Adeline Yoga recently started its first weekly Teachers’ Class with Heather Haxo Phillips – 9 am pacific on Sundays. You may be wondering: is this another teacher training?
Definitely not.
This is not a training program. It is a weekly opportunity for Iyengar Yoga teachers, teachers in training, and serious practitioners to gather online for asana practice, community, inquiry, and the chance to reconnect with their own experience as students.
In this Q&A, Heather shares the inspiration behind Adeline Yoga’s new Teachers Class, how it differs from teacher training, and why teachers need a place to practice, ask questions, and be students again.
What inspired you to start a class for teachers and serious practitioners?
It is wonderful to be around other people who love Iyengar Yoga as much as I do. I wanted to create a weekly opportunity for teachers and serious practitioners to come together for practice, inquiry, and community.
Part of the inspiration came from studying with Abhijata Iyengar at RIMYI in Pune. She offers an intermediate class specifically for teachers, and there is a different quality to that kind of class — a frankness, intimacy, and creativity that comes from teaching people who share a certain amount of experience and responsibility.
I found myself craving that kind of opportunity here in the United States. The lives of teachers are complex. I am a yoga student and a teacher. I am a mentor and a mentee. I am an IYNAUS assessor, and I have also been assessed. All of these roles come together in my body, and I wanted to create a space where others could experience the beauty of Iyengar Yoga from that shared place of practice, responsibility, and curiosity.
What do you hope teachers reconnect with after Sunday class?
I hope teachers leave feeling nourished, curious, and excited about their own practice.
Teaching can pull so much of our attention outward. We are often thinking: What do my students need? What am I teaching next? How do I help this person in front of me?
The Sunday Teachers Class is a chance to turn the attention back toward yourself. It is a place to explore, play, work hard, ask questions, and keep the sparkle in your own practice alive.
How is the Teachers Class different from teacher training?
This is not a class about learning how to teach. It is a class for people who teach.
The primary purpose is your own practice. Because many of us are teachers, questions about teaching will naturally arise. We might explore an adjustment, examine why a particular action works, or discuss how you might approach something with a student. But we are starting from our own experience in practice rather than following a curriculum to become a teacher.
This is a place where teachers and serious practitioners can practice together, be curious together, and talk more openly about what happens when personal practice and teaching become intertwined.
Why should a teacher come to this Teachers Class?
Come because your own practice deserves attention.
Come because you want to practice with people who understand what it means to teach. Come because you want new ideas, new questions, and a place to work with intermediate and advanced poses without needing to already feel “advanced.”
And come because sometimes teachers need to be with other teachers — not for professional development, but for companionship, inspiration, and practice.
Why is this class online only?
From a practical standpoint, being online allows teachers from many different places to practice together regularly. The community is not limited by geography, so this class will always be available online.
There will also be occasional Sundays when we can gather in the studio. You will see a few October dates that are also offered in person, so you can join either way.
What can teachers expect in the Teachers Class from week to week?
Expect a strong intermediate practice, occasional advanced poses, and plenty of room for investigation.
Some weeks, we may dig deeply into a particular family of poses. Other weeks, we might take apart one specific action or question, experiment with different ways of working, look at an adjustment, or follow something that emerges from the group.
There will be structure, but I also want room for spontaneity. Part of the joy in teaching experienced practitioners is seeing where the practice takes us.
Join Heather Haxo Phillips online on Sundays at 9 am, with occasional in-person sessions at the Adeline studio. Come to practice, learn, and enjoy being a student again.
Save your spot at the next class
Heather Haxo Phillips (she/her) is Director of Adeline Yoga and a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher at the Senior Intermediate level (Level 3). Among the most highly certified Iyengar Yoga teachers in the Bay Area, she is also a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), a Relax and Renew restorative yoga teacher, and a Yoga Alliance E-RYT 500 instructor.
Heather’s teaching is grounded in the precision and depth of the Iyengar tradition, along with a deep curiosity about how yoga can support us throughout our lives. Her areas of particular interest include women’s health, scoliosis, musculoskeletal injuries, pain management, and the therapeutic applications of yoga.
For Heather, yoga extends well beyond asana. She is deeply committed to the study and practice of pranayama, yoga philosophy, Sanskrit, and mantra sadhana (chanting), and students can expect these broader dimensions of yoga to find their way into her classes.
A lifelong student, Heather studies regularly with senior Iyengar Yoga teachers, Sanskrit and Vedic scholars, and the Iyengar family in Pune, India.
Heather is a past President of the Board of Directors of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California and an active volunteer with the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States (IYNAUS). She serves as a mentor and assessor and, after many years of service on the IYNAUS Assessment Committee, now chairs its new Mentoring Committee.
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