Cant find the right yoga course. Create your own

I love this topic mainly because it's so true! It resonates with me. I couldn't find a yoga teacher course for adults with learning disabilities that suited me. I wanted a course that covered all learning disabilities not just a select group. So I started writing everything down that I was learning from my students and my collaborator with an aim of writing our own course.

Photo reproduced with kind permission from Rob Cross ( photographer and Bryn's owner)

During my nursing career I have been lucky to have had the opportunity to write education and training packages either alone or in collaboration with colleagues. This experience and skill set I have been able to transfer and use in designing a yoga course for yoga teachers who want to teach adults with learning disabilities.

To collaborate or not to collaborate?

A big decision!. Having worked alone and collaborative on many projects there are advantages and disadvantages of both options. Are you self motivated? Can you drive yourself and keep momentum going on your project alone? Do you work best alone? If this is the way that suits you best that's great. It may still be worth asking a colleague or peer to review your work, use them as a sounding board, check your grammar and spelling mistakes! Even spell check misses some errors!

So you want to collaborate?

Working with other enthusiastic and motivated people is great. Select those you collaborate with carefully. What can they bring to the project? what is their style of working, what is their time management like? Will you work well together?

You and your collaborator need to have the same vision and objectives, otherwise you will just go round in circles

You can run ideas past each other, spur everyone on when motivation starts to flounder or life gets in the way and benefit from everyone's strengths. Remember the more people you work with the more discussion takes place. As an effective working group 2-3 people is ideal anymore and you could start seeing delays. Check out the courses you have attended and books you've read. How many contributor's or authors are involved?

Content

Why are you writing the course? What was that moment that you thought there was a gap in the market? What would you like to be in the course if you were starting out? Really think out the content. What are your aims and objectives? What do you want people leaving your course having achieved (the outcome)? What is your unique selling point? Why should people chose to attend your course? My unique selling point is my collaborator and course co-presenter. Even though I have the experience teaching yoga to adults with learning disabilities, she has over 30 years of experience working as a registered nurse in learning disabilities. Imagine attending a course and having access to someone who has this wealth of knowledge.

Setting deadlines for work completion

I am a completer finisher. If I say I'll do something I do it through to the end. However my collaborator is not 😁. We have a long history of working together as nurses and built up a great friendship. My collaborator is crucial to the yoga course. She brings clinical credibility and a wealth of nursing experience working with adults with a learning disability. However her time management is erratic! I know she won't meet deadlines so I always set a deadline well in advance of when I hope the project can be completed. Then I usually set another 2 deadlines! Does this sound familiar? Don't set a deadline 2 weeks before the date of your course. It won't be achieved and you'll just get stressed. You will need time to both review the final draft version of your course and recheck. My collaborators real strength is checking documents for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and unclear sentences! A superb skill not to be overlooked!

Attendance course or online course?

Having attended may study sessions in my nursing career I am very much used to a formal structured teaching environment and use of PowerPoint! All the yoga training I have attended is very different. It's much more relaxed, sticking to time variable and more flexibility (excuse the pun) in how the day of study is timetabled.

After delivering your course in a face to face study day, could it be converted to an online course? You could reach a much larger target audience all over the world and it could become an income generator? It's worth exploring.

Presentation of course

Will you be providing a workbook? There are options to have this work printed as a bound programme or separately as insertions into a loose file folder? This is up to you. If you do provide a workbook that is printed and bound then making amendments or updates can prove costly. As your course develops you may wish to make changes. Will you be providing CPD hours aligned to a yoga organisation? Provide certificates? Prospective students do look at value for money and what is included in the price of the course.

Cost of course

How much should you charge? Payment at time of booking? Is the course 1 day or 2 days? If any longer really consider your content and your market. Most people can 'manage' a day or 2 to attend a course they think will benefit their professional development and yoga classes they can offer. However 3 days and over creeps into affecting travel, accommodation, loss of income, family life, childcare etc. What are your overheads? cost of venue hire? Printing and stationary costs? publicity? cost for speakers? Early bird booking discount? Think about your worth as author, time spent developing and writing the course. This has a financial value. All should be taken into account when setting the cost for your course.

Evaluation and Feedback

Every course i have attended or arranged has included evaluation forms. Everyone dreads completing these forms at the end of any course because they are ready to leave to go home. Yet structured feedback is important to help you develop your course. I would suggest giving out the feedback forms at the start of your course and ask people to fill them out as they go along. You may be amazed at some suggestions that you just didn't think of.

If you cant find the right yoga course for you then why not write your own? I have found it to be one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences I have encountered. It is something I am passionate about and the outcome is clear for me.......more yoga teachers who teach yoga to adults with learning disabilities.

Good luck with your course writing.