Skill in Action 300hr
yoga teacher training
with Michelle C. Johnson
& guests
A combination of in-person & virtual modules.
This cohort is currently full. Sign up for the interest list to learn when applications for the next cohort are open.
The Skill in Action 300hr Yoga Teacher Training is designed for 200hr trained teachers looking to deepen their spiritual practice and teaching and learn more about the intersection of justice and yoga.
This advanced yoga teacher training will offer a comprehensive, inspired approach to transformational social change work. Throughout this training you will gain knowledge and skills to connect the transformation on the mat to the change that is possible off of the mat. Many people come to their yoga mats to escape the larger cultural context. While there is value in resetting and self-care, we cannot forget our connection to the collective. Skill in Action pushes yoga teachers and practitioners to consider how their transformation on the mat can change how they are in the world. Skill in Action has the capacity to change how we work, live and build community across lines of difference.
Michelle will be joined by a number of guest teachers who will bring the lens of justice to each training module.
The nature of suffering is one that can often lead us to feel stuck, alone, and disconnected. This training will be centered on the themes of liberation and connection, and how to create liberation individually and collectively. How do we use our spiritual practice to offer us resiliency during overwhelming times.
This training is unique in that it is centered around radicalizing wellness and spiritual spaces; it’s centered around what it takes to stay engaged in a movement for social change, how to build relationships across lines of difference, and how to take collective action.
This training is also unique because it is led by a woman of color, who will be joined by at least four teachers of color, all of whom are sitting with the question of how to respond to overwhelming times and how the practice of yoga and meditation can support us in staying radically present to what is happening politically and culturally. Together we will make space for grief to be expressed and held, and for our spiritual practice to be a shelter.
CURRICULUM
The Skill in Action 300hr Yoga Teacher Training is a program that empowers the student-practitioner with an advanced Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher 500-hour certification through the lens of yoga and social justice.
The 300 hours are spent covering the following areas:
~ Trauma-informed Yoga
~ The Bhagavad Gita and its Contemporary Application
~ Body Positive Yoga
~ Dharma of Collective Resiliency
~ Restorative Yoga or the Chakras and Energy Body
~ Spiritual Bypassing and Cultural Appropriation
~ Bhakti Yoga: The Heart Work of Authenticity & Connection
…& more!
Unique highlights and perspectives of Skill in Action:
• Embodiment: the practice of intentional embodiment
• Social Justice: From oppression to liberation
• Accessing my Power: Exploration of individual and collective power to make change and transform
• Dharma: What is my purpose and duty and how can I manifest a yoga practice rooted in service
Accepted students must…
• Be 18 years of age or older
• Be a 200-hr trained yoga teacher with at least 2 years of teaching experience*
• Submit a completed program application
• Possess a demonstrated commitment to social justice and desire to offer yoga towards that end
• Exhibit the ability to contribute to a safe and cohesive learning environment
• Show medical and mental health readiness to fully participate in all required aspects of the program
*Any 200hr Skill in Action Teacher Training graduate is welcome to apply.
Tuition
Once your application is approved, a $500 non-refundable deposit will be due. Full program cost is $3300; your deposit will be applied to the full cost. Payment plans are available along with a select number of partial and full scholarships.
DATES
The current training is meeting August 2022 - August 2023
The first and final weekends will be held in person, in Winston-Salem, NC.
All other weekends will be held online via Zoom.
