Putnam Yoga expands with teacher trainings and approved workshops

Putnam Yoga is making a clear bet on yoga education as a business, not just a side offering. The Baldwin Place studio said it will expand its programming with 200-hour and 300-hour teacher trainings plus monthly continuing education workshops, a move that gives the studio a deeper role in how teachers enter the field, stay certified and keep building their careers.

The structure matters. Yoga Alliance treats the 200-hour program as the base credential for most new teachers, while the 300-hour training builds on that foundation and prepares trainees to teach more advanced, detailed or subtle principles and techniques. Putnam Yoga’s workshops are approved by Yoga Alliance, which gives working teachers a practical reason to keep coming back: Registered Yoga Teachers must complete 75 continuing-education hours every three years, including 45 teaching hours and 30 training hours. In other words, this is not just extra programming. It sits directly inside the profession’s credential ladder, including the path to a 500-hour level when 200-hour and 300-hour trainings are combined.

Christine Dodge, the studio’s owner and certified instructor, is the face of that expansion. Putnam Yoga’s website also identifies her as a certified YogaFit instructor and certified personal trainer, and the studio describes itself as a fitness-based yoga practice that blends innovative and traditional styles. It offers classes online via Zoom, serves Westchester County and Putnam County, and is based at 30 Tomahawk St. in Baldwin Place. That local footprint matters because it positions the studio as a regional training stop for teachers who may not want to travel to larger urban centers for certification and continuing education.

The new push also builds on a longer history. Putnam Yoga had already been offering teacher training years before this expansion, including a 200-hour program that began Sept. 26, 2021, another that started Sept. 9, 2022 and ran one 20-hour weekend a month through June 2023, and a 200-hour program that started Sept. 22, 2023 and ended June 9, 2024. The 2026 rollout, with a 200-hour training scheduled for September and a 300-hour training to follow in January 2027, shows the studio is extending an established pipeline rather than trying to invent one from scratch.

That is the bigger signal in this move. Yoga businesses are increasingly leaning into teacher training, continuing education and credential upkeep because that is where loyalty, recurring revenue and professional identity now overlap. Putnam Yoga’s regular class schedule is continuing, but the studio is also staking out a clearer place in the education economy that now shapes the yoga profession.