A guide · Salt Lake City, Utah
You are thinking about a teacher training, and every school’s page sounds roughly the same. This guide answers the questions people ask before they choose: what it costs, which length to start with, weekends or an intensive, and how you go from practicing to teaching in Salt Lake City.
We run a training, so we have a stake in your answer. We wrote this to be useful even if you choose someone else.
01 · Cost
A 200- or 300-hour training is a significant purchase. The best way to compare prices is to add up everything you will have spent by the last weekend, not just the number at the top of the page.
What Utah trainings charge. Yoga teacher training in Utah costs about $1,990 to $4,200 for an in-person or hybrid 200-hour program and about $2,800 to $4,700 for a 300-hour, based on the published prices we read in September 2026. Fully online programs started under $1,000. YogaSoul’s 200-Hour is $3,300 and the 300-Hour is $4,700, each plus books. Ours sits in the upper middle.
The difference is rarely the certificate. It is who actually teaches you, how many people share the room, what is included, and how much of the training happens on a screen. Compare those, and the prices start to make sense.
YogaSoul 200-Hour
$500 deposit holds your place, is applied to tuition, and is not refundable. Anything paid beyond it is refundable for 3 business days after signing. After that, no refund, but one deferral to the next training if you ask in writing a month ahead ($200 fee). Payment plans are set individually with Rachel. See the 200-Hour
YogaSoul 300-Hour
$500 deposit, applied to tuition. Requires a 200-hour from any school. See the 300-Hour
Ours, stated plainly. The $500 deposit is not refundable, because it holds a seat in a small group. If you are not accepted, everything comes back. Anything you paid beyond the deposit is refundable for 3 business days after signing. After that you owe the full tuition, even on a payment plan, but you get one deferral to the next training if you ask at least a month ahead ($200 fee). Tuition must be paid in full to receive your certificate. Books are extra. Everything else on the 200-Hour list above is inside the $3,300. If something is unclear, write to Rachel before you pay anything.
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02 · 200-hour or 300-hour
The 200-hour is the foundation. The 300-hour is advanced study for people who already hold a 200-hour or equivalent. If you do not have a 200-hour yet, your decision is already made.
| 200-Hour | 300-Hour | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Practitioners who want to understand the practice properly, whether or not they plan to teach | Teachers who want more depth than their first training could give them |
| Prerequisite | A steady practice. You do not need to be advanced | A 200-hour from any school |
| What you study | Postures, prāṇāyāma, meditation, anatomy, ethics, sequencing, and philosophy | Advanced study built on the foundation you already have |
| Teaching | From the first weekend | Every week |
| At YogaSoul | 7 weekends, Feb 5 to May 9, 2027. Cohort of 12 at most | 9 weekends, Feb 5 to Jun 27, 2027. Cohort of 8 at most |
| Cost at YogaSoul | $3,300, plus about $120 of books | $4,700, plus books |
| Certification | World Yoga Federation 200-Hour | World Yoga Federation 300-Hour, plus credit toward a 500-Hour designation |
The room gets smaller and the attention gets closer. At YogaSoul the cohort caps at eight instead of twelve, you teach every week, and you have two private mentorship sessions with Rachel. The questions move from how to lead a class to why you teach the way you do.
There is no required gap between the two. YogaSoul asks only that you hold a 200-hour. Many people teach for a while first, so they arrive with real questions.
A 500-hour designation is often not one long training. Many teachers reach it by adding a 300-hour training to a 200-hour they already hold. At YogaSoul, completing the 300-Hour gives you credit toward a 500-Hour designation.
If you did your 200-hour elsewhere, that is fine. The 300-Hour accepts a 200-hour from any school. Registries set their own rules, though. Yoga Alliance, for example, counts a 200-hour and a 300-hour from different schools only when both schools are registered with it, and it also asks for teaching hours. If a registry listing at the 500-hour level matters to you, check its requirements before you enroll anywhere.
03 · Format
The difference between a weekend yoga teacher training and a 200-hour intensive is pace. An intensive puts the whole training into a short, continuous block of full days, often away from home. A weekend format, like YogaSoul’s seven weekends from February 5 to May 9, 2027, spreads it across months, with time to practice and teach in between. Either one is a big decision. They suit different lives.
An intensive is tiring in a way that is hard to picture beforehand. There is little time for the material to settle before it is over, and you rarely teach an ordinary class in the middle of it.
A weekend format asks for something else. It asks for months of commitment, and a life that will interrupt you at least once along the way. Tell Rachel early when it does, and she will help you find a way through it.
The 200-Hour is seven weekends: Friday 5 to 9pm, then Saturday and Sunday 9 to 5. Between weekends you practice four to six times a week, read for about twenty minutes a day, observe classes, and teach.
