Changing Focus

As some have been aware, I have re-evaluated my current position with Yoga Alliance, in order to focus more on my business, and making money.

For the better part of a year and a half I have had to support myself while starting my business all the while – pointing out the Yoga Alliance’s many inaccuracies about their business practices, the blatant dishonesty pertaining to regulation of yoga, and the inept effort and failure as the self appointed role of yoga education credentialing.

Is Yoga Alliance refusing to come clean about their involvement with government agencies and their questionable corporate conference relationships, and the direct involvement in working against Virginia and New York Credentialing efforts?

Yoga Alliance’s untruths quickly turn into ulterior motives that encompass more than just policy, or partnership deals, or a lack of commitment towards yoga teachers who have been changed by their actions.

I have lost too much sleep over yoga credentialing and isolated myself because I had to, not because I wanted to. Being the sole whistle blower for an industry that does not see the value in questioning why the yoga industry hasn’t progressed further, or why Yoga Alliance has forced compliance onto yoga teachers regarding their own futures and education, has been a very difficult stomach.  

John Matthews was quoted recently as saying I was “a Yoga Alliance Insider,” which – though flattering – cannot be further from the truth.  Yoganomics has gone where no one else was willing to go, and find the information that was critical to yoga teachers, and yoga education. We went where we were led.  We found the glaring discrepancies and pointed them out publicly warn unassuming yoga teachers to see.

As a life choice, in order for yoga to progress into the realm of accepted medical practice, like medical rehabilitation and physical therapy, we must make a decision.

The issue is not whether we should or shouldn’t – the real issue boils down to how should we proceed.

• Yoga Alliance charges money for a service they provide in theory only.
• Yoga Alliance president Mark Davis, contacted state and city governments urging them to tax yoga teacher training and use Yoga Alliances pre-established 200 / 500 ERYT and RYT credentialing methods to further their own gain.
• Yoga Alliance admittedly claims that their credentialing is based on the minimum required standards of yoga education.
• Legally Yoga Alliance’s 200/500 credentialing accomplishes nothing, and is a theoretical safeguard for American society to feel better about their yoga teachers based on a credential that isn’t worth anything. 

John Matthews and I have never spoken. Lynn Bushnell and I have never spoken.

UPDATE:  John Matthews and I have spoken on the phone since writing this article, and no resolution has been reached. – July 18th, 2019. 

I feel like a broken record when I keep repeating that their credentialing does not mean anything, legally or otherwise. 

The premise behind the RYS & ERYT programs is money based and founded upon the bare minimum of standards.

If Iyengar is considered the benchmark of yoga and Bikram is considered the “playboy” of Yoga, then Yoga Alliance is the “Walmart of Yoga” by credentialing anyone who wants to be theoretically “trusted” as a yoga teacher.

We get what we pay for … the bare minimum.