You were taught the poses.
Nobody taught you the hands.
The Hands-on Assisting Programme, live and in person in Edinburgh. Real bodies, real weight, real feedback.. so your touch says what your words can’t.
Dates confirmed shortly (September or October 2026)
THE GAP
Most teacher trainings give assisting
about an hour.
You came out qualified. You can sequence, you can cue, you can hold a room. And then someone in your class settles into a shape that isn’t working for them, and you walk past.. because you don’t know what your hands are supposed to do.
Or you go in and it lands wrong. Too much pressure. The wrong moment. A shape you pushed rather than supported. Nobody said anything, but you felt them tighten under your hands, and you carried it home.
That hesitation is not a flaw in you. It’s a gap in your training. Assisting is a physical skill, and physical skills can’t be learnt by watching. You need real bodies, real weight, and someone watching your hands and telling you what they see.
That’s the whole reason this one is in person.
WHAT IT IS
A training for your hands
I’ve been teaching this programme since 2022. It has run online and in person, and the in-person version is the one that changes people, because you spend the whole time giving and receiving assists rather than watching someone else give them. You’ll be the teacher and the student, over and over, all day.
Where
Yoga's Got Hot, Edinburgh
Full address sent on booking
When
September or October 2026
Exact dates confirmed shortly
Format
In person, live
Practise on real bodies, all day
Group size
Deliberately small
Everyone gets hands-on time with me
THE FOUNDATION
There isn’t one kind of assist. There are five.
Most teachers only ever learnt one of these, then wondered why it didn’t work on everybody. Once you can tell them apart, you stop guessing.. you start choosing.
Grounding and stabilising
The most useful assist you will ever give, and the one most teachers skip. You give the body something solid to press into, and the shape organises itself. No correcting required.
Directive
You are showing the body where to go. Clear, specific, unmistakable. The skill here is saying it with your hands in a way that invites rather than instructs.
Investigative
You don't know yet what's happening in that body, so your hands go in to find out. This is the one that turns assisting from a technique into a conversation.
Resistive
You give the body something to push against so it can find its own strength. Done well, the student feels powerful. Done badly, they feel fought.
Therapeutic
Working with what's actually in front of you: the old shoulder, the sore knee, the back that has rules. How to adapt in the moment without singling anyone out.
THE PART NOBODY TEACHES
“The Creepy Assistant”
It’s the bluntest session in the programme and it’s the one people thank me for years later. Where you stand. Where your hands go and where they never go. How long is too long. How to ask, how to read a no that was never said out loud, and how to leave a body better than you found it.
Touch is the most direct thing you can do in a yoga room. Done well, it tells someone’s nervous system that they’re safe before their mind has caught up. Done carelessly, it does the opposite, and they may never tell you.
We spend real time on this, because the confidence to assist well comes from knowing exactly where the lines are.
WHAT WE COVER
Pose by pose, hands on, all the way through
We work through a full class the way you’d actually teach it, stopping at every shape to practise the assist on each other until it stops being something you think about.
Principles
- ✓The principles of a powerful assistant
- ✓Consent, boundaries and reading a room
- ✓Testing your own awareness as a teacher
- ✓Fast or slow: matching the assist to the moment
Standing and sun salutations
- ✓Tadasana: the assist everything else is built on
- ✓Chair pose and traditional sun salutations
- ✓Sun Salutation A
- ✓Sun Salutation B and the warrior poses
- ✓Down dog, high plank and cobra
Standing shapes and balance
- ✓The triangle series
- ✓Balancing poses, including eagle
- ✓Crescent lunge and side plank
- ✓Assisting knees safely in warrior 2
Deeper shapes
- ✓Backbends
- ✓Inversions, crow through to handstand
- ✓Half pigeon
- ✓The floor series, including supported fish
Closing
- ✓The integration series and child's pose
- ✓Savasana: the assist people remember
- ✓A full practice with guided savasana, assisted throughout
THE OUTCOME
What you walk out with
You stop hovering
You'll walk toward someone in a shape and know, without deliberating, which of the five assists that body is asking for.
Your touch communicates
People will start telling you that your class feels different. Usually they can't say why. It's your hands.
You can adapt live
The old injury, the stiff shoulder, the body that doesn't fold the way the book says. You'll have somewhere to go.
You know where the lines are
Clear on consent, clear on boundaries, clear on your own footing. That clarity is what lets you be confident.
You practise on real bodies
Not a video. Not a demo. You'll spend the whole training giving and receiving assists, with me watching and correcting your hands.
Your classes get fuller
A teacher who assists well is the teacher people book again. It's the most undervalued skill in the room.
IS THIS FOR ME?
This is for you if…
You’re a qualified yoga teacher and assisting got about an hour of your training
You want to assist but something stops you, and you’d rather sort that out than keep working around it
You already assist and you know some of it is habit rather than choice
You teach bodies that don’t match the textbook, and you want somewhere to go when they don’t
You’re training now, or about to, and you want this in your hands before you have your own room
You’re within reach of Edinburgh and you’d rather learn this in a room than on a screen
Not a teacher yet? You’re still welcome. Plenty of people take this before they qualify, and it makes the rest of their training land differently.
TEACHERS I’VE TRAINED
Nobody asked them to say this
Possibilities are endless
“It transforms how you think about yourself and how you feel about yourself and others and sets you up to exceed even your own expectations. It helps you believe that possibilities are endless.”
Isobel
Trained with Dylan
Closed my salon of 8 years to follow my purpose
“I was a hairdresser and I ran my salon for eight years. A month ago, I closed it. I was brave enough and I trusted myself that this is the right thing to do. I’m setting up a full-time yoga business. My whole life has changed.”
Katie
Trained with Dylan
One of the best out there at what he does
“Please jump in and let it open your heart and mind. I’ve done a number of trainings with Dylan and I hands down think he is one of the best out there at what he does.”
Emma
Trained with Dylan
EDINBURGH · SEPTEMBER OR OCTOBER 2026
Be first to know
Yoga's Got Hot, Edinburgh · Dates confirmed shortly (September or October 2026)
The room is small, so the people on this list get the dates and the chance to book before anyone else.
Your place includes:
- ✓Full days of in-person training with me
- ✓Hands-on practice on every pose we cover, both giving and receiving
- ✓The five types of assist, and how to choose between them live
- ✓Consent, boundaries and positioning, covered properly
- ✓A full assisted class from opening to savasana
- ✓Written assist notes for every pose to take away
- ✓A certificate of completion
Investment confirmed shortly, along with the dates.
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QUESTIONS
Frequently asked
Can’t make Edinburgh?
The Hands-on Assisting Programme also exists as a full online course.. 25 lessons covering every principle and every pose, so you can work through it at your own pace. It’s the same material, without the room.
See the online programme →