Urban Asanas: Heart Forward Foundations Yoga Teacher Training
Established 2025
View program websitePurpose
Our goal is to train authentic heart-forward yoga teachers who can lead both power and yin style classes while embracing touch, embodiment, and inclusivity.
What to expect
The training takes place over 3.5 months. It's a time to devote yourself to deepening your practice, learning new skills, and also applying those learnings in your life.
FORMAT: 6 Weekends and 5 Friday Nights over a 3.5 Month Period. (see website for exact schedule)
This training has a strong focus on the following core areas:
- Posture Clinics & Practice Teach
- Learning to teach from your authentic self
- Hands on Assists and Deep Familiarity with Appropriate Touch
- Teaching in conversation
- Teachers intuition
- 5 Part sequencing
- Urban Asanas Power Flow
- Urban Asanas Restorative
- Mantras & Self Talk
- Altars and Ancestry
- Essential A+P for Teachers
- Intro to the Yoga Sutras/Bhagavad Gita
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Chakras: Business of Yoga
Style/Lineage
Urban Asanas teacher training flows from the 30+ year practice of Jyll Hubbard-Salk, pulling threads from many lineages to offer a unique expression of American Yoga. The threads which have influenced her style the most are classical Hatha Yoga with alignment cues rooted in the Iyengar Method, studied both in India and with Nikki Costello. Her flowing style and sequencing methodology have roots in the Baptiste method, as well as Kula Yoga, and study with Ossi Raveh. Finally, the Philosophy taught in the training taps into both the yoga sutras as a guide towards personal evolution, while also acknowledging that our unique ancestral background is always with us and should be brought into the present.
Program Emphasis
Core competencies
AYC allows each school to state and evaluate the competencies each student acquires
By the end of this program, graduates will be able to…
- Apply the ethical and philosophical teachings of the Eight Limbs of Yoga, Yoga Sutra and Bhagavad Gita for personal reflection, clarity, and self-healing.
- Apply knowledge of the 7-chakra system of hatha yoga for personal development
- Identify the purpose, benefits, risk factors, and Sanskrit names of 20+ foundational asanas
- Understand the ethical, legal, and financial essentials of being a yoga teacher and learn a simple way to market yoga teachings with authenticity
- Identify and describe the key components of the skeletal system, including major bones, joints, and muscle groups relevant to yoga postures.
- Develop a personal meditation practice using a personalized altar based on their spiritual path.
- Teach a 60-90 minute Power Flow class using the Urban Asanas methodology.
- Lead students through a 5-part practice consisting of Foundational Intention, Warm-Up, Sequence Building to a Peak, Cool Down, and Savasana.
- Guide students through a 30-min Yin Yoga and Meditation Practice using Intuitive Sequencing, Somatic Awareness, and Hands on Assists.
- Apply 5-7 Hands on Assisting techniques to students in foundational yoga postures skillfully and safely.
Requirements
Program evaluation
- Written exam
- Teaching evaluation
Throughout the program students will be receiving feedback on their teaching at various stages. Certification requires passing a written exam and a graded practice teach session based on the Core Competencies above.
AYC Verification
This program will grant the following AYC CE badge after you verify your credential.
Level 1 Yoga Teacher
Urban Asanas: Heart Forward Foundations Yoga Teacher Training
Shashi Mair, Lauren Haythe, GuRubee Ruben Blackriver, Andrew Tanner, Jyll Hubbard-Salk, T’ai Jamar Hanna
150 hours
Additional Information
Pricing and Payment Plan Options:
First 5 People: $2,500 (paid in full) $250 extra for payment plans
Next 5 People: $2,800
Next 5 People: $3,000
Last 3 People: $3,333
Payment Plan: (Add $250 to the price)
$500 non-refundable deposit
3 Equal Payments every 30 days. Must be paid in full by Jan 30th 2026
First 5: $500 + 3 payments of $750 = Total $2,750
Next 5: $500 + 3 payments of $850 = Total $3,050
Next 5: $500 + 3 payments of $916 = Total $3,250
Last 3 People: $500 + 3 payments of $1,000 = $3,500
Program Faculty
Featured Faculty
I am always a student leading with my heart forward
Additional Faculty
CE Provider
Ian Śaśi Mair has been a lifelong student of yoga. He has benefited from the teachings of many celebrated teachers over the decades. This journey has taken him to study, practice and teach yoga in several countries, including The United States and China.. As a resident of the Yoga Society of San Francisco for 13 years, he was immersed in the study of Sanskrit and Yoga Philosophy in the lineage of Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, and under the tutelage of renowned teachers like the late Dr Ram Karan Sharma, Dr Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, Indira and Shanta Bulkin and Kiranavali Devi. He brings his wisdom and wealth of experience gathered to share as teacher of Introduction to Sanskrit and Yoga Philosophy in the Urban Asana American Yoga Council teacher training program. Shashi holds a Bachelor Architectural Design from Florida International University, and is a healer and massage therapist with Certification in acupressure from Acupressure Institute, Berkeley. ".... for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists ". - Mahatma Gandhi ".....We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community." - Haile Selassie 1 , King of Kings "Since all things in the universe arise from the same ch'i, then the people of the world are our brothers: water, plants, earth,fire and metals are my companions......". - Chang Tsai (1020-1077) Chinese philosopher doctor
CE Provider
Anatomy teacher
CE Provider
Pioneer in holistic executive protection & yogic self-defense for high-stress, high-performance clients (celebrity artists, first responders, corporate execs, medical pros). 30+ years in Raja Yoga. IAYT-Certified Therapist, RYT-500, Reiki Master, integrating mind, body & spirit.
Level 3
CEO of American Yoga Council, Co-Founder of Berkshire Yoga Festival, and Taoist Yoga & Meditation teacher of 20+ years.
Level 3
Formally teaching since 2006. Integrated approach seeped in somatic inquiry, meditation of the senses, and dynamic movement-stillness.
Up-front pricing and policies
Format
Attendance
Hybrid (Kings County)
Structure
Cohort, Retreat
Minimum hours of instruction
150 hours
Total time commitment
3- 5 months
Program fees (USD)
Application fee
Application fees are non-refundable.
Program fees
Depending on timing
Housing fees
Depending on travel, lodging, and meals
Estimated total cost
All details are subject to change; confirm on program website
AYC verification fee
AYC verification fee
One-time. Payable to AYC.
40% goes to Urban Asanas, 10% to the Give Back Fund, 50% to AYC Operations