Pranayama Teacher Training

Empower your teaching, empower your students

Explore the art and science of yogic breathing. This course goes beyond the basics of breathwork, exploring the profound impact of breath on body, mind and spirit.

You’ll dive into traditional pranayama techniques, their relevance today, and the connection between breath, the nervous system and resilience. We blend time-honoured practice with the latest scientific insight, giving you practical tools to use safely, creatively and confidently in your teaching or personal practice.

Schedule

All sessions are live online, and 100% attendance is required.

What you’ll understand by the end

• Yogic philosophy and pranayama. The philosophical foundations of yogic breathing.
• Anatomy of breathing. The lungs, diaphragm and respiratory system.
• Traditional practice, modern integration. Where pranayama techniques come from and their place in yoga today.
• Breath and the nervous system. How breathing affects the autonomic nervous system and supports relaxation.
• Breath and the brain. The brain-breath connection and the mental benefits of controlled breathing.
• Lung capacity and resilience. Techniques to build respiratory strength.
• The research. What modern science has found about pranayama.
• Teaching pranayama. How to introduce it safely to students of different experience.
• Special topics. Guest sessions on breathing for trauma sensitivity and breathing techniques for children.

Each session explores specific practices in detail: how to do them, their physiological effects, safety and contraindications, who benefits most, and how to lead them. The focus throughout is on making them accessible, safe and trauma-sensitive.

You’ll receive a written and a video manual, with guided practices to support your self-practice and teaching.

Why online, and spread over time?

We love in-person learning for community and connection. But pranayama isn’t just something you learn. It’s something you experience, integrate and embody.

• It fits real life. No travel or rigid scheduling, so regular practice becomes much more likely.
• Your home becomes your practice space. Over time it becomes associated with calm, awareness and breath.
• Integration over information. A slower pace lets your nervous system adapt gently and safely, and your capacity build sustainably.
• Practice between sessions. The weeks between sessions are part of the learning: you practise, notice, and return with questions.

Meet Melanie

Melanie Cooper is E-RYT500 in Flow, Nidra, Yin and Anatomy, and the author of Teaching Yoga, Adjusting Asana. She began teaching in 1997, after a practice rooted in Ashtanga from 1993.

She began teaching on teacher trainings in Goa in 2010, ran her own 200-hour trainings in London from 2015, and partnered with The Shala in London in 2018 to offer joint 300-hour trainings.

Fees

Not included: food, snacks and insurance.

Recommended reading: Breath by James Nestor, and Pranayama: The Breath of Yoga by Gregor Maehle.

Cancellation policy

All payments are non-refundable and non-transferable, including for illness, bereavement or other personal circumstances. If you pay a deposit, the deposit is non-refundable and the balance is due by the date given. 100% attendance is required. If we cancel the course, we refund your fees in full.

Tutor: Melanie Cooper