Why I Am NOT Yoga Alliance Certified (Or Care If You Are)

Let me start with an analogy: Suppose you enter the supermarket with the intention of purchasing several Certified Organic food items—some peaches, flour, milk and eggs. You notice the label “USDA Certified Organic” right away and make your purchases. You take them home and unload, wash a peach for snacking, and kick up you heels with The Times for a little Sunday afternoon reading. One of the headlines catches your attention as you take a juicy, first bite of your Certified Organic peach: “USDA Lacks Oversight Capabilities for Organic Label: What you see is not what you get.”

What if you went on to discover that, in fact, all a farm has to do to become Certified Organic is mail in the proper amount of money along with their self-reported paperwork to become officially, certifiably organic? Would you continue to make purchases based on this labeling?

This is the situation with Yoga Alliance and their standards of certification. Yoga teacher trainings pay for the label, along with their self-reported paperwork, to become YA certified, and teachers pay a yearly fee to register with them, provided they do the same.

YA’s website reads: “A Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) designation is a symbol of experience, dedication and commitment on the part of your yoga teacher.” Symbol being the key word here.

Now, why would any teacher subject themselves or their trainings to such arbitrary labeling? My best guess is that many teachers feel compelled to because the system is already in place and it’s what everybody else feels compelled to do too. Bad answer. Here’s why:

First off, many teachers and students are already aware of the ruse. Many studio owners simply don’t care about the labeling anymore because they know it’s meaningless. Many students could care less if their teachers are YA registered; they have their own standards.

But here’s the most important reason: Some other percentage of the student base is unaware of the ruse. They mistakenly believe that a YA certification creates a minimum standard of competency on which they can rely. In other words, they may think they are eating Certified Organic peaches when, in fact, they are not.

The YA label is intellectually dishonest. True, the organization does create standards. But it DOES NOT enforce them. They simply take dues and publish a list of certified trainings and teachers.

It also creates an unfair marketing strategy for teachers and studios who use the label to distinguish themselves. This, too, is intellectually dishonest. A YA label does nothing to ensure the competency of a teacher or training, nor should it be held up as such. Many teachers who are competent are shut out of certain teaching arenas because they do not comply. And many teachers who are incompetent are given clearance because they do comply.

And, of course, there are plenty of highly skilled, masterful YA certified teachers. But they didn’t get that way because of YA standards of approval.

So what can you do?

Rely on yourself to ask the questions and research which teachers and trainings meet with your approval. Talk to the studios and instructors about their approach. Take their classes and judge for yourself. There are many, wonderful yoga organizations, studios, teacher trainings and teachers whose qualifications and experience speak volumes. I just don’t think Yoga Alliance is one of them.

By Kerry Wills

Yoga Teacher - Kerry Porter Wills

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