Deepen your connection with yourself and others
Join us for PART 1 of our Yoga Teacher Training
September 9 – 20, 2026
PART 1 of this Yoga Teacher Training will be in person at Sewall House Yoga Retreat September 9-20, 2026.
PART 2 of this Yoga Teacher Training will be online via Zoom during Sewall House’s off season. The dates will be determined by consensus of the instructors and the teacher trainees.
Let us embrace you in the transformative experience of our 200-hour Yoga Alliance-Certified Yoga Teacher Training! Empower your path through a container shaped by a legacy of healing. Our training takes place annually. You’ll receive training that is rich in yogic practice, theory, techniques, and personal attention, and is reverently and joyfully infused with a depth of lived experience.
Key Takeaways
- Small, personalized training: Limited to 6 participants, ensuring one-on-one attention and deeply supportive learning
- Certified program: Yoga Alliance‑certified 200‑hour format, eligible for RYT registration upon completion
- Mixed‑style curriculum: Includes Hatha, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Yin, Restorative, Dharma, Nidra, Kundalini, yoga philosophy, pranayama, meditation, anatomy, and ethics
- Teaching practice included: Each trainee leads three one‑hour teaching sessions during the program for hands‑on learning
- Historic & serene setting: Sewall House, a restored family home in Island Falls, Maine, offers a quiet New England retreat in a small town surrounded by rivers, lakes, and woods
Our 200-hour Yoga Alliance-Certified Yoga Teacher Training is half in person, and half via Zoom. Limiting participation to only 6 trainees ensures that each will be truly seen and supported through their process of learning, purification, and integration.
This yoga teacher training led by Donna Davidge, founder and operator of Sewall House Yoga Retreat in Island Falls, Maine, is a unique opportunity to participate in an immersive yoga teacher certification program partly in a small residential retreat center in picturesque northern New England and partly from your own home.
Sewall House offers a private, personalized atmosphere. Each participant has a private bedroom to rest and study at a very reduced student training rate of only $200/night. That’s a 50% discount from our usual rate. Why? Because we want to have more yoga teachers in the world!
Join us as we create a nurturing, intentional space for each student to pass through the fire of transformation, into deeper authenticity and connection with life. Whether your intention is to deepen your personal practice, or to develop and share your unique gifts as a teacher, we look forward to sharing this journey together.
Sewall House Hybrid Yoga Teacher Training
(10 days in person, 10 days via Zoom)
200-HOUR YOGA ALLIANCE CERTIFICATION
Sessions will be 10 hours each day. There will be a total of 20 days of sessions to meet the 200-hour Yoga Alliance requirements for the training. You’ll also have the opportunity to lead three one-hour sessions of your own.
One unique thing about our Teacher Training is that we teach various forms of yoga. That will give you a broader understanding, and the knowledge to either teach multiple forms or move into a specialization after completing our program.
Your path to becoming a yoga instructor includes:
- Yamas and Niyamas
- Different types/styles of yoga defined
- Anatomy and Physiology
- Philosophy, Ethics, Lifestyle
- Teaching Methodology and Techniques
- Mantra, Meditation, Asana, Pranayam, Sequencing, forward and backbends, inversions and twists
- Meditation, breathing, relaxation techniques, including Yoga Nidra
- Chakra Energy systems
- An opportunity to study, and enjoy, the benefits of yogic eating as well as information about various approaches to food and diet (raw, fasting, cleanses etc)
- Modules on Yin yoga and Trauma-Informed yoga
- Each participant leads 3 one-hour sessions during the training to gain practice
Cost of 200-Hour In Person Yoga Teacher Training
Cost of training = $3,000
Cost of room and board (10 nights) = $2,000 plus tax (9%)
Cost of 2 manuals = $50
Tuition for the course is $3,000, which can be paid in installments. Upon completion of the training and exam, you will be well equipped to teach several forms of yoga.
Room and Board is an additional $2,000 for 10 nights — only $200 per night (plus tax). That price includes a private room; 3 healthy, mostly organic, home-cooked vegetarian meals per day (highly acclaimed by our guests); yogi tea (all day); and coffee (morning only). No alcohol or recreational drugs are allowed at the retreat.
Please make sure the training dates work for you and that you can arrange your schedule accordingly.
First 100 Hours: September 9-20, 2026
Second 100 Hours: To be determined
Read more participant experiences at the end of the page.
GUIDANCE ABOUT ELIGIBILITY FOR YOGA TEACHER TRAINING
Qalification is not about years of experience, though you are expected to have had some yoga experience. If you have only taken a few yoga classes, you are probably not a good candidate for this training, but you may still apply, because your reasons for becoming Yoga Teacher Certified are as important as your experience.
If you are a beginner, we may require you to take a certain number of classes before attending the training. You are expected to attend all sessions, do all the work that is required, plus practicums, and work outside the classroom.
Sewall House is located in a small village in northern Maine. You may view the rooms at our Accommodations page. The rooms are spacious and comfortable, as well as beautifully furnished. This environment allows the student teacher to concentrate on their studies while living in a like-minded community. Your work will then help you incorporate and build what you have learned into your practice, homework, and potential as a teacher.
Please understand that you must be able to commit to the entire 20-day program. Consider this carefully, because we cannot provide refunds, although you may pay your tuition as you go along (you will still be charged once you have committed to your spot). Payment is by Visa, Mastercard, or personal check.
