An Open Letter To Yoga Alliance about the Future of Yoga
Dear Yoga Alliance,
I have been a card carrying member of Yoga Alliance since 2003 (YA ID 12336). I have paid thousands of dollars worth of dues, registered as a school in 2011, and have supported the efforts of setting a bar for Yoga teachers and schools for years. I have encouraged hundreds graduates to register (and pay dues) with Yoga Alliance, and I have worked hard to follow and exceed the requirements that have been set forth for decades. After a some thought, I now question how my continued membership with YA is in integrity with the values from which I teach Yoga and have built my business. As the world is changing, hundreds of Yoga business are feeling the impact, the system that Yoga Alliance has implemented feels grossly misaligned with the values of Yoga that I, and my business, strive to uphold. Because of my long-standing membership, I felt it respectful to express the reasons why I no longer trust or support your organization.
Here are the experiences and reflections I have about the Yoga Alliance organization. Take from them what you will.
Yoga Alliance doesn’t support Yoga, Yoga Alliance supports asana and industry.
Yoga Alliance doesn’t support Yoga teachers, small studios, or trainings. The organization is in favor of the industry elite and creates challenges and increasing hardship for the neighborhood studios who are actively and truly trying to support their communities.
Yoga Alliance has adopted a model of systemic oppression for struggling Yogis. Rules, regulations, policing, and policies are not systems of support. They are processes of elimination.
Yoga Alliance is contributing to the commoditization of Yoga. Requiring so much of studios, teachers, and trainings in an attempt to legitimize the Yoga as a profession has robbed it of its actual intention. Yoga is a practice designed to Unify the disparate nature of human-kind, not create a foundation from which to exclude.
Yoga Alliance offers no return on investment. For all of the dollars and work that registrants invest, YA offers surprisingly little in return. In my 17 years of YA membership and 9 years as a registered school, I have only reached out for support twice and received nothing besides empty platitudes and referrals to other organizations.
Yoga Alliance doesn’t honor what’s actually happening in our communities. The organization strongly needs to diversify its understanding of small yoga studios, small trainings, and grassroots teaching. If the goal is to support the Yogis, YA should strive to be aware of what Yogis actually need. YA has become an elite organization that does not hear the voices of the yoga teachers struggling to pay their bills, the little studios trying to stay afloat or small trainings desiring to share Yoga and yogic values in their communities.
YA has become another elitist broken system in a culture of elitist broken systems. If regulations, requirements, and fees put small studios, trainings, and teachers out of business, the system needs to be reviewed immediately.
I invite Yoga Alliance to review the systems of support and move toward organizational integrity in these ways:
Train board, staff, and administration on the deeper teachings of Yoga that extend beyond Anatomy and Physiology and physical performance of Asana. Be practitioners not policers.
Make Yoga Philosophy paramount, not an afterthought.
Educate the organization about dysfunctional systems and actively work not to become one.
Broaden the scope of care and consideration rather than policing.
Be a representation of Yoga in its definitive translation of joining together and not another contributor to the commoditization of the industry as competition, division and separation.
Be on the side of YOGIs. Support studio owners, trainers and teachers, and practitioners who are daring to stay true to Yoga. Don’t just take our money in exchange for a registry mark. Be engaged on the ground level with what happening, changing, and working and not working.
Be allowing rather than restricting. Strive to learn more Yoga and create space for the expression to be expanded in other ways
Contribute to Yogis of all shapes, sizes, and colors and economic levels/backgrounds. Make Yoga accessible, not another expression of Privilege and Elitism.
Decolonize Yoga by example. Begin by Decolonizing your Organization. Refuse to become another system of oppression.
Learn ways to support values and integrity without undermining other’s voices and approaches.
Give registered Yoga teachers and schools something for their loyalty and investment. Eliminate the empty offerings to shore up the systems of commoditization, and provide meaningful and impactful offerings based in solidarity and reciprocity.
I remain observant. I sincerely desire that Yoga Alliance re-evaluate and review their work in the Yoga Industry. I remain hopeful that the organization will re-direct their efforts away from the consumer model of Yoga, and toward true support of Yogis, Yoga teachers, and Yoga business owners. The industry has been devastated by the shifting global economy, and I hope that YA uses this time to review their integrity and review the organizational value system to meet the needs of the Yoga Industry in real time.
Sincerely,
Kelly
Update: As of September 15, 2020 I have submitted two emails and several (4) follow up requests to Yoga Alliance requesting answers to questions I have about the future prior to renewing my membership. Currently, I have not received a follow up response to my second inquiry. See emails and responses below:
From: Kelly Golden [kelly@virabhavayoga.com]
Sent: 9/4/2020 11:29 AM
To: info@yogaalliance.org
Subject: Attention: Danielle Hayes
This email was sent from outside your organization.
