Working in Yoga

This week on the podcast Stevie Ingram joins us to chat about all things licensure.

As a topic that is much discussed, and much lusted after fpr a few reasons, I have invited on several thinkers to talk about being a licensed profession would mean for us individually—and as a whole.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Gatekeeping is SUCH a problem for us as an industry. It is one of my biggest pet peeves, even in the organizing space.  We tend to keep secrets and say only the bare minimum while doing all the real information sharing behind the scenes with only a few people able to participate.  I reeeaaaalllllllly hate this practice.  We need to model transparency behavior amongst ourselves so that we can live up to the moral standards we claim are so important to us.

 *Yoga as a liberation practice. And it recognizing this, we must also understand that proximity to power is a thing.  This idea that licensure will get us closer to the power and financial wealth we perceive that the medical community has (this is not always the case) pushed conversations.  While perhaps we will decide as an industry that licensure is the way to go, deconstructing this idea is key for us being clearheaded when we make that decision.

*Gravitas is not inherent to us if we do get integrated into conventional medical practice. Being “accepted” by Western medicine will never mean we will be taken seriously.  I actually believe we need to do a lot of “inner work” as an industry to believe in our own value first.  

*We need to talk about license creep.  License creep is A common tactic is to broaden the definition or scope of practice of a licensed occupation, a practice we term “license creep.” Licensing legislation ordinarily describes the activities that define the practice of the occupation.

*insurance adds a lot of work behind the scenes.  I think a lot of people do not understand this, but insurance companies literally hire former nurses to comb through that charts of patients to see if they can get a “gotcha” moment where the healthcare system didn’t ask the right questions, do the correct protocol in the correct order, and more.  Hospitals also hire those people on the other side to combat this move by insurance companies.  If you are a yoga therapist consider if you are ready to take your charting and protocol up about 100 notches. 

*Residency and Peer-reviewed systems were two if the solutions that Stevie offered, that I love.  We do not need to consider other innovative ways for us to keep the status of a self-regulated industry.  

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Look. We need to get into it.

To ask all the questions, to unearth all the possibilities, to sit with some uncomfortable answers.

So I asked Leslie Kaminoff to come on, and we did just that.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

*” Fundamentally it is a governance issue” is my favorite quote about the IAYT issue that is on this entire podcast series.  Because they do have a governance issue, and it is important that we talk about it.  

To reiterate: a 501c3 organization in the United States exists to serve a public function, and a 501c6 org is a business or trade organization that exists to serve its members.  The IAYT is currently the former, not the latter.  

*Medicalizing yoga and yoga therapy comes with a whole host of complications.  And this series on the podcast will cover some of those complications as we go forward into talking about licensure, the medicalization of yoga, and more.

*Yoga is relationships.  This is a quote from this episode of the podcast that I have already used a dozen times since Leslie and I recorded this podcast together a few weeks ago.  Because it is so true.  We are in relationship with ourselves, our students, our colleagues, and our organizations.  It is important that we chose to build the best versions of those relationships that we can so we can all thrive, and also so that yoga and the yoga industry can thrive in this modern world.  

*If you missed it, if there is an offer to write a rebuttal of someone wishes to write a position paper about moving towards licensure in the yoga therapy space.  Please someone take Leslie up on this so I can read both your paper and his response.  I love this kind of stuff.

*Yoga has long taken place within the outskirts of culture.  I have said this a lot, but we came of age in the counter-culture movement of the 90s, and a lot of us really liked it that way.  I include myself in this group.  I don’t know if the 19 year old version of myself that started yoga would have found her way into today’s modern yoga spaces.  I think about that a lot actually, especially in the context of all those gifts that a consistent yoga practice has given me over the last 27 years.  Leslie refers to this with his assertion that yoga has existed very often between the cracks of general culture.  

Comforting or not, that is the reality of what we have been.  And I am interested to see if we keep that trend going forward into the future.

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Once upon a time we had organizations that worked for us, the professionals of the yoga industry.

Or did we?

On this new series we explore the recent work of one of our orgs, the International Association of Yoga Therapists as well as some other organizations in our space.

Sorry Yoga Alliance, you are sitting this one out.

Take a listen to the intro and then get ready for some serious industry legends and pros to tell you what they think about our recent organizational moves.

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Yoga Alliance Scope of Practice

International Association of Yoga Therapists Scope of Practice

This one is a personal conversation between friends.

Shannon and I have a hard conversation together, and talk about how you can have conversations with friends too.

This is one of my favorite conversations ever, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*There are a lot of ways to have a hard conversation.  But don’t take for granted the powerful act of having hard conversations with your friends.  Friends are folks with whom you prioritize your connection over self-serving things.  People you are friendly with, don’t hold the same weight.  

