LIVE! Chair Yoga Teacher Training
and Certification Program

I was concerned about taking an online course because of my need to ask questions. It’s not like you can just raise your hand and say, “excuse me, I don’t understand”, if that’s you, don’t let that hold you back. Whenever I had questions, I emailed Sherry and she responded within a couple of hours, and often even sooner. Her accessibility is remarkable and made me feel as though I had someone right next to me the whole time.

This course really fit my learning style perfectly. My teaching confidence in both chair and gentle yoga has soared since taking this course. I would highly recommend it.

I have never found anatomy to be exciting, and didn’t receive a lot of anatomy in my 200-houryoga teacher training. Learning anatomy on my own was both overwhelming and intimidating. When I was researching this course I saw something that said I didn’t didn’t need to be an anatomy expert to take the course. WOW.That was a relief so I went for it. I had a college professor say many times “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That is the way this course is put together. The anatomy is broken down into sections, so it isn’t intimidating at all if anatomy isn’t your thing. I’m a long way away from being an “anatomy geek” but it no longer intimidates me.Additionally, Justine’s yoga therapy teaching provided new insights to me that really enhanced my understanding of many concepts along the way.

While preparing for a chair yoga class I was presenting at an ALF for International Yoga Day I stumbled upon Sherry and YogaJP on YouTube. Needless to say, I was HOOKED. Now when I come across other chair yoga classes, they’re very vanilla in comparison.

I am so very glad I decided to sign up for the mentorship program. It made a huge difference in my progress in the program. The Mentoring program was VERY helpful! I do like to work on my own, and I thought I would easily be able to do that as I have before with other online (unrelated) courses. But as I noticed myself letting “life” get in the way of my keeping up my pace, and the offer for the Mentorship program was so affordable it made it a no brainer to give it a try.

I got a lot of value from the conference calls and sharing with the others in the group. It gave the experience a much more connected and personal feeling to speak with others going through the same process. Gerry was very helpful of course by being there but not being too much. He was there to help and guide, and was there as much or as little as needed. I appreciated the weekly encouragements via our Facebook group.

The Chair Yoga Certification course was totally amazing in the content offered and the way in which it was presented. I really love how you have the main portion of the program to complete, but there is also so much additional information to continue to study long after completion of the program. The anatomy section to me, was not at all “too much” because this is vital information for a yoga teacher. I also loved how you feature some of your teachers/mentors and their work, i.e. Somatic approaches with Erhard R. and James Knight. Justine’s videos were super helpful too. The program just covers so many areas but does not bog down in anything.

In my personal case I feel that this is wonderful for older adults. Every day I discover more the desire to live to enjoy that they have, I am surprised, I am fascinated, it is like that playful part that lacked yoga, they love to meditate, but I feel this part as a meditation in movement, although none of the musical themes are slow, they expect this part as children waiting for their candy, this is what fascinates me.

Currently I’m offering 7 chair yoga classes a week (plus a twice-monthly healthy brains with yoga segment) and am loving it. I often hear from students how much they appreciate the variety of movement and themes from class to class, and I know that I’ve been able to offer that as a result of this training. One of the best compliments I have received from people who used to practice mat yoga was that they still felt as though they were practicing “real” yoga!

The chair yoga teacher training program was invaluable to hone and fine-tune my yoga education to serve the 55+ population I teach in South Florida. I found that during my 200 hour certification, anatomy was my weakest area because I just didn’t have much of an interest or understanding, but in this program it was so easy to follow that I found myself becoming an anatomy geek. It was general anatomy, yes, but also what happens to the body as it ages, or with various health conditions. I find myself incorporating many of the concepts and movements into my traditional hatha mat classes as well, and the class attendance has improved as a result. I was dubious about how well I would learn using video content, and was very pleasantly surprised to find out how effective it was. Not only did I feel as if I was there, but I have all of the content as reference materials too! I highly recommend this course, and all Yoga Vista Academy offerings. May we keep up this vital work that blesses so many!

I am so grateful to all of you. Gerry has been an exceptional mentor.

I have gotten so much out of your course and you have helped me find my personal “why”.

It’s all going smooth and sweet so far. And such a great training! Really good work. Many practical advices, examples, testimonies, shared experiences, all knowledge good and precisely presented, easy to follow (nice handouts!) and very practice oriented. Well done indeed.

I think it is really brilliant how you lay this out. It makes sense to me, even if sometimes I need to re-watch to make sure I understand, that is just how I need to learn. But this is broken down into all the necessary aspects, lyrics, song structure, movement/choreography, and each builds upon the other allowing for the repetition that is necessary for really learning the dance.

I followed along with the lyrics, noting the beats per segment. Creating movements for each section seemed logical and fun and I could visualize some alternate patterns that I might want to use with my students. I was doing the dance along with the videos and was surprised by how energetic it felt even though the movements are so simple and slow. I like the format.

The course is so well thought through. I really love the methodology you used, the structure of this course, clear, step-by-step instructions. And it’s so inspiring! I believe and hope that many teachers will take this course and will spread joy and healing on all level to many-many people!

To be a witness of the whole adventure of dance creation was a sheer fun! Step by step instructions, made learning this dance such a enjoyable experience!

I felt that I understood the theory of how you got to the finished product and felt confident I could then teach the dance. There was enough information backed up by very effective video support. It was enough to get me on the way to completing the steps myself

I love how you have those diagrams to make the song structures easy to understand, and how you have the whole thing broken down with the different formats of songs. The way each module was separated and built upon also made sense to me as far as the order of learning each lesson.

One of my favorite things Sherry is your great enthusiasm! It is very contagious! And anytime I am watching you with a group of people doing the class together, my heart melts.. it’s so heartwarming watching those seniors following along and moving to the beat. I absolutely love it.

To me there is nothing like this that I have come across. Teachers need this kind of calm and clear format and the videos visuals and reassurance! It’s at the same time detailed and comprehensive but fun!

My favorite part of the program is how you instruct us to dissect the song into bit size pieces. The structure underpinning the course is very good…The process you take us through will help me remember your dances and invent my own choreography.