Trainings & Certifications
Costa Rica
Breathwork facilitator trainings and 200 hour yoga teacher trainings, set in the jungle and along Costa Rica's Pacific coast.
Trainings & Certifications
Breathwork facilitator trainings and 200 hour yoga teacher trainings, set in the jungle and along Costa Rica's Pacific coast.
No trainings in Costa Rica just yet — here's what's nearby.
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Two paths run through Costa Rica's trainings: breathwork facilitator training, and yoga teacher training. Both are set in the jungle and along the Pacific coast. Breathwork facilitation in particular has taken root here. The core format is an 8-day Conscious Connected Breathwork facilitator intensive, teaching the breath itself, how to hold space, and the deeper craft of facilitation, often alongside sound, somatic, and nature-based work. Running in parallel are 200 and 300 hour yoga teacher trainings in Nosara, Santa Teresa, and across the Nicoya Peninsula, most Yoga Alliance registered, moving through Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin, and breathwork over three to four week residentials. If you're drawn to facilitation as much as to asana, Costa Rica takes both seriously, set against rainforest, surf, and the country's own pura vida pace.
Training here splits into two threads. Breathwork facilitator courses (often 8-day intensives) work through Conscious Connected, holotropic-style, and aquatic breath, alongside the craft of holding a room safely; they draw people who want to lead breath journeys, not just experience them. Yoga teacher trainings run mostly as residential 200 and 300 hour courses, based in the surf towns of the Nicoya Peninsula or deeper in the rainforest, with days built around practice, anatomy, methodology, and philosophy. Both share the same backdrop (jungle, wildlife, Pacific surf) and a working assumption that nature belongs in the curriculum, not just around it.
Breathwork facilitation is where Costa Rica specializes: dedicated facilitator trainings in Conscious Connected Breathwork, working through holotropic-style, aquatic, and integrative breath alongside trauma-informed space-holding, sound, and somatic skills. These usually run as 8-day intensives that certify you to facilitate. On the yoga side, 200-hour YTTs are the standard, built on Hatha and Vinyasa with a strong seam of Yin and restorative, plus 300-hour advanced trainings for teachers already certified. Most programs are Yoga Alliance registered, so the certification is recognised internationally, and breathwork, meditation, and nature-based ceremony run through the curriculum rather than sitting apart from it. Anatomy, teaching methodology, and philosophy carry the academic weight of the yoga courses. Faculty tend to be international, many long settled along the Nicoya coast, bringing a contemporary, integrative style to how they teach. What sets a Costa Rica training apart is the dual focus: come to qualify as a yoga teacher, or to certify as a breathwork facilitator, and in plenty of programs the two shape each other, so people leave grounded both in the practice itself and in the craft of holding space for others.
Most of the country's trainings sit on the Nicoya Peninsula, along the Pacific coast. Nosara is the established yoga town: a low-key, jungle-backed surf village with a deep wellness scene and a good share of the residential YTTs. Santa Teresa, further south, carries the same training scene alongside a livelier surf culture. Breathwork facilitator intensives tend to look for quieter ground (the Caribbean side, around Puerto Viejo and Playa Cocles, or jungle retreat centres further inland), chosen for the seclusion that deep breath and integration work needs. Almost all of these trainings are fully residential: accommodation, fresh food, and the daily schedule all happen at one centre, so you settle in for the duration rather than commuting to it. The dry season, roughly December through April, is the busiest window; the green season is quieter and noticeably lush. Wildlife and rainforest stay part of the backdrop the whole way through.
Start with the track: a breathwork facilitator training if you want to learn to lead breath journeys, or a 200-hour YTT if you're working toward teaching yoga, with 300-hour advanced courses for teachers already certified. From there, look at the lineage or breathwork modality, the lead facilitator, and whether Nosara's surf-town setting or a quieter jungle centre matches how you want to spend the time. Breathwork intensives run about a week; yoga teacher trainings run three to four weeks, residential. The dry season books up first. Have a look at the trainings listed above, find the one whose approach feels right, and book directly with the people running it.
Costa Rica takes the asana and the art of facilitation equally seriously: qualify as a yoga teacher, or certify as a breathwork facilitator, set against rainforest and surf. Find the training whose approach feels right, and reserve your place directly. Every training listed on Arivela links straight through to the people actually running it.
