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Yoga teachers bent on no regulations
Workers take a yoga class at the American Apparel garment factory in Los Angeles.
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Kai Ryssdal: I'm a day late on this one, but welcome to National Yoga Awareness Month everybody. You may not need a reminder that yoga is a $6-billion industry in this country. Maybe you're one of the 16 million Americans with a yoga mat tucked under your desk.
For the rest of us, it's worth noting that yoga has become an exercise in very big business. And with that comes something that leaves many devotees in a twist: A growing number of states are trying to regulate the yoga industry. Lisa Napoli reports.
LISA NAPOLI: Becca Hewes fell in love with yoga eight years ago. Now, she runs her own studio in Oklahoma. Hewes says there used to be one path to get to teach yoga.
BECCA Hewes: Years ago you would have had to have worked with your guru or your teacher for many, many years until they finally told you, OK, you're ready now.
Today, if you want to make yoga your profession, you pay to take a teacher training class. Courses can last from a few days to a few weeks, and cover topics from anatomy to meditation.
Here in California's Pacific Palisades, a few dozen would-be instructors are huddled over thick textbooks. They're analyzing illustrations of yoga poses. This 200-hour course costs over $3,000.
Mark Davis is president of the nonprofit group Yoga Alliance, which is based in Arlington, Va.
Davis says the Alliance has been trying to professionalize the business of yoga for 10 years.
Mark Davis: There was concern that there were people out there charging a lot of money, students were getting hurt because of inappropriate training of the teachers...
Now, educational laws that have been on the books for decades are being used to clamp down on yoga teacher training schools. About a dozen states have started scrutinizing curriculum, and imposing licensing fees. Wisconsin was among the first.
Pat Sweeney is with the state's Educational Approval Board.
Pat Sweeney: We want to make sure if somebody signs up to go to a school that the program is good, and they get their money's worth.
Sweeney says his job isn't to regulate yoga. It's to make sure the schools are legit.
Sweeney: What happens if somebody doesn't show up, what happens if somebody drops out after the second week, how much of a refund do they get? We want all of those things spelled out.
The same kinds of regulations that govern other vocational schools, like those that teach pet grooming and truck driving. Fees for licensing vary state by state, from a few hundred dollars to several thousand.
Yoga teacher Becca Hewes paid $1,200 to get licensed by Oklahoma. She says many of her fellow yogis around the nation have been balking at not just the cost of licensing, but at the very idea of interference.
Hewes: Yoga is supposed to be about peace and love and everyone getting along. Right? We don't need rules, we don't need the government.
And yet governments are stretching their reach ever more into yoga. Earlier this year, yoga studios in Michigan were given a week to undergo state certification.
And in New York, the state tried to shut down 80 yoga teacher-training programs. The New York effort's been pushed back for now. But those who watch the industry say regulation of yoga across the country is inevitable.
In Los Angeles, I'm Lisa Napoli for Marketplace.
My question always to those who wish to regulate Yoga teacher training is this:
"What is Yoga?"
Once the government comes up with a concise and clear definition of what exactly the Yoga it is they are trying to regulate, then we can all be in agreement as to what exactly needs regulations.
From what I am seeing, most folks in the U.S. see "Yoga" as "Hatha Yoga." So perhaps the regulation should just be of "Hatha Yoga Teacher Training." But even then, we get all sorts of confusion. Whose Hatha Yoga is it? And by whose standards should we base regulations upon?
From my understanding of Yoga, as described by my Guru, Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati - "Yoga is the state where you are missing nothing."
I would love to see a regulation of this. Also, if we base the definition of Yoga upon Patanjali's 8-limbs of Yoga, then I think we are getting into the very dicey territory of regulating a "spiritual practice." According to Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutras well before Jesus Christ incarnated, the 8 limbs of Yoga are - Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranyama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. If we are to regulate "Hatha Yoga Teacher Training," then really we are only trying to regulate one of the limbs of Yoga - asana.
So let's be more precise with our language. And figure out what exactly it is we are regulating before we call it "YOGA."
Om shantih,
Kristina
In Virginia, schools that make a lot of money have a huge advantage when it comes to the annual recertification "fees." The fee for a school that grosses anything over $150,000 is $2500. So if a school grosses fifteen million dollars annually, it only has to pay $2500 annually. And if a school grosses $150,001, it has to pay $2500. So rich schools, in effect, get a huge discount and pay a nominal fee, while small schools have to pay a much larger percentage of their gross income. See page 28 at http://www.schev.edu/AdminFaculty/iApproval/final%20regs%208-24-06.pdf
If a school makes $50,000, it has to pay $500. If a schools makes $50, it has to pay $500.