Exact dates and guest teaching sessions:
In person weekends will follow this schedule:
Thursday-Sunday, beginning at 6pm eastern on Thursday; ending at noon eastern on Sunday
All virtual weekends will follow this schedule:
Friday 6-8pm eastern, Saturday and Sunday 10-noon eastern and 1:30-3:30 eastern
August 11-14 (in person) with Michelle: Setting the container, why we are present, where I am from, and what is yoga
September 9-11 with Michelle: Social location, justice, and yoga; the yamas and niyamas, Bhagavad Gita introduction
October 7-9 with Melissa Shah: Yoga, Inner Knowing, and Action
November 11-13 with Tiya Caniel Maynard: Balance & Align: Reframing Chakra Energy Work
December 9-11 with Shakira Bethea: Anatomy, the Chakras, and Taking Action
January 13-15 with Dani Strauss and Mirabelle D'Cunha: Bhakti Yoga
February 10-12 with Michelle: The Bhagavad Gita
March 10-12 with Tristan Katz: Creating Trans Affirming Spaces & Justice-focused marketing
April 14-16 with Kate Mosher and Garrett Jurss: Teaching to All Bodies & Accessible Asana and Meditation
May 19-21 with Kelley Palmer: Re-imaging Our Work: An invitation to Build Authentic, Ethical & Accessible spaces
June 9-11 with Michelle and Teo Drake: Taking Action
July 14-16 with Stephanie Ghoston Paul: Living Ancestry in Action
August 11-13 (in person) with Michelle: The Bhagavad Gita, Wisdom, and Discernment
Guest Faculty
Shakira Bethea (she/her)
Shakira practices a natural dance called Rhythmic Bloom to recreate what it means to flow through her life’s journey. During her undergraduate studies, she awakened to the systemic rules of wellness, boosting her interest in alternative healing methods that support the whole person. The catalyst to her embodiment of wellness sparked during her training to become a Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist in 2011. Her bodywork practice focuses on moving through the deep, underwater currents of growth to extend the practice of music for musicians and artists.
Shakira continues the rhythmic journey of interweaving social justice and wellness practices as she explores her presence in mixed race wellness spaces. She and other passionate change makers are building a Worker Cooperative that supports shared values of whole body healing, uplifting the voices of their community, and to recreate the meaning of wellness through an anti-oppression and anti-racism lens.
An evolving, passion project of hers invites singles to welcome a spirit-partnered relationship and live on purpose, which is counter to stigmatizing, dominant culture. Her e-guide, written under the pen name Coko Bonique, "You Know You're Dope, Right? Foundational Practices to Living Single," liberates individuals to tap into their natural rhythm and authentic essence to deepen the relationship to self and live with confidence and intention.
In her free time, she loves the magic of fireside chats, spending time with loved ones, uplifting dance music and aerial dance as they all bring liberation and freedom to the mundane. Shakira earned her B.A in psychology from UNC-Chapel Hill and trained with the Skill in Action program, completing her 500HR Yoga Teacher Training. Her yoga classes are deeply rooted to support inner well-being and create communities that value trust and compassion to work together to create a new system that rebels dominant culture. Photo credit: Allie Mullin
Mirabelle D’Cunha (she/her)
Mirabelle supports committed yoga lovers to savour the luxury of inner experience and find purpose, pleasure and joy in life through breath. She provides a loving space for them to unplug from urgency, into deep trust and allowing. Her signature offerings are Sadhana Club - an online sanctuary that brings grace, clarity, and community to yoga teachers and practitioners - as well as her Breathe into a Radiant You private mentoring program for healing through breath.
Mirabelle is in an intimate relationship with yoga as a breath-ing experience and has been on the path of living yoga for 19 years, studying with swamis (monks) and teachers from the Sivananda Saraswati lineage and at Mumbai University. Mirabelle has taught at yoga ashrams and studios in India, the USA, Canada, Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands and is a guest teacher on yoga teacher training on pranayama, bhakti yoga, and the deeper nuances of yoga as a living practice. She has been a speaker and panelist and teacher for Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Programs.
Whether in an individual or group session, corporate or yoga teacher training space, gentle acknowledgment, compassion and intimacy with breath are at the heart of how Mirabelle approaches all of her work in this world.
Want to experience breath like never before? Click here to receive her free Intimacy with Breath Mini-Class. You can find Mirabelle on Instagram @mirabelle_sivajyoti.
Teo Drake (he/him)
Teo is a spiritual activist, an educator, a practicing Buddhist and yogi, and an artisan who works in wood and steel. A blue collar, queer trans man living with AIDS, Teo’s activism exists at the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, and spirituality. He serves on the faculty and board of Off the Mat, Into the World, the national advisory board of the Transgender Law Center’s project Positively Trans, and is a co-founder of the Transforming Hearts Collective. His writing can be found in the anthology Yoga and Body Image and at the blog rootsgrowthetree.com, and his artisan crafts can be found at The Tinkering Gnome (website under development).
