New State Regulations for Yoga Teachers

Lizzie Miller | Jul 10, 2009 | there are 0 comments 0
Alison West, leader of a coalition to stop yoga instruction regulation. Photo by Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Alison West, leader of a coalition to stop yoga instruction regulation. Photo by Ruby Washington/The New York Times

The New York Times published an article today about new state regulations (ie fees for registration) for yoga studios across the country. This led me to thinking, could this spread to dance and gymnastics studios as well? What will the end result be? More after the jump.

You can read the original NYT article here.

Basically, a number of government regulators are citing laws that pertain to vocational schools like hairdressing, chiropracters, etc and saying that yoga studios that train instructors need to have government licenses. Each state will be handling this differently, but in some states, like Virginia, the fees are upwards of $2,500!! This is already forcing some studios to close as letters are being sent out around the country to 'get licensed immediatly or risk fines of up to $50,000 '.

Now, I understand that it is really important to have qualified instructors for either dance or yoga so that no one gets hurt, but this new law has NOTHING to do with that. Firstly, who is the government to regulate yoga? What do they know about teaching yoga instructors? NOTHING. Secondly, the real story is that the government looks at this figure: the yoga industry is apparently a $6 billion dollar a year business in the United States. While that may be true if you add up every studio, yoga clothing maker, supply store, and related book and magazine publisher, to think that modest studios could afford to pay a $2,500 fee is insane. I think that anyone who teaches dance or yoga or owns a studio knows that you can't do it just to get rich. The government looks at this big number and sees a new source of revenue for its constant overspending, and as a result is closing small businesses.

The dance, yoga and gymnastics worlds often share space and studios, and are going to have to find a way to prove that they have qualified teachers and instructors, by get involved in their communities and forming alliances to resist rediculous governement regulations. In New York yogis managed to resist the state regulations - for now.

You can read a similar blog by Katie Farhat here.

What are your thoughts? What do you think should be done?

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tags Teacher, Enthusiast, Parent, Studio (all tags)


New State Regulations for Yoga Teachers | 0 Comments | Post a Comment
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Hmm

I agree with your points on the government (or anyone for that matter) regulating teachers directly. However, it seems that these new Yoga regulations are actually aimed at institutions/organizations who "certify" instructors, not the instructors themselves or the studios that offer non certification Yoga courses/classes.

I lean towards agreeing with regulation of training schools and organizations that "sell/grant" certifications/accreditation. I think that it is only right that these institutions should be licensed and monitored according to a standard set of rules to act as training institutions for teachers (college and university programs are regulated)....... especially since some of these orgs have no/little cultural/historical claim to such training (....see my previous blog on this subject).

If properly executed, these types of rules might actually contribute to the preservation of institutions that offer REAL training for teachers vs those that have decided to hop on the gravy train.

As such, the bigger problem with Yoga specifically (and the same would go for some martial arts teacher training) is that the tradition of the discipline is ancient and sacred for many. For hundreds (maybe thousands?) of years, Yoga has been passed on as a cultural tradition from generation to generation which puts this kind of legislature on a very slippery slope indeed. Should be interesting to see how far this goes and what the implications good/bad might be.

Katie Farhat Associate Publisher Dancer Publishing O: (646) 216-8814 P: (732) 768-2791 F: (646) 827-3879 user icon Katie Farhat | Jul 10, 2009 | rated none by 0 others

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