It is in person in East Millcreek, Salt Lake City. It is not online and it is not an intensive. If that schedule will not fit your year, an intensive elsewhere may be the better choice, and we would rather you knew that now.
04 · Online or in person
Online trainings have opened teacher training to people who could never have reached one otherwise. They are also a different experience from learning in a room. Here is the trade-off as we see it, so you can decide which one your life calls for.
How to decide. If no in-person training is within reach, a good online program is far better than none. Look for live sessions rather than recordings alone, and for a teacher who watches you teach on video and responds. If you can get to a room, even with a drive, the parts of teaching that are hardest to learn are learned there. YogaSoul trains in person only, for that reason. Our in-person 200-hour teacher training in Salt Lake City is where most people start, and if your first training was online, the 300-hour advanced teacher training accepts a 200-hour from any school.
05 · Coming from outside Salt Lake City
YogaSoul's trainings meet in person on weekends in East Millcreek, on the east side of Salt Lake City. The exact address comes by email once you enroll. For a weekend format, whether it works from where you live mostly comes down to the drive.
Typical drives to Salt Lake City without traffic, from mapping estimates. Friday evening traffic on I-15 and winter weather in the canyons can add a good deal.
From Lehi, Provo, Orem, Park City or Ogden, a weekend training is a commute rather than a move. You drive in Friday evening, sleep at home, and come back for Saturday and Sunday. If someone in your cohort lives near you, sharing the drive helps.
From Logan, seven or nine weekends of driving is a real commitment, so do the mileage math before you enroll. From St. George, a Salt Lake City weekend training is not realistic for most people. A training closer to home, or an intensive you travel to once, may fit your life better, and that is a good choice.
If you are weighing the drive for the 200-hour weekend training, write to Rachel and tell her where you are coming from.
06 · Becoming a teacher
There is a common route from practicing to teaching. It has five steps, and none of them require you to be advanced or flexible.
Practice regularly with a teacher you trust, long enough to know what you are asking for. What you need is curiosity about why the practice works, not a particular posture.
Compare length, format, cohort size, who actually teaches, and total cost. The seven questions below do most of the sorting.
A 200-hour training is the usual first credential. At YogaSoul you finish with a World Yoga Federation 200-Hour certification.
Places that hire teachers often ask you to carry your own liability insurance, and some ask for current CPR certification. Ask the places you want to teach what they require, so you have it in hand before your first class.
Start small and start often. A class for friends, a community class, a class at your workplace. Early experience matters more than the first room being perfect.
World Yoga Federation. YogaSoul’s trainings certify through the World Yoga Federation, a lineage-rooted certifying body. When you complete the training you receive a WYF 200-Hour or 300-Hour certification. Rachel is a World Yoga Federation Grandmaster. How the World Yoga Federation and Yoga Alliance compare.
Yoga Alliance. Yoga Alliance is a US-based nonprofit membership association that keeps a registry. Schools that meet its standards can list as Registered Yoga Schools. Teachers who complete training at one can apply to register as Registered Yoga Teachers, such as RYT-200, and RYT-500 also asks for teaching experience. Registration is voluntary and involves an application fee, annual dues, and ongoing continuing education.
The two are different kinds of thing. A certification says you completed a particular training. A registry listing says you meet that registry’s standards and remain listed with it, and it is not an accreditation. World Yoga Federation graduates can get insured and hired. The two are separate systems, and one doesn’t transfer into the other in either direction.
Neither is a government license. Utah does not require a state license to teach yoga. Studios set their own hiring requirements, and some ask about registry listing while others do not, so ask the places you hope to teach.
New teachers usually start in yoga studios across the Salt Lake Valley and Utah County, gyms and fitness clubs, community and recreation centers, workplaces that offer wellness classes, and private sessions in people’s homes.
Many begin with a mix. A community class gives you repetitions. A regular slot somewhere gives you a room that expects you back. Insurance is available to World Yoga Federation graduates, and plenty of places that hire in Utah never ask about Yoga Alliance.
What it pays. Federal wage data does not count yoga teachers on their own. In the broader category of fitness trainers and instructors, the median wage in Utah was $21.54 an hour in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yoga is often paid by the class, and many teachers teach a few classes a week, so treat that figure as a loose reference point rather than a promise.
YogaSoul’s teacher training officially began in 2013. Rachel and Eric brought it to Centered City Yoga (CCY) when they bought that Salt Lake City studio in 2017, and took it with them when they sold CCY in 2025. Any teacher training offered at CCY since then is a separate program, not YogaSoul’s. Today the trainings run in person in East Millcreek.