For example:  you can be friends with your cousin.  But the relationship you should have with your boss is “Friendly”

*Hard conversations, and social justice conversations, belong in yoga.  There is a lot of discourse in our industry around this, and amazing folks like Anjali Rao have been on the podcast talking about this very thing.  But consider also this: if yoga can be a process of knowing yourself and knowing others, then hard conversations are a part of that.

*Consent in conversations is an absolute must.  Everyone needs to be consensual for conversations to flourish–and pushing other people into conversations, or expecting everyone to respond to things that are top of your mind isn’t appropriate.  These conversations can be had in yoga spaces, but only when everyone is an enthusiastic yes.  We all have more fun when that happens.

*Change happens in the quiet.  I know I have said that before, but it is worth repeating. If you want change to happen don’t just show up shouting.  Show up to write the permit, arrange the transport, and apply for the grant.  

*What is your relationship with social media?  As I said, I use social media exclusively for business.  I have primarily yoga conversations on quite literally all of my channels.  But maybe you use social media differently.  Please make sure you are conscientious about it, and don’t feel pressured to perform on social if that isn’t how you show up.  

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How we train the next generation of yoga teachers is one of the most important conversations I think we can have as an industry.

This series on the podcast has covered a lot of ground talking to experts from all over the world about their thoughts on YTTs.

And this, our final interview, is with a person whose expertise is in the actual training of teachers.

Leslie Pearlman is on the week, and what she has to say is the best.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*How many times in this series can I say this?  But yoga studios train, a lot of the time, because they need teachers who work like they do.  Who understand their point of view in  yoga.  It isn’t because they need the money, necessarily.

*Being a great yoga teacher does not mean you are a great teacher trainer.  Leading people through trainings is a skillset that is different than being a person who is amazing at leading a class.

*Transferable skills from training to be a yoga teacher to doing other things in life are something we don’t talk often about.  But really, the things you learn about teaching yoga are things you can take out in your real life. You will be a better communicator from teaching yoga—and that can happen in all places in your life.

*Who are you being?  As the yoga teacher and space holder?  This is such a good question.  How do you show up when you are teaching yoga?  Leslie identifies this as a crucial question—and I think she is correct.  We need to be intentional about who we are as a teacher, and who we are in life as well.

*The phrase “listen to your body” is a setup for failure without the accompanying skills of learning how to do that skillfully.

*Mentorship matters.  Leslie talks about an ascension model in her studio:  essentially—where are your people going to go next?  And I think mentoring skillfully needs to be part of the future of our industry.  Do you need a mentor?  Could you be a mentor?  I want to talk a lot more about this on the podcast in 2025, so stay tuned.  We are going to get into it.

*Hybrid teaching is the way of our future for so many things.  What skillsets do you need to improve to be more comfortable in this way of teaching?

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One perspective I wanted to make sure we had during this conversation series around YTTs was the longtime trainer and studio owner.

And I could not have gotten a better match than Stephanie Adams. Stephanie started SAYF, or The Sustainable Asana Yoga Foundation—and has been training folks for over a decade.

Stephanie has lots of wisdom to share from her years of teaching and training, so take a listen to find out more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*What do we think about Stephanie’s point about trainers needing to teach their own material?  She is the first person who I have heard say this outright–and I agree with her.  If you are invested enough in the act of training other yoga professionals, shouldn’t we require that you make your own content?  Do you agree or not?  Let me know!

*Pre-recorded-only trainings are a challenge for us as an industry–especially if you take this job seriously.  I have now contacted ½ a dozen “online-pre-recorded” programs to ask if they would talk to me about how they measure the outcomes and skillsets of their students, and while I came close, nobody actually would speak with me.  

*Spending time training together is a little bit of magic, let’s just say that now.  And I sometimes think we don’t appreciate what Stephanie calls a “life pattern interrupt” can do for the nervous system, the brain, and the heart.  We do that, friends.  In fact, it might be the best thing we do when we offer those sorts of experiences to other people.

*This is another great point Stephanie made, which is an offshoot of what I have been saying for this whole series.  There is not a ton of money to be made in studios when we train.  And a lot of our experienced trainers have moved on to other parts of the profession because they are more financially lucrative.  This is a shame.  We need our best and brightest training for the next generation of yoga pros–don’t you think?

*Teaching online is a new skill set we didn’t need to train folks for prior to 2020.  We need to have MUCH more discussion about what the best practices are for yoga teaching online, and I am looking forward to it in the future.

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Have you ever wondered how on Earth we got here?

How did we get 200 hours? Who started all this?

Amara Miller has the answers. Take a listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Knowing where we can go to in the future depends greatly upon understanding our where we came from.  The Yoga Alliance started in 1999 as a solution to a problem, and was not initially set forth to monetize yoga in the way we see today.  So treating them as an evil eye organization right from the start simply isn’t true.  The original intent landed more in the realm of making sure that students were safe and assuring people were somewhat well trained as yoga teachers.

*Nobody could have been prepared for the influx of money into the yoga industry that happened in the late 00s and teens.  We simply were not prepared to professionalize and deal with the money that all of a sudden was flowing around as things like ‘yoga pants’ became part of the American cultural lexicon.

