Efforts at Regulation Have Yoga Teachers Bent Out of Shape
By A. G. SULZBERGER
Published: July 10, 2009

From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/nyregion/11yoga.html?_r=1

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Ten years ago, with yoga transforming
itself into a ubiquitous pop culture phenomenon from a niche pursuit, yoga
teachers banded together to create a voluntary online registry of schools
meeting new minimum standards for training instructors in the discipline.

But that list — which now includes nearly 1,000 yoga schools nationwide, many of
them tiny — is being put to a use for which it was never intended. It is the key
document in a nationwide crackdown on yoga schools that pits free-spirited yogis
against lumbering state governments, which, unlike those they are trying to
regulate, are not always known for their flexibility.

Citing laws that govern vocational schools, like those for hairdressers and
truck drivers, regulators have begun to require licenses for yoga schools that
train instructors, with all the fees, inspections and paperwork that entails.
While confrontations have played out differently in different states, threats of
shutdowns and fines have, in some cases, been met with accusations of power
grabs and religious infringement — disputes that seem far removed from the
meditative world yoga calls to mind.

In April, New York State sent letters to about 80 schools to warn them to
suspend teacher training programs immediately or risk fines of up to $50,000 —
prompting yogis around the state to join in opposition, and, apparently,
persuading the state to back down.

In other states, regulators were not moved. In March, Michigan gave schools on
the list one week to be certified by the state or cease operations. Virginia's
cumbersome licensing rules include a $2,500 sign-up fee — a big hit for modest
studios that are often little more than one-room storefronts.

Lisa Rapp, who owns My Yoga Spirit in Norfolk, Va., said she had canceled her
future classes and was preparing to close her seven-year-old business this
summer. "This caused us to shut down the studio altogether," Ms. Rapp said.
"It's too bad, because this community really needs yoga."

The conflict started in January when a Virginia 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" in
the process. Until then, only a few states, like Wisconsin, had been aware of
the registry and had acted to regulate yoga instruction.

The registry was created by the Yoga Alliance, a nonprofit group started in 1999
to establish teaching standards in an effort to have the industry regulate
itself. In a recent newsletter, the alliance warned its member schools that
nationwide licensing might be inevitable, "forcing this ancient tradition to
conform to Western business practices."

"We made it very, very easy for them to do what they're doing right now," said
Leslie Kaminoff, founder of the Breathing Project, a nonprofit yoga center in
New York City, who had opposed the formation of the Yoga Alliance. "The industry
of yoga is a big, juicy target."

New state regulations would not directly affect the drop-in classes attended by
many of the 16 million Americans estimated to practice yoga. But the classes
they would affect — instruction on teaching yoga — are an important source of
revenue for many schools, and, of course, train future instructors.

"It's the perpetuation of the species," said S. J. Khalsa, who operates
Kundalini Yoga East in Manhattan, a school that offers teacher training courses.
"We're not in it to make tons of money," he said. "We're trying to create a
place where we change your consciousness."

However, Sybil Killian, general manager for the OM Yoga Center, also in
Manhattan, questioned whether yoga could fairly claim to be a spiritual — rather
than a business — pursuit in an era when, according to an industry estimate, it
earns $6 billion a year in the United States.

"People buy $1,000 pants to sweat in because while they're getting enlightened
they need to look good," Ms. Killian wrote in an e-mail message to other New
York yoga teachers. "Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, yoga is an industry.
One need only leaf through the advertising section of Yoga Journal to know
that."

Regulators said that licensing the schools would allow states to enforce basic
training standards and protect customers who usually spend $2,000 to $5,000 on
training courses, not to mention provide revenue for cash-starved governments.
"If you're going to start a school and take people's money, you should play by a
set of rules," said Patrick Sweeney, a Wisconsin licensing official, who
believes that in 2004 he was the first state official to discover the online
registry and use it to begin regulating yoga teaching.

"Sooner or later, probably every state will do this," said Patricia Kearney, an
instructor of health and exercise science at Bridgewater College in Virginia,
who has been researching the trend and blogging about it. "Once people get used
to it, it will ultimately benefit yoga. But it will not be without loss. Some
good small programs will close. But so will some not-so-good programs that
probably should close."

In New York State, though, teachers fought back, complaining that the new rules
could erode thin bottom lines, contradict religious underpinnings and, most
important, shut down every school in the state during an eight-month licensing
period.

"It basically destroys the essence of yoga, to control and manipulate the whole
situation," said Jhon Tamayo of Atmananda Yoga Sequence in Manhattan, shortly
after receiving one of the warning letters from the state. "No one can regulate
yoga."

Brette Popper, a co-founder of Yoga City NYC, a Web site that has closely
chronicled licensing developments, said that the yoga community — described on
the site as "a group that doesn't even always agree about how to pronounce `Om'
" — was finally uniting around a common enemy.

The teachers formed a coalition to lead the effort and enlisted a state senator,
Eric T. Schneiderman of Manhattan, to take up their cause, hoping that New York
would buck the national trend. "It's really kind of historic in the yoga
community," Ms. Popper said.

That unity was on display last month in a small yoga studio in Midtown
Manhattan, where nearly 100 devotees from around the state packed into the room,
barefoot and cross-legged on the wood floor. The group, whose members ranged
from lithe young teachers in spandex to older ones in religious garb, opened
with a traditional chant and ended two hours later struggling with parliamentary
procedure as it tried to establish a formal organization. One attendee cast the
conflict as "bureaucracy versus freedom."

Alison West, the meeting's organizer, who was selected to lead the new
coalition, the Yoga Association of New York State, prayed for "some joyful
conclusion we've never conceived."

Within days, Joseph P. Frey, an associate commissioner with the State Education
Department, said in an interview that the department would suspend the licensing
effort, allow the classes to continue and instead lobby to have legislation
passed adding yoga to a list of activities that are exempt from regulation.

"I understand how folks could get upset," Mr. Frey said.