07 · Choosing
Price and schedule narrow the list. They do not tell you which training will actually teach you. These questions do more of that work. We wrote them for any school, including ours.
A program can carry one teacher’s name and be taught by several. Guest teachers add a great deal. Ask who will know you by the end of the first month.
Ask for the number, not the word small. Then ask how many cohorts the program has graduated. A first cohort is not a bad thing, but you should know if you are in one.
Some trainings wait until the end. At YogaSoul it is the first weekend.
The rest are the ones most schools would rather you did not ask. They are in the full list, with what each answer tells you.
Who wrote this
Rachel Cieslewicz leads YogaSoul’s trainings. Guest teachers add to them. She is a C-IAYT certified yoga therapist, and the trainings she leads include therapeutic postures and applications alongside anatomy and alignment. She is also a World Yoga Federation Grandmaster, and her lineage runs to Krishnamacharya. She and Eric are both authorized to teach Ashtanga primary and second series, through Manju Jois, and both studied Vinyasa Krama with Srivatsa Ramaswami and have his permission to teach it.
Still deciding
A 200-hour training is the usual first step. Weekend formats run across several months and intensives take a few weeks. YogaSoul’s 200-Hour runs seven weekends, from February 5 to May 9, 2027, and you teach from the first weekend.
Neither is better for everyone. The difference is pace. An intensive puts the whole training into a short, continuous block of full days, which suits people whose weekends are not free or who live far away. A weekend training, like YogaSoul’s seven weekends in Salt Lake City from February 5 to May 9, 2027, gives the material time to settle and lets you teach real classes while you train.
Yoga teacher training in Utah costs about $1,990 to $4,200 for an in-person or hybrid 200-hour program and about $2,800 to $4,700 for a 300-hour, based on published prices in September 2026. Fully online programs started under $1,000. YogaSoul’s 200-Hour is $3,300 plus about $120 of books, and the 300-Hour is $4,700 plus books.
No. That belief talks good candidates out of applying. You need a steady practice and curiosity about why it works. The training meets you where you are.
It can be. Some people come because yoga changed something for them and they want to understand why. If teaching becomes the thing later, the foundation is already there.
No. Both trainings are in person in East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, on weekends. If you need an online or self-paced training, this is not it.
Yes. The trainings meet on weekends in East Millcreek, Salt Lake City. The drive from Lehi, Park City, Ogden, Provo or Orem is usually under an hour without traffic, and from Logan it is about an hour and a half. The exact address comes by email once you enroll.
No. Yoga Alliance registration is voluntary, it is a membership registry rather than a license or an accreditation, and Utah has no state license for yoga teachers. Most places that hire expect a completed 200-hour training, and World Yoga Federation graduates can get insured and hired. How the two compare.
No. YogaSoul’s trainings are certified by the World Yoga Federation. Yoga Alliance is a membership registry, not an accrediting body, and listing with it is optional. World Yoga Federation graduates can get insured and hired to teach. The two are separate systems: one doesn’t transfer into the other, in either direction. If a studio you have in mind asks for Yoga Alliance by name, write to Rachel before you enroll and she’ll give you a straight answer.
Yes. A $500 deposit holds your place and is applied to tuition. It is not refundable unless you are not accepted, in which case everything is refunded. Anything paid beyond the deposit is refundable for 3 business days after signing. After that you are responsible for the full tuition, even on a payment plan, but you can defer once to the next training if you ask at least a month before it starts ($200 fee). Payment plans for the rest are set individually with Rachel, based on your needs. Tuition must be paid in full to receive your certificate.
Yes. The 300-Hour requires a 200-hour from any school. It runs nine weekends from February 5 to June 27, 2027, with a cohort of eight at most.
There is no official figure for yoga teachers alone. The closest federal category, fitness trainers and instructors, had a median wage of $21.54 an hour in Utah in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yoga is often paid per class and many teachers work part time, so your own pay can land well above or below that.
Yes. YogaSoul’s teacher training began in 2013. From 2017 to 2025 it ran at Centered City Yoga (CCY), which Rachel and Eric owned, and when they sold CCY in 2025, the training left with them. Every teacher training at CCY in those years was YogaSoul’s. It is the same program and the same lead teacher. Any teacher training offered at CCY since then is a separate program, not YogaSoul’s.
No. YogaSoul’s training has run since 2013 and has certified more than 300 teachers, with Rachel leading it. A program that began at CCY after 2025 is a new program. If you are comparing the two, ask each how many cohorts it has graduated and who will lead your weekends.
The 200-Hour is where most people begin. The 300-Hour is for teachers who already hold a 200-hour. If you are not sure which, or whether this is your year, write to Rachel. She reads every email herself and will tell you what she thinks.