OUR YOGA TRAINING INSTRUCTOR
Donna (Amrita) Davidge (500-Hour Yoga Alliance E-RYT) has a well-rounded background in yoga teacher training, having taught in New York City since 1985, including forms such as Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Kundalini, Restorative, and Nidra.
She also has tens of thousands of hours teaching in various settings, from corporations to health clubs to yoga centers, privately and at her own Sewall House and other yoga retreats and spas, such as Puravida Costa Rica, Nu-Age, Spannocchia Italy. She has also instructed on radio, television, and in print.
Since 2003 Amrita has taught many hours of Hatha, Ashtanga Series One, and Vinyasa Yoga based on her studies with Eddie Stern and Dharma Mittra in New York City, which began in 1999. She has been studying with Genny Kapuler’s Iyengar-based practice since 2003.
Besides producing two audiocassettes, one booklet, and two videos in the 1990s, Amrita produced two Kundalini Yoga DVDs in 2004.
Amrita’s style of teaching is warm, welcoming, non-judgmental, informative, and safe. She approaches yoga as a lifelong lesson and journey of self-study, as a way to better understand and explore the mind, breath, and physical body. This teacher training will give you that opportunity to do all that.
Donna/Amrita continues her study, teaching, and practice of yoga. In the winter months, she teaches at Equinox in New York City and also privately (www.donnadavidgeyoga.com).
“Thank you so much for being my teacher! I know it will be a lifelong learning. Thank you for propelling me further. I so appreciate your commitment, passion, and compassion. I have learned much from you.”
Nicole, Anusara, Practitioner and Energy Worker, New Hampshire
Additional Instructors
Fálki Heiðdóttir has lived a vibrant life jumping into courage and becoming a certified yoga teacher, breathwork healer, a dancer, artist, and performer all after she turned 40. She has not conquered Fear but has learned to see it with compassion and gently move it aside. Her motto is, “Courage is action in the face of Fear,” and her desire to live a Big Life is greater than her desire to hide under the bed, feeding her Fear donuts and Nestlé Quik.
Fálki started her yoga practice in 1995 and began teaching yoga in 2007. Fálki’s approach is honest, direct, and compassionate. She always tries to present her authentic self, and she believes sincere, deep relationships are critical for healing and growth. A sense of humor is important, too!
Fálki is a registered Yoga Alliance Yoga Teacher and is currently studying Yoga Therapy through Breathing Deeply Yoga. She is a shamanic practitioner, a rune reader, and a gatherer of intuitive creative souls. Art, improvisation, good books, her cats–Ivar Needletooth and LouCat–exploring, and time with her wonderful partner Steve ground her in the joy of the present moment.
During the Sewall House Yoga Teacher Training, Fálki offers sections on Yin and Trauma-Informed Yoga. She also leads the morning meditations.
Donna (Amrita) Davidge
200-Hour Teacher Training Testimonials
“Things that I love about my training: the people that I was privileged to share 27 days with, the fact that you started with the yoga sutras gave me the basis of what yoga could potentially do…ELEVATE OUR CONSCIOUSNESS…which collectively will elevate the consciousness of our planet. That is something that was very important to me as a yoga practitioner. That would help me how to become a yoga instructor. I loved the accessibility of all involved but especially YOU. I think the smaller group and the proximity of our day-in and day-out schedule contributed to my growth.
Thank you for requiring us to do a forty-day discipline!!!! I think it would be an absolute benefit to anyone seeking to grow as a yoga teacher and practitioner. I haven’t felt as moved or peaceful since our yoga practice together. I also haven’t appreciated the smell or taste of my first-morning cup of coffee as much either. The accommodation was wonderful and the food was fabulous!”
Donna Crozier, Portland, ME
“I’ve always been interested in yoga. However, I hadn’t thought about taking teacher training until I visited Sewall House last year. Sewall House is a serene place, perfect to get immersed in training. I enjoyed my three-week intensive 200-hour yoga teacher training and learned a lot from Donna. She covered so many topics that really helped me understand the origins of yoga and that it’s so much more than just about asanas. She helped to understand how to become a yoga instructor.
Donna not only brings theory to the training, but she also speaks from experience from her many years as a teacher and small business owner, which is why I enjoyed the training so much. After all, theory only gets you so far and you want to have a teacher that can also address how to deal with difficult situations, create space, and much more. I haven’t taught yet but the training has advanced my yoga practice because I have so much more background on why we do the poses And meditations we do. I do plan to teach one day but in the meantime, I take different classes to continue learning”.
Nadja, Washington DC
“This intensive and immersive 200 hour yoga teacher training was a great way to focus completely on all aspects of yoga for 3 full weeks. Intimate setting, one on one training…completely customized! Many different styles of yoga – Hatha, Kundalini, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Restorative, Yin! Donna’s vast experience as a yoga teacher training expert allowed for a very diverse education. Exactly what I needed! There were so many things that came up in this training that apply to daily life. I learned how to become a yoga teacher instructor. One of my favorite concepts that I still work on daily: Respond, don’t react. Little did I know at the time that within 6 months after completing this wonderful training, I’d be purchasing my yoga studio!”
Kerianne Sidoti, Euclid, Ohio