Sarah Catherall.

Lizzie Dixon beams as she sits on the mat, urging the 45 people who have piled into her yoga class to leave the day behind.

For the next 75 minutes, the former Christchurch woman shares her joy of yoga with the men and women who shift their limbs into downward dogs, warrior and other asana poses.

Dixon is just one of hundreds of teachers around the country who are leading classes like this one. More than two years ago, Dixon trained to be a yoga teacher, describing the 200 hours she spent with Power Living’s senior yogis as ‘‘the most profound experience of my life’’.

For $4899, along with airfares to Bali, she says: ‘‘It was physically incredibly demanding, like drinking from a fire hose. We got taught a specific set of alignments to keep bodies safe. It also taught me how to teach.’’

The final part of the course was a week of full immersion in Bali, learning about yoga, anatomy, meditation, physiology, and selfawareness, from 7am till 11pm daily.

The sparkly redhead found yoga when she was desperate. Undergoing tests to check why she

There’s been an explosion of yoga teacher training courses around the country, writes

was suffering chronic pain, someone suggested she try a yoga class.

‘‘I spent thousands of dollars and was a medical mystery as I had terrible migraines, and chronic neck and back pain,’’ she recalls. She discovered, through yoga and self-discovery, that her health suffered due to the trauma of losing her mother when she was just 16.

When looking for a training course to impart her own yoga joy to others, Dixon had plenty of options to choose from. In the past decade, there has been an explosion of yoga teacher training courses around the country, as a growing number of studios cater for the Western desire to practise yoga.

Studios promise to train certified yoga instructors who can teach yoga anywhere in the world. In Christchurch, teacher Donna Farhi will run two workshops next year over 19 days, totalling 220 hours, for $4950.

One of Auckland’s best-known yoga teachers, Vincent Bolletta, runs training courses all year with other senior yogis in the city for a range of prices, while you can train elsewhere in Auckland and in Queenstown.