Yoga Alliance and the 2011 Texas Yoga Conference
Rather than admitting that Yoga Alliance messed up, they continue to douse their embedded problems with gasoline and asking their subscribers to strike and continue to carry the torch. What yogis are simply not realizing is that by adhering to Yoga Alliance's unlawful parameters, yoga teachers are losing their ability to earn money - specifically, because Yoga Alliance rules cater to a select few, and are not enforceable, costly and useless in relation to their mediocre "novice" credentialing.
Yoga Alliance is in the business of Credentialing but also it's not in the business of credentialing. Sorry for all the confusion!
Our Credentialing process is not working currently.
Our delivery mechanisms are not working, either.
We are sorry that one of our nameless board members and one of our nameless employees abused YOUR Yoga's loyalties.
We don't take a side on yoga credentialing, we follow things that are popular and don't comment on them publicly.
Beware of opportunistic organizations that will divide yoga [more than Yoga Alliance already divided it.] (Yoga may not trust us, but we don't trust you, either)
We want to slow the process down long enough till we catch up to where Yoga Alliance should be.
We are building our process up once again... please be patient and don't trust any other Yoga Credentialing entity.
FIVE AUDIO RECORDINGS FROM THE TEXAS YOGA CONFERENCE
Yoga Alliance has come into the Texas Yoga Regulation at the END of the fight and basically claimed ownership over the whole process.
John Matthews publicly admits that Yoga Alliance is not up to par, is not functioning, and ARE NOT in the business of actually CHALLENGING United States GOVERNMENT Laws - meaning the responsibility still falls on YOU the Yoga Teachers