“IN LAW SCHOOL I LEARNED TO THINK LIKE A LAWYER - ANALYZING ISSUES FROM DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES TO ADVOCATE FOR A PARTICULAR OUTCOME. IN YOGA SCHOOL I LEARNED TO FEEL LIKE A YOGI - CONNECTING WITHIN TO IDENTIFY LIMITS AND MOVE THROUGH THOSE SELF-IMPOSED BARRIERS INTO GREATER FREEDOM.”
NON-PROFIT YOGA SCHOOL
Community Yoga Center is a non-profit yoga school in Riverside, California organized for educational and charitable purposes, including providing education in the history, philosophy, language, art, and science of yoga, promoting the ethical principles, practices techniques, and service aspects of yoga, and expanding access to the therapeutic benefits of yoga to individuals and communities with limited access to such resources.
Our 200-Hour Foundational Yoga Teacher Training is a 9-month in-person experience centered around twelve touchpoints essential to the practice and sharing of yoga: (i) studying yoga history and philosophy; (ii) experiencing perennial yoga practices; (iii) observing yamas and niyamas; (iv) practicing and sharing asana; (v) practicing and sharing pranayama; (vi) practicing pratyahara; (vii) exploring dharana; (viii) exploring dhyana; (ix) co-creating conscious community; (x) creating yantras; (xi) studying ayurveda; and (xii) studying anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics. Our 300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training is a 9-month in-person “learn by doing” internship that builds on the twelve touchpoints and includes three additional program practices: (i) community service; (ii) facilitating yoga; and (iii) a capstone project.
We also offer free yoga education and free practice opportunities that serve hundreds of participants from diverse backgrounds. The Art of Meditation intensive, Audacity to Rest course, and Day of Silence retreat are among our most popular yoga education offerings. CYC offers free practice opportunities weekly.
CYC’s offerings help a growing number of people access the benefits of yoga. These offerings break down financial, cultural, and systemic barriers to yoga - reflecting the true spirit of yoga - generosity, equity, and service. In a wellness world that can feel elitist and exclusive, offering affordable yoga teacher trainings, free yoga education, and free practice opportunities demonstrates a commitment to accessibility, inclusivity, and the heart of yoga as a practice for all, not just for those who can afford it.
A PATH WITH HEART
There are many ways to study and practice yoga. What distinguishes our approach is the heart we bring to it. We explore yoga as a path toward greater freedom - a practice that invites us to meet ourselves, one another, and the world with greater awareness, honesty, and love. Rather than striving to perfect ourselves, we learn to perceive more clearly, soften what keeps us separate, and open to the fullness of being alive.
COMMITTED TO COMMUNITY
We nurture inclusive community and co-create spaces for connection, belonging, and refuge. We understand that our joys and sorrows are not ours alone; they are inseparable from the lives of others. We seek to hold both the profound beauty and deep suffering of the world with open hearts - and to respond with care and courage. Our yoga practice calls us beyond the illusion of separateness and into a space where we cultivate compassion, deepen connection, and actively oppose the forces of greed, hatred, and ignorance that cause harm.
CULTIVATING AWARENESS, HONESTY & LOVE
Yoga invites us into direct relationship with the full experience of being alive. Through movement, breath, and meditation practices we learn to meet our physical, mental, and emotional experience with awareness, honesty, and love. We notice where we resist, grasp, or contract, and practice softening around those patterns rather than being governed by them. In doing so, we develop a wiser, more spacious relationship with experience and deepen our connection to the living continuum of consciousness.
SHIFTING PARADIGMS
Much of life teaches us to look outside ourselves for the conditions that will finally make us feel well. Yoga invites us to turn inward. Through self-inquiry, we learn to recognize the fears, desires, and habitual patterns that shape our experience. We become curious about the limits we have learned to place around ourselves - and practice opening beyond them. Over time, we gain greater freedom from conditioned body-mind cycles and protection-seeking patterns. Instead of automatically reacting to life, we develop the capacity to meet what arises with greater clarity and freedom. This is the liberating potential of yoga: not to escape our humanity, but to inhabit it more fully - with an open heart.
YOGA ALLIANCE ACCREDITED
The 200-Hour Foundational Yoga Teacher Training and 300-Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training are accredited with Yoga Alliance. This means students are eligible to register with Yoga Alliance as a 200-Hour Registered Yoga Teacher upon successful completion of the Foundational Yoga Teacher Training and as a 500-Hour Registered Yoga Teacher upon successful completion of both the Advanced Yoga Teacher Training and the Foundational Yoga Teacher Training.
