Centered Yoga is a leader in the field of yoga education and yoga teacher training worldwide.Since its founding in 1999, Centered Yoga has offered courses for professional yoga teachers, those aspiring to become teachers, and sincere students seeking to delve deeper into their practice and understanding of the contemplative yoga path.
Our basic yoga teacher training program, An Education in Yoga: Foundation Course, is considered one of the most comprehensive in the world. It is also of the highest standard, with a broad scope that encompasses asana, vinyasa, pranayama, yoga philosophy, anatomy and physiology, meditation, chanting, and spiritual practices. Authenticity and integrity are our hallmarks, as we firmly believe that a deep understanding of not only the correct practice, but also its purpose, is essential to produce an effect that is both true and pointed in the right direction.
Centered Yoga holds one-month residential yoga teacher training program at Samahita Retreat, a leading destination for yoga retreats and holidays in Koh Samui, Thailand, along with a number of advanced yoga training courses to advance the student and teacher. Through its founder, Paul Dallaghan, Centered Yoga also conducts other yoga teacher training programs around the world.
Paul has trained one-on-one with noted yogi Sri O.P. Tiwari, master of pranayama and head of the oldest yoga institute, Kaivalyadham. He also received advanced asana training with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the late master of ashtanga.
Both of these great teachers have personally certified Paul in these practices, a unique position as the only one to receive this double honor.Centered Yoga is known both in Asia and around the world as one of the most respected and longest-running Yoga Alliance-registered yoga teacher training programs, at both at the 200- and 300-hour levels. In fact, we maintain our own programs and standards to the 1100-hour level. We are proud of our reputation for a high standard of personal practice and learning.
Paul Dallaghan formally established Centered Yoga in New York City in 1999, and soon thereafter began the first training course. Although the course was born out of a direct request from students, at the time Paul had also been thinking about how to raise the standards of yoga education. He felt a need to offer teaching that would preserve the integrity of traditional yogic practices while also carefully examining and understanding their origins and meaning.
Since the very beginning of Centered Yoga, Sri O.P. Tiwari (head of the Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute near Bombay) has been its main advisor, principally owing to his longstanding relationship with Paul. As such, Centered Yoga enjoys full affiliation with Kaivalyadhama, a highly regarded research facility dedicated to examining yoga practices from both scientific and traditional points of view.
Established by Swami Kuvalayananda in 1924, Kaivalyadhama has had tremendous influence on the understanding and propagation of yoga in and throughout the world. Indeed, both Gandhi and Nehru were students of Swamiji; Swami Sivananda dedicated the first issue of every book to Kuvalayananda; and Krishnamacharya studied there in 1933, sent by the Maharaja of Mysore.