Garrett Jurss (He/Him)
Garrett is a yoga teacher and intuitive Tarot reader living on unceded Seminole and Timucua land, known today as Orlando, FL. He believes that Yoga is a practice of liberation, of connecting to our innate wholeness and dispelling the myth that we are broken beings in need of fixing. He is committed to making wellness more equitable, accessible, and inclusive while cultivating spaces where students can explore possibilities with curiosity, non-judgment, and self-love. Garrett is a certified Accessible Yoga and Yoga For All teacher, and he hopes to inspire students to take their practice off their mat and ultimately share it with the rest of the world. You can find him on Instagram @garrettjurss or at garrettjurss.com.
Tristan Katz (they/them)
Tristan is a writer, digital strategist, and equity-inclusion facilitator based on the ancestral land of the Cowlitz and Clackamas peoples and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and Siletz Indians, now known as Portland, OR.
Tristan offers justice-focused marketing programs for yoga and wellness professionals, along with workshops and trainings centered around queer identity and transgender awareness with an anti-oppression and intersectional lens.
Their podcast, ALL THE F*CK IN: Showing up for social justice in your work, is a collaboration with Lauren Roberts, featuring conversations about all things business and entrepreneurship—from a radical perspective that says we don’t have to choose between social justice values and being successful.
Tristan was named one of Yoga Journal’s 2021 Game Changers and they were awarded the Reclamation Ventures grant in Spring 2021 to expand their offerings and dedicate time to writing their first book, title forthcoming.
They are proud to sit on the Board of Directors at Accessible Yoga—a non-profit working, through education and advocacy, to share the teachings and benefits of yoga with those who have been marginalized, and to identify and remove barriers to access, build strong networks, and advocate for an accessible, equitable, and dynamic yoga culture.
Tiya Caniel Maynard (she/her)
Tiya is a human being, whose pronouns are she/her/hers. She is currently based in a very small town in NC.
While she has been a yogi all her life by default, Tiya has been consciously in her practice for nearly a decade.
With her 200-hour yoga teacher certification, Tiya has been teaching others yoga for five years. Her guidance on + off the mat is a blend of yogic philosophy, writing, movement, and creative play. By sharing a variety of traditional practices of movement, breath, and meditation with writing & creative expression, Tiya presents the practice of yoga as a way of life and a path to liberation of the mind, body, and soul.
As an innerspace tailor, Tiya helps clients style and adorn themselves from within by teaching them sustainable tools to facilitate their own healing. This ultimately leads to their liberation, and everyone's liberation, for we are all connected. The liberation of just one of our fellow humans moves us all closer to our own.
In addition to teaching yoga, Tiya loves adorning herself in beautiful garments and jewelry, creating sacred living & work spaces, cooking & eating delicious foods, practicing rest as rebellion, writing, spending time in the mountains, embodying liberation, exploring personal freedom as it relates to yoga and being a black woman, and giving & receiving tons of love.
Kate Mosher (she/her)
I didn’t find yoga, yoga found me. I know, I know, but I say it because it is true. A dear friend was the first to invite me to the mat. I vaguely recall promises of handstands and increased flexibility. I imagined yoga would help me to lose weight and become a human pretzel. Neither of those things happened. However, I did find it helped me to turn down the volume on the screaming shame cassette that played on repeat in my mind.
Yoga gave me the space to see that I lived almost entirely in my head- consumed by the fat kid fantasies that all started with when I am thin....
You might be familiar, when I am thin I will meet the right person, I will land the job of my dreams, I will take those photos, I will finally arrive in my own life.
Yoga continues to offer me the resources to sit in discomfort, to see that I did not trust myself and I did not trust my body.
Why? Because I had been conditioned to believe that fat people were not to be trusted, that our bodies were entirely out of control, and my ONLY job was to fix my broken body, by whatever means necessary.
Yoga invites me into a practice of learning to quiet my mind, and after decades of diet culture’s broken records, this has been a profound gift.
That is not to say it was a love at first posture. I was an inconsistent student for many years, sometimes months or *gasp* a year could go by in between practices. I now offer opportunities for folks to join me in asana practice, breathwork, mediation, and investigation into how the practice of the 8 limbs of yoga can support ourselves, through community and connection.
I am Kate Mosher (she/her), and I am passionate about my family, yoga, fat activism, body liberation, equity work, anti-racism, social justice, good coffee, riding my bike, and being in community with you. I believe that we can and will change the world, through the practice of yoga, asana and beyond.
