Leadership Pathways
Apprenticeship, Assisting,
and Teaching with the School
Leadership at Shamanic Yoga Institute is built through practice, humility, mentorship, and sustained relationship. This pathway supports graduates who are ready to deepen service, expand professional capacity, and grow into greater responsibility within the wider field of the school
Member School of the Canadian Yoga Alliance since 2015 | Assistant Teaching Pathways | Mentored Leadership Development
Format Note:
Leadership development may unfold through in-person assisting, online mentorship, small-group preparation, or hybrid apprenticing depending on the cohort and level of responsibility
Leadership Is Earned Over Time
This is not a fast track into visibility. It is a relational pathway for graduates who feel called to serve the work more deeply and who understand that leadership is formed through return, responsibility, and the willingness to be shaped over time. At the Institute, leadership grows through continued participation in the life of the school: assisting, studying, mentoring, and learning how to hold the work with greater steadiness and integrity.
Assisting Within the Training Field
Graduates may return as assistants within the Medicine Wheel and Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training pathways. These roles offer deeper access to the inner structure of the school’s work while creating meaningful opportunities for service, continued learning, and professional development. Assistant teaching hours may also be recognized through the Canadian Yoga Alliance, extending this pathway into clear professional formation as well as inner practice.
Apprenticeship & Assistant Pathway
One of the most established leadership pathways in the life of the school is the return into the core offerings as an assistant. This is not simply a support role. It is a long-form apprenticeship rooted in service, repetition, humility, and sustained relationship to the work and its teachers.
Many of the school’s strongest returning students come back to the Medicine Wheel or Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training multiple times as assistants, often at a reduced rate, in order to deepen their own practice while helping hold the container for others. This repeated return is one of the primary ways leadership is formed in the school.
Assistants support both the practical and ceremonial life of a course. This may include logistics, cleaning, opening and closing the space, preparing materials, tending fires, supporting ceremony, and helping maintain the integrity of the container from beginning to end. Each assistant is also paired with newer students as a mentor for the duration of the course, creating meaningful experience in relational support, accountability, and the lived practice of guidance.
As assistants mature, and through case-by-case discernment, some are entrusted with increasing levels of responsibility. This may include selected teaching opportunities, stronger leadership roles within the course, and at times more direct ceremonial participation or transmission. These steps are not automatic. They are extended through readiness, humility, demonstrated steadiness, and the capacity to serve the work with consistency over time.
This apprenticeship model reflects an older stream within both yoga and shamanic practice: leadership is not conferred quickly, but formed through years of return, service, observation, repetition, and relationship. Some students self-select into this path because they know they want to stay close to the work. Others may be invited more directly as their capacity becomes clear. In either case, the path is built on devotion to the work, not advancement for its own sake.
Mentored Leadership Development
Leadership here is not separate from mentorship. Many assistants and emerging leaders continue in online mentorship, small-group preparation, or deeper one-to-one work as they grow into greater responsibility. In some cases, private mentorship with Dr. Christine Selda forms part of the deeper preparation expected of leadership candidates.
Over time, this path supports practitioners in developing greater clarity, stronger facilitation capacity, and a more mature seat from which to mentor, teach, and serve. The aim is not promotion for its own sake, but the formation of trustworthy practitioners who can carry the work well
Curriculum Access & Licensing
For a select number of qualified leaders, deeper collaboration with the school may include licensed access to established curriculum pathways, including the Medicine Wheel and Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training body of work.
This may include access to manuals, student materials, teaching resources, and permission-based use within approved contexts. Curriculum access is not entry-level. It is extended through relationship, readiness, and demonstrated capacity to carry the work with responsibility, integrity, and ongoing connection to the Institute.
For the right leaders, this becomes part of a wider professional pathway that may also include mentorship, assistant teaching, faculty preparation, and longer-term collaboration with the school
What the School Looks For
The strongest candidates are not simply experienced. They are grounded. The school looks for practitioners with humility, practice maturity, continuing education, and a demonstrated willingness to keep doing their own work. Leadership within this field asks for steadiness, self-awareness, and the capacity to serve without projection. It asks for practitioners who can remain in relationship, receive guidance, and grow into responsibility with care.
Carrying the Work Forward
For some graduates, leadership will mean assisting and mentoring within existing programs. For others, it may open toward facilitation, regional teaching, curriculum stewardship, or more developed collaboration with the school. In every case, what is being built is not only a role, but a way of carrying the work forward with support, structure, and accountability.
Grow Into Leadership Through Practice
If you feel called to serve the school more deeply, begin by reaching out with your level of training, your current practice, and your area of interest. We can help you discern the next right step within the leadership stream.
Leadership Pathways FAQ
Leadership Pathways are apprenticeship, assisting, and teaching opportunities that support graduates to deepen service, expand professional capacity, and grow into greater responsibility within the wider field of the school. Leadership here is built through practice, humility, mentorship, return, and sustained relationship rather than fast-track visibility.
Leadership is earned over time through continued participation in the life of the school: assisting, studying, mentoring, and learning how to hold the work with greater steadiness and integrity. It is a relational pathway grounded in return, responsibility, and the willingness to be shaped, rather than advancement for its own sake
Graduates may return as assistants within the Medicine Wheel and Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training pathways, entering a long-form apprenticeship rooted in service, repetition, humility, and sustained relationship to the work and its teachers. Assistants support logistics, space-holding, ceremony, and mentoring newer students, and over time some may be entrusted with increased responsibility, including selected teaching opportunities and deeper ceremonial roles.
Many assistants and emerging leaders continue with online mentorship, small-group preparation, or one-to-one work, sometimes including private mentorship with Dr. Christine Selda as they grow into greater responsibility. For a select number of qualified leaders, the pathway may also include licensed access to established curriculum, manuals, and teaching resources for the Medicine Wheel and Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training within approved contexts.
The strongest candidates are grounded practitioners with humility, practice maturity, continuing education, and a demonstrated willingness to keep doing their own work. The school looks for steadiness, self-awareness, and the capacity to serve without projection, to remain in relationship, receive guidance, and grow into responsibility with care as they help carry the work forward.
