National Yoga Alliance Training College
Last updated: August 25th, 2022
The standards of the All-American Yoga Alliance set a moral and educational framework for yoga classrooms and schools, and carry out yoga fitness teaching activities with the teaching aim of simplicity, safety and effectiveness.
The yoga we know and experience today has been forged from generations of teachers passing down this ancient practice. As a yoga education standard-setting organization founded in 1999, Yoga Alliance has grown alongside yoga’s natural progression while rising to meet the needs of our evolving membership.
Recognizing the need for modernized standards that promote high quality, safe, accessible, and equitable yoga teaching, in 2018, we embarked on a community-led 18-month Standards Review Project designed to help us understand and distill the experiences and essentials of today’s yoga educators and students. The SRP brought together YA members and non-members, yoga teachers and practitioners, thought and field leaders, wisdom holders, and not-for-profit and for-profit business leaders from around the world in a comprehensive and inclusive process. This undertaking included a 12,000-respondent survey, listening tour, series of virtual town halls, working group sessions, and many other feedback channels.
As a result of this heartfelt community work, Yoga Alliance created and launched three major enhancements to our standards in February 2020—all of which relied on the decision-making principles of traditional yogic value, equity, accountability, integrity, and stability across the yoga community. They are:
Elevated standards for the foundational Registered Yoga School (RYS) 200 credential;
A strengthened application and review process; and
A shared member-wide Ethical Commitment including an enhanced Code of Conduct, new Scope of Practice, and commitment to Equity in Yoga.
While these enhancements serve as groundwork for the continued betterment of yoga everywhere, we acknowledge this work, like yoga itself, is ongoing.
So, what comes next?
As the world continues to transition to more and more online connection and engagement, so does the teaching and practice of yoga.
We learned so much from the feedback provided by 2021 Online Teaching Exemption RYS participants, and are moving forward with a strengthened understanding and approach to online teaching, training, and learning. This includes:
The creation of a 2022-2023 Online Teaching Application, offering RYSs the opportunity to continue hosting teacher training programs online or in a blended format through 2023. This also serves as a bridge to all RYSs being required to up-level to the Elevated RYS Standards by December 31, 2023.
Updates to teaching in an online environment for all Elevated RYS Standards. More information will be shared by the end of 2021.
While our path serving the yoga community may continue to transform, our mission holds true: to promote and foster the high quality, safe, accessible, and equitable teaching of yoga everywhere.
The Ethical Commitment consists of three elements: a Code of Conduct, Scope of Practice, and a responsibility to equity in yoga. It supports YA credentials as markers of high quality, safe, accessible, and equitable yoga teaching, and elevates the public’s understanding of the yoga teaching profession.
Yoga Alliance uses sound research, data, and proven methodologies to shape its standards to meet the global yoga community’s needs, including their adaptation to the online environment. In order to host teacher training programs online, Registered Yoga Schools (RYSs) must follow a unique set of requirements, which adhere to the Yoga Alliance Ethical Commitment.
An RYT credential is earned by yoga teachers whose training and teaching experience meet Yoga Alliance Standards. RYTs must complete training with an RYS, be confirmed by said RYS, and keep current with Continuing Education and their annual fees.
Over the course of the 18-month, community-led Standards Review Project (SRP) and in the months following, we received a call to action from our membership and the broader yoga community asking for community-wide dialogues on critical topics within yoga. These conversations will be convened in support of the challenges within the profession of yoga teaching and the opportunities for growth so that our practice can continue to evolve with this ancient practice and its modernized needs.