SCHEV (State Council of Higher Education for Virgina) has an extensive list of regulations and required forms/paperwork that are mostly based on a one-size, one-kind fits all type of policy (intended for large schools). A number of these requirements and forms make highly-questionable sense for small and tiny schools. In 2007, SCHEV conducted on-site audits of 31 proprietary schools and claimed schools committed over 170 violations. They charged the schools $1000 for each violation--a profit of over $170,000.00. See http://www.schev.edu/SCHEV/AgendaBooks/2008Jan/AgendaBookJan08.pdf on pages 20 and 21
This is really about making money by taking advantage of well-intentioned and responsible small schools and programs--to the point of damaging them--rather than protecting consumers and students.
The SCHEV fees these schools pay are in addition to the federal and state income taxes and business license taxes that they are already paying.
By Wayne K From Cheyenne, WY, wrote:
" Forgive me if I am wrong, but it's my guess that most individuals who are involved in yoga are thinking about global issues, environmental issues, and tend to lean to the "left" politically. Am I incorrect? Well, the liberal voice in America likes big government, and this is your big government "doing its job to protect you". SO, get out your wallets and stop whining."
Wayne K.'s comment is rather immature.
He assumes the LEFT like BIG government.
He, like many far right wing nuts" are generalizing again and again. Threre need to be regulation to prevent FRAUD. However, there must be checks and balances so the fees are NOT exorbitant.
Regulation is a good thing when done properly for public interest. The lack of regulation or enforcement is what is causing our current financial problems.
Take a long walk in Big Sky country and give this a little more thought.....
Here are some quotes from Albert Einstein:
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
Forgive me if I am wrong, but it's my guess that most individuals who are involved in yoga are thinking about global issues, environmental issues, and tend to lean to the "left" politically. Am I incorrect? Well, the liberal voice in America likes big government, and this is your big government "doing its job to protect you". SO, get out your wallets and stop whining. The reality of huge government will not be as savory as you imagined.
There is a lot more to this story in Virginia than just the state regulating Yoga teachers. The quote below is from a July 10 New York Times article on Yoga Teachers and state regulation (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/nyregion/11yoga.html). It is good example of what SCHEV (State Council of Higher Education for Virginia) really wants (and has been getting) from small and even tiny proprietary schools and is now seeking from Yoga teacher training schools:
"The conflict started in January when a Virginia [SCHEV] official directed regulators from more than a dozen states to an online national registry of schools that teach yoga and, in the words of a Kansas official, earn a 'handsome income.'"
This is not about properly regulating Yoga training. This is about money. SCHEV currently requires that any proprietary school that provides job skill certification training that grosses anywhere from $1 (that's one dollar) to $50,000.00 per year pay an annual "fee" of $500. This means any that any training school, not just Yoga teacher-training schools, has to pay the State of Virginia at least $500 every year, even if they gross only $400. In addition, teachers have to pay for a surety bond and they have to complete financial forms that probably require the help of an accountant--an additional expense. This is an undue hardship on a number of small schools, not just Yoga schools. (When SCHEV first took over supervision of proprietary schools a few years ago they were demanding a $1500 annual "fee." It was only through external pressure that SCHEV eventually reduced the fee to $500 for schools grossing $50,000 or less each year.)
There is much more to this...
I'm not against government regulation. In fact, what is needed In Virginia are regulators to regulate the regulators.
This article left out one key piece of the puzzle - how the states have handled the licensing process. Sending out cease and desist letters, demanding unreasonable fees, expecting small mom-n-pop yoga studios to handle mass quantities of paperwork when they don't have "staff" to do that. In my opinion the methods the states have used to license yoga schools is the real story.
In response to Becca Hewes statement:
"Yoga is supposed to be about peace and love and everyone getting along. Right? We don't need rules, we don't need the government."
It sounds to me like yoga is about making money. So just like any other fee-for-service business, it needs rules and government to insure that consumers are protected.
As a yoga teacher for 15 years who has completed three yoga teacher and therapist training programs, I applaud the states who are utilizing the Yoga Alliance standards to regulate the teacher training industry. Verification of high standards for training programs make yoga teaching a more legitimate and respected profession. It also reduces the risk of students being injured by poorly trained teachers.
Hi Kai-
The States might as well get into the money game. Bikram Cloudhury has been doing it for years with his patented 27 move 'hot yoga' routine. Shouldn't states get a cut of the pie?
Commercialized yoga is essentually a contradiction in terms anyhow, why not further obfuscate matters?
Yes- this article has elicited bitter cynicism form me...
Both Cloudhury and the states should LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
