Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Hours

Recommendation for Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Hours

This is my contribution to the conversation on current Yoga Alliance Continuing Education hours and the path I hope they chose to make the industry better.

Jesi Lee

   

Introduction:

As Yoga Alliance stands as the only “governing board” of yoga currently in the United States, their standards and regulation of said standards is of the utmost importance for teachers and students alike, as well as the perception of yoga to the general population.

As the standards for Registered Yoga Schools (RYS) change to improve the quality of the profession, there is room for growth within the Continuing Education (CE) requirements for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT).

This analysis stands to illustrate potential non-adherence to standards of the current framework of Continuing Education requirements, and teacher’s thoughts surrounding the discussion, as well as a potential plan for improvement.

Current Situation:

The current Continuing Education requirements and guidelines from Yoga Alliance (YA) covers a span of three years per teacher with two categories: 45 hours of teaching and 30 hours of yoga related training. Of the latter, at least 10 hour must be contact hours with a YACEP, E-RYT 200, or “Someone who has a relevant degree, certification or substantial education in the subject that he or she will teach, which must be related to a Yoga Alliance® Educational Category, plus a minimum of 500 hours of teaching experience in that subject and/or the equivalent of two years of relevant experience in that subject area.”

Currently the Education Categories are the same as the current RYS requirements of:

  • Techniques, Training and Practice (TTP)
  • Teaching Methodology (TM)
  • Anatomy and Physiology (AP)
  • Yoga Philosophy, Lifestyle and Ethics (YPLE)

 The 10 hours with YACEP over 3 years in above categories. Includes:

  • Workshops (single session or ongoing series)
  • Courses
  • Discussion or study groups
  • Yoga teacher training

And the 20 hours of non-contact hours includes:

  • Reading a book or article, or watching a video
  • Being a student participant in a webinar or taking an online or correspondence course
  • Receiving remote mentoring
  • Authoring content for public dissemination (e.g., in newsletters, CDs, DVDs, newspapers, magazines, online, etc.)
  • Creating class materials for distribution to students

Concerns within Current Framework

The current situation for Continuing Education standards fails to address primary concerns among yoga professionals on the following premises:

  • Additional teacher trainings above 500 hours are not rewarded in designation to YA teachers, but only looked at as “Continuing Education,” leaving those with large amounts of training and those who continue to attend trainings demystified by the process and on the same level as peers with less official training
  • The minimum of 10 Contact hours with a YACEP over the course of 3 years limits potential return on investment for those registered as YACEP, as teachers may only look to take continuing education as their registry comes due
  • The category of Non-Contact hours is double the amount of contact hours and includes reading a book or watching a video. While both may be seen as educational, it devalues the trade of yoga teaching and perpetuates the image of “anyone can teach yoga by reading a book or seeing/practicing it”
  • Within the Non-Contact hours, YA does not have any regulation or standards of content that may be generated, circulated, taken in, or mentored on, leaving room for non-adherence of overall standards, falsifying of knowledge gained, and minimization of the role of yoga teachers in general
  • YA only verifies Non-Contact hours with a summary of 500 words from teacher, again  leaving room for non-adherence of overall standards, falsifying of knowledge gained, and minimization of the role of yoga teachers in general
  • The 3 year time span for completion of hours is too long of a time frame – most teachers will access their teacher portal once within that time frame to update or near registration
  • YA offers many valuable online resources for teachers which may not be utilized fully as Continuing Education Non-Contact hours due to other options being “easier” (i.e. reading a book or watching a video rather than logging in to portal) or lack of awareness on how to utilize online library.
  • Many RYS graduates may or may not register with YA upon completion of their training, and those who do may only keep their registry valid for the first three years and continue to teach under the 200 RYT designation after without recourse from YA

Options for Remedy

Based off the current requirements and the optimism that the requirements will change, the following look to remedy the concerns and advance the YA Continuing Education requirement:

Additional Training Hours

  • Additional designations for teachers with 1000 hours of RYS training, 1500 hours of RYS training, and 2000 hours of RYS training or
  • Separate category within Continuing Education for teacher training hours that appears on teacher’s page as additional training

Registration Renewal

  • Registration is renewed every year with current Continuing Education hours divided up per year to keep teachers engaged and learning

Contact Hours

  • Contact hours with YACEP take precedent over E-RYT 200 and “someone with relevant degree” – the latter two being removed from Continuing Education options
  • Contact hours increase to larger percentage of Continuing Education requirement to supplement YACEP return on investment

Non-Contact Hours

  • More specification on of what constitutes Non-Contact Hours, eliminating “reading a book or watching a video” and encouraging the use of YA’s online resources
  • Ability to auto-populate data from YA’s online resources and the teachers who complete coursework within to automatically update their continuing education portion of the portal
  • YA creating Common Curriculum of online resources as a part of the Continuing Education requirement with all teachers completing within time frames of first year teacher, second, etc. or a system thereof
  • Removing options that may include non-adherence of overall standards, falsifying of knowledge gained, and minimization of the role of yoga teachers in general
  • If other Non-Contact hours are an option, having a process longer than 500 words to verify completion and that content is in adherence with overall standards

Conclusion

Yoga Alliance, though namely a registry system, is still seen as the guiding force of yoga in America. With current standards that create barriers for the profession of yoga (its growth and sustainability) and minimal regulation of standards, there are improvements that can be made with minimal impact to current operations.

Improving the public image of yoga, yoga teaching as a profession, and the standards within American yoga is an important role that Yoga Alliance must take on. Improvement from within the current CE requirements will hopefully encourage this transition, as outlined in this document.