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IYEA & The Fight For Yogas Freedom
July 4, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 3 Comments
Today aptly sees the launch of IYEA – Independent Yoga Educators of America. In the booming times of yoga asanas popularity the issue of standards in teaching is a contentious one. If there is to be a standard across the board, who sets it and how they set it is never going to be satisfactory and never going to guarantee the quality of yoga teachers.
This hasn’t been too much of a problem until now when the very success of yoga as an ‘industry’ of an estimated $6 billion has brought it into the focus of state regulators. They want a piece of the pie and they see see requiring yoga teacher training programs to obtain licenses to operate vocational training facilities as a way in. There is good reason to believe it won’t stop there.
There are many, myself included who already find it cringeworthy to constantly read about yoga as an exercise and fitness training. The road of regulation would certainly only lead further away from the true purpose of yoga as a spiritual practice. On a broader scale, in an ever more draconian world in which individual freedom is increasingly encumbered and restricted, where will it end?
Behind IYEA is Leslie Kaminoff who some will know as the co-author (with Amy Matthews) of the book Yoga Anatomy. Regulation in yoga is an issue that Leslie is passionate about and with equal measure articulates well. It is an issue that easily muddies the waters but his view of it has remained clear for over 16 years since the debate began in earnest.
"I’ve always believed that the whole notion of industry-wide standards is invalid, because it presupposes an entity that ENFORCES those standards on an entire industry. Yoga and force are incompatible because yoga is about freedom, and yoga is about relationship, and force destroys both. It is precisely that flawed way of thinking we are fighting against when we resist government attempts to control our profession."
So if you are a yoga teacher, teach yoga teachers, want to be a yoga teacher or for any other reason this issue is relevant to you, consider joining IYEA, at least visit the site and read more about the issue and Leslie’s position.
Proposed IYEA Statement of Principles:
I am an independent yoga educator.
I teach about the value of personal freedom on all levels of human experience.
I embrace my own standards for my education, and the training of my students – and am willing to be held accountable for living up to those standards.
I value my freedom to conduct my relationships without coercive interference by third parties.
I will resist to the best of my ability any entity that assumes the authority to license or regulate me as a yoga educator or to enforce its standards upon me.
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