*Did you know that the Yoga Alliance approved 100% virtual YTT programs as of this year?  What do you think about this?  Good, bad?  Something different?

*Because it was incredibly contentious in creating yoga teacher standards through the Yoga Alliance, the group of organizing people decided to work through an hours model vs. a core curriculum model.  

*Counter culture played a significant role in getting us to where we are today as an industry.  A lot of folks, myself included, loved the idea that yoga was outside the box and not everyone participated.  I have, in real life in the last 24 months, been on calls with people who were still reminiscing about what it was like to practice in NYC in the 90s next to Madonna and Sting.  Yoga was, where the cool kids were.  And that attitude informed how we organized ourselves, and I think still does today.

*Finally, lets talk about unions.  For those of us who are North America, have you ever thought about what it means to be unionized?  Or to help start a new professional organization?  I want to plant these seeds how so that when it is time for us to collectively organize ourselves again we can come together with fresh ideas and mindsets.

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There is so much to dive into in regards to teacher trainings.

How long do we train for? Is our system working for us?

Are teacher training and deeper learning the same thing?

Should I run a “social justice” focused teacher training?

Anjali and I get into it all. Take a listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Training is a huge responsibility within the industry.  And we often have challenges that we need to address when we decide to run teacher training.  I have said this before on this series, but many times, people train because they are looking for qualified candidates to work at their studio.  Are these ideal conditions for training?  I don’t know, but it certainly isn’t the “my yoga studio can’t make it without training” story we are often telling amongst ourselves.

*I am SO glad Anjali brought this up.  Training yoga teachers and deepening your knowledge of yoga are not the same thing.  They should not be in the same program.  We need to offer a diverse menu of yoga knowledge enhancement options in our yoga studios–not just only group classes and YTTs.  I cannot say this enough times.

*So Anjali said something that I want to highlight.  It is this idea that a deep yoga practice is something you should “enjoy”.  She is right, a lot of yoga is groundbreaking and uncomfortable.  While the changes you create as a result of a deep yoga practice can be highly beneficial and enjoyable, the process is hard.  And we should be saying anything different.

*Hey friends.  I know saying things like “social justice” is a great way for you to attract certain people to your doorstep.  But there is disrespect at best, and danger at worst when we use the phrase social justice like a marketing term.  People deserve better.  The black, queer, and disabled communities we support deserve better.  Please stop. Thank you so much.

*There is no checklist that makes you a good white person in yoga.  I am sorry if that is news.  But the willingness to have discussions, unpack your own privilege, and as Anjali asks “what else are you doing?” is a great place to start.

*This is another one of the things this series has mentioned constantly.  Mentorship.  If you are an experienced teacher please consider how you can mentor the next generation of yoga teachers so they can have a nurturing and supportive environment to learn the skillset of teaching yoga.

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Why does it seem like nobody tells us what we got right?

Our culture, inside and outside the yoga space, seems to thrive on constant critique and “constructive criticism”.

But what are absolutely nailing?

I have an idea.

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Let’s talk fundamentals this week.

How can we improve our training, both individually and as an industry?

I find it super helpful to ask pros in other fields how they train, and what they are seeing in their movement profession—so that is what I did.

I asked Pilates instructor, studio owner, yoga teacher, former professional dancer, and altogether rad human Hannah Teutscher how she trains.

We got into the thick of things talking about creativity, building a box so you can think outside it, and more.

Take a listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Teacher training can be a good source of revenue, yes.  But, to all those who think that yoga studios train to keep their doors open–in large part, we don’t.  The hourly wage that most of us make training vs. working on other things or in our businesses is not what folks perceive it to be.  

*Lots of businesses train because they need workers.  This leads me to a primary question I want to answer in this series: what does it take for us to level up our expectations of trainings? and how should trainings work in general? Essentially, as I say in the podcast, we need to build a box.   HOW do we uplevel the industry’s training standards in such that way that only the people who are truly invested in trainings and feel called to serve the industry in that way sign up for shepherding the next generation of yoga teachers into our profession?

*Here it is: pedagogy again.  How do we teach people how to command a room?  Good question, eh?  How do you command a room yourself when you are teaching?  Is that a teachable skill?

*We create an atmosphere in a room when we teach.  As Hannah said “every good story has a beginning, middle, and an end.” and that is how most of us structure our classes.  But for those who are new to teaching we need to build a structure others can follow within how we teach.  What is your structure?  How do you think about teaching a class?

*OHMYGODITISNTJUSTUS!!  I don’t know why, but I found it very comforting that we are not the only movement modality that struggles with professionalization and standards.  There is something more to this thought process, and I would be curious what you think.  Why do movement modalities, in particular, struggle with this?  As I said, dentists aren’t out there questioning their scope of practice–they get that their gig is teeth.  Why do we struggle in this way?

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