorb passively, and that's deliberate.
Coming Up
Every training carries Yoga Alliance CEUs and counts toward the 300-hour certification. All are open to teachers with a 200-hour certification from any school. See the calendar for times and to add dates to your own calendar.
Ready?
The Foundation Module begins October 17, 2026.
The Teaching Beginner’s Elective is October 3rd & 4th
Applications close October 1
Questions?
Email sara@shineyogawny.com