Subtle Alignment
Reclaim the Deeper Purpose of Yoga Pedagogy . . .
LIVE June 14th | 10:00am ET (Recording Available)
A Methodology for the Philosophy-Informed Yoga Teacher
Reclaim the full depth of what yoga offers — not just stress-relief, but liberation.
In recent years, yoga teaching methodologies have evolved to prioritize inclusivity, safety, and responsiveness to the lived experiences of students—developments that have brought important awareness and nuance to contemporary classrooms. Yet many of these approaches, while well-intentioned, have also unintentionally narrowed the vision of yoga, reducing it to a secular practice of emotional healing, identity affirmation, or social virtue.
In the process, the guiding intention of yoga as a path of liberation (mokṣa)—freedom from conditioned identity, egoic contraction, and existential suffering—has often been sidelined. Many current pedagogies emphasize what yoga helps us feel better about, rather than what it helps us see through and wake up from. They teach us to manage symptoms, but not always to inquire into the roots of perception or the nature of Self.
This training offers a clear and grounded alternative for yoga teachers, educators, and facilitators who want to:
Introducing Subtle Liberation-Based Teaching (SLBT)
Rooted in the spiritual aims of yoga and supported by a nuanced understanding of pedagogy, SLBT is a methodology that integrates inclusivity, discernment, and depth without compromising yoga’s highest purpose. Instead of orienting around identity or ideology, this method invites teachers into a refined relationship with language, alignment, presence, and inner freedom—what we call subtle alignment. The result is a teaching practice that is not only more transformative for students, but more spiritually fulfilling for the teacher.
This 4-hour lecture and seminar is a portion of the Embodied Philosophy's Yoga Teacher Training that is available for one-off purchase. This offering takes place June 14, 2025 at 10:00am ET. The recording will be available 1-2 business days after the live event.
In this half-day workshop, you'll learn to . . .
Recognize how contemporary teaching trends can unconsciously limit yoga’s liberatory potential
Reframe your classes around inner freedom rather than identity reinforcement or therapeutic performance
Refine your use of alignment cues to support energetic coherence and self-inquiry, not aesthetic perfection
Translate key philosophical teachings into direct experience through your sequencing, language, and presence
Develop subtle and effective methods of consent, support, and relational teaching without relying on scripts
Hold space for emotional intensity without reducing practice to therapy
Integrate spiritual depth into a modern teaching context with respect for both tradition and innovation
Embody the principle of mokṣa in your pedagogy—not just as an idea, but as the felt orientation of your teaching
Core Themes We’ll Explore
1. The Spectrum from Spiritual Bypassing to Bypassing Spirit
Explore how the language and methods of yoga teaching can unconsciously fall into extremes—either avoiding difficult truths under the guise of “love and light” (spiritual bypassing) or becoming so psychological or biomechanical that the sacred is edited out altogether (bypassing spirit). We’ll consider how a balanced teaching methodology honors depth without dogma.
2. The Powers and Pitfalls of a “Trauma-Informed” Approach
Understand the value and limitations of the “trauma-informed” lens. While sensitivity to trauma is vital, a standardized trauma framework can sometimes reduce students to diagnostic categories or inhibit the empowering aspects of practice. We’ll explore how to be truly trauma-respectful—grounded in presence, discernment, and nuance.
3. How to Integrate Philosophy into Your Classes without Preaching
Many teachers long to share the rich wisdom of yoga philosophy but struggle to make it land. This section offers strategies for weaving philosophy into class as a living inquiry—through metaphor, story, language choice, and timing—without sounding preachy or abstract. Let the teachings be felt rather than merely heard.
4. Replace the Fetishizing of an “Authentic Yoga” with Subtle Alignment
Challenge the romanticized notion of a singular “authentic” yoga, often used to gatekeep or standardize an inherently diverse tradition. Instead, we’ll explore how the concept of subtle alignment—in body, breath, intention, and relationship—offers a more generative model for teaching that honors multiplicity and context.
5. A Deeper Kind of Alignment
Learn how to give clear, effective, and inclusive alignment cues that honor both anatomical function and inner experience. We’ll explore the difference between aesthetic and functional alignment, and how to offer adjustments that empower rather than correct.
6. Observational Intelligence & Adaptive Teaching
Teaching begins with seeing. Develop your capacity to “read the room,” observe diverse bodies in motion, and respond with adaptable options that center student agency and awareness. Adaptive teaching is not about having the right answers, but about cultivating the right kind of attention.
7. The Power of Language
Discover how your words shape the student’s experience—from minimalist directive cueing to poetic and metaphorical guidance. We’ll practice shifting from over-explaining to language that lands, resonates, and supports embodiment. Words can either sever or deepen the student’s relationship with their own experience.
8. Presence & Pedagogical Flow
Beyond technique lies the subtle artistry of holding space—how your timing, tone, and relational presence support not only learning but transformation. Teaching becomes a meditation in motion. We’ll explore how to structure classes less around content and more around connection, rhythm, and resonance.
Jacob Kyle
Jacob Kyle is a meditation teacher, writer, philosophy educator, and the Founding Director of Embodied Philosophy. His guiding mission is to re-imagine the modern function of the yoga teacher in alignment with the teachings, texts, and traditions of yoga's profound history. He believes that by building a network of teachers who share a commitment to disseminating the deeper teachings and practices of yoga, we can build a world based on wisdom rather than ideology and divisiveness.
Jacob is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, researching Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Language and Meditation with advisor Diwakar Acharya. He holds an MPhil in Classical Indian Religions from Oxford (2023), an MA in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research (2017), and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics (2007). Jacob is a passionate advocate of Kashmir Śaivism and a devoted practitioner of the Śaiva-Śākta Darśana.
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Subtle Alignment - Half-Day Workshop
$79
$249 Value
/ One-time
Half-Day Workshop
Teaching yoga is far more than guiding bodies through shapes or delivering polished instructions. It is a subtle and skillful art that draws upon philosophical insight, somatic intelligence, intuitive observation, and refined use of language—all in service of something much greater than technical mastery: the awakening of awareness.
In this immersive 4-hour workshop, we’ll go beyond surface-level techniques and explore a more integrated and liberating approach to yoga pedagogy—one that reorients your teaching toward the deeper spiritual purposes of the practice. You’ll learn how to teach not just what to do, but how to see, how to say, and how to align your presence, words, and methods with the transformative essence of yoga itself.
Developing a teaching methodology, in this context, is not about memorizing cues or acquiring external polish. It’s a practice of deep listening—to the body, to the room, and to the philosophical foundations of yoga as a path of mokṣa, or liberation. This means cultivating the sensitivity to communicate from a place of lived understanding, where technique serves transformation, and pedagogy becomes an expression of inner clarity.
Importantly, we also offer a reframing of a common critique of modern postural yoga: cultural appropriation. In our view, the more insidious form of appropriation is not what one wears or says from another culture, but what one removes—specifically, the erasure of yoga’s liberative spirituality. When yoga is stripped of its soteriological depth and reduced to fitness, performance, or emotional self-help, it is no longer a living tradition but a borrowed aesthetic. To reclaim yoga as a universally accessible technology for cultivating truth, we must honor its original purpose—not through mimicry, but through sincere transmission.
Whether you’re a new teacher or a seasoned educator seeking to deepen your path, this workshop is an invitation to remember: your method is your message. When your teaching methodology is aligned with yoga’s deeper truths, every class becomes a sacred site of remembrance, inquiry, and awakening.
The Method Behind the Magic of Teaching
Join us and reclaim the full depth of what yoga offers—not just healing, but awakening.Teach not only to soothe and pacify, but to liberate.