Dear Ms. Hayes, I have several questions prior to renewing my Yoga Alliance registrations (equating to $565). First, does Yoga Alliance have a long term plan to adapt to the changing times and market? It is difficult to feel good about renewing my registrations when YA does not seem to have any definitive ideas about the future of teaching and registrations. Secondly, is YA aware of the massive impact COVID has had on the industry and how the entire industry is itself adapting beyond YA's standards? I work with Yoga teachers and studios for a living, and the overwhelming feedback I've received is that teachers are making more money teaching online than they ever did in a studio setting (this is personally true for me), in addition, moving trainings exclusively online has reduced overhead costs allowing training costs to be significantly reduced and trainings to become more accessible to populations who otherwise would not have been able to afford an in studio YTT. Many studios have closed their doors completely, and others who have not, are finding the distancing requirements difficult to work with while simultaneously meeting their bottom line. I know that I will struggle to pay rent to a studio (in which to facilitate trainings) with only a maximum of 7-10 in person students. Does Yoga Alliance have a plan to support the industry growth prompted by the Pandemic, or is its plan to return to its original standards for in person training? Lastly, I would like a brief review of the benefits of registering my school (200 and 300 hour trainings) with YA in these times. Over the past three years, I have been doing a cost/benefit analysis of my YA yearly investment, and I am having difficulty understanding exactly what I am paying for, and how it is of benefit to my business and the Yogis with whom I work. Please clarify. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. As soon as I hear back for YA, I will move to renew my school and teacher registrations. Sincerely,Kelly Golden E-RYT 500YA Member since 2007
YA Support <info@yogaalliance.org>
Wed, Sep 9, 3:51 PM (8 days ago)
to kelly@virabhavayoga.com
Hi, Kelly!
Thank you for contacting Yoga Alliance. I hope this email finds you well.
Thank you for your detailed feedback.
Yoga Alliance recently released new standards for the RYS 200 based on a years-long Standards Review Process, the results of which you can view here. We are also in the process of finalizing new standards for the RYS 300 and 500.
COVID was definitely unforeseen for us all. Yoga Alliance is planning on releasing an announcement about training and online guidelines for the remainder of the pandemic in the next few months. We want to ensure that the guidelines are widely applicable across local COVID rules, uphold our standards of high-quality training, and can be a robust set of requirements for the duration of the pandemic. We are doing our best to get the guidelines out as soon as possible, and I thank you for the patience you've shown us. We welcome your ongoing feedback and any suggestions you may have for online training.
We are doing our best to support the community financially and otherwise during the pandemic. The Yoga Alliance Foundation is now planning for a second phase of assistance in response to COVID-19, focusing on the intersection of economic recovery and yoga service. We will continue to accept donations, which will be used to support as many eligible Relief Fund applicants as possible, and then to expand the impact of our next phase of assistance.
Furthermore, at YourYA.org we have launched a Financial Information page to provide you information from a variety of sources on what financial resources exist as you face these known and unknown challenges surrounding your profession as a yoga school or studio owner and/or as a yoga trainer or teacher.
Registration with Yoga Alliance provides a globally recognized credential in the fields of yoga teaching and training yoga teachers. You can learn more about the value of our registry mark in our Yoga Alliance video.
Some studios and schools may require their employees to be registered with Yoga Alliance in order to teach at their business. To become registered, teachers need to complete an RYS program.
Hope this helps. If there’s anything else I can assist you with, please let me know. Take care!
In service,
Claire Hu
Bilingual Membership Support Representative - Mandarin
????????-??
info@yogaalliance.org
(888) 921-9642
Kelly Golden <kelly@virabhavayoga.com>
Wed, Sep 9, 4:28 PM (8 days ago)
to YA
Hi Claire, I am well aware of much of the information you have shared with me, as YA posts these same information on the website and also delivers them to my inbox via email.
The information you provided does NOT adequately answer the questions asked. Would it be possible for them to be reviewed and responded to by someone who is versed in the specifics of registering a school, and how YA plans to meet the changing market? Are there plans to evolve the YA school registration to provide registration for Online only schools in the future? Or is the plan simply to wait until things "return to normal" and not adapt YA requirements otherwise? I am not aligned with the "return to normal" model, so I am having difficulty feeling confident in renewing for another year, with constantly changing and poorly communicated expectations for me as a school. My primary job is NOT to meet YA's uncertain and changing criteria, but rather to train and support Yoga Teachers. I do not wish to be adapting and shifting due to constantly changing and unpredictable responses from YA. I have plenty of suggestions, but would want to make sure I am giving them to the correct persons, and receiving feedback through the appropriate channels. Establishments requiring Yoga Teachers to be registered in order for them to be employed by a Yoga Studio is not, in my opinion, a benefit of registering my school, especially since so many of these studios are closing due to financial hardship. I would like to know what benefits there are to the schools themselves. Please respond to these questions with greater detail. In light of the fact that the YA representative could not adequately answer the questions I have about my membership, I request an extension on my membership until these questions can be addressed. I am not comfortable investing in another year with an organization that cannot communicate more clearly about the use and outcome of my investment. I hope to hear from you promptly. Sincerely, Kelly Golden