Kelley Palmer (she/her)
Kelley is a black, queer creative and community advocate based in Charlotte NC. Kelley uses the practices and philosophy of yoga to guide her work in creating equitable and sustainable access to wellness for BIPOC. Along with teaching movement, meditation and contemplative practices, Kelley leads retreats, hosts workshops and contributes to multiple teacher training programs. Kelley also works as a race equity educator, working to create collaborative learning and self study spaces where inquiry based learning brings new perspective, insights and action.
Kelley is a writer and collage artist focusing that work on black liberation, wholeness and healing. Kelley serves as a founding member of The Sanctuary In The CIty, a Charlotte based non-profit that focuses on equitable healing spaces for BIPOC all over the world. Kelley also serves as a trainer for Accessible Yoga Training School.
Stephanie Ghoston Paul (she/her)
Stephanie is an internationally recognized speaker, racial justice facilitator, organizational development consultant, life coach, and recovering lawyer. She helps people, communities, and companies get in alignment with and fully embody their purpose, in service of a planet where all human beings are free, whole, and enough.
Stephanie’s unique approach skillfully and wholeheartedly combines her sharp legal mind, problem-solving skills, and love of people to powerfully serve clients and challenge existing exclusive systems and organizational structures. Her consulting practice supports organizations ready to transform their core identity to one that fully embeds anti-oppression and liberatory principles into their organizational culture.
Through her individual life coaching work, she is dedicated to helping high-achieving leaders embrace their brilliance so that they can stop second-guessing their greatness and activate their potential. Stephanie walks alongside her clients as they discover ways to stop hiding, prioritize themselves, and start living on purpose.
Stephanie also explores what it means to be a living ancestor through her latest community offering called Take Nothing When I Die. She enjoys cooking spicy dishes with her partner, playing recreational flag football, and finding new flavors of delicious tea.
Melissa Shah (she/her)
Melissa deeply believes in applying the culture and teachings of yoga to bring to light the long-standing disparities in wellness spaces. She is passionate about bringing yoga and Ayurveda back to its roots, and reclaiming representation within the wellness community. Originally from Munsee Lenape land (Queens, NY), Melissa draws from her roots, personal experience and in-depth training to make yoga accessible through yoga therapy, mentoring yoga teachers, and mantra. Melissa also utilizes her background in public health to integrate yoga into schools and clinical settings. She has been practicing yoga since she was a child, thanks to her mother, and has been studying it deeply since the age of 18. Melissa firmly believes in continuously adapting the practice to the individual as they move through human experiences. Melissa has had asthma since she was 2 years old, and has seen firsthand the positive effects that yoga and pranayama can have not only on chronic illnesses but how we perceive the world.
Currently, Melissa works individually with clients offering yoga therapy in the Viniyoga lineage. She offers weekly mantra classes, as well as pranayama classes for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). Her offerings focus on how to tune into our true self and dharma (calling, purpose) when it comes to taking action toward what we believe in. Her classes are inclusive of all bodies, abilities and are trans-affirming. She also works as the Program Director at Wellemental, an app-based company that strives to create inclusive spaces for kids to breathe through BIPOC-centered practices. When Melissa isn't teaching, she loves to practice singing, bike ride, and experiment with Ayurvedic cooking! You can find her classes and 1:1 offerings on her website or connect with her on IG at @findyourbreath.
Dani Strauss (she/her)
Dani is a queer-identified sex-positive therapist, yoga teacher, and birth doula. She works to support survivors of trauma in reclaiming their pleasure and fulfillment through body awareness and heart healing.
Dani’s personal and professional work incorporates meditation, movement, yoga philosophy, holistic mental health, and spiritual inquiry. She uses elements of physical, spiritual, and emotional mindfulness to help people connect to the parts of themselves that haven’t had room to thrive. Her work focuses on creating space for shame, grief, and hurt to move through us, on celebrating our deep resiliency and wisdom, and on cultivating connection as a tool for healing from oppression.
Dani started chanting in Hebrew at a very young age, and when she heard kirtan for the first time, it was like a rediscovery of truth and spirit. She enjoys chanting as an energetic release and an offering to the beauty and depth of the natural world. Dani believes that sound and vibration are powerful tools to support the nervous system, and that the practice of kirtan helps us to create community and heart-to-heart connections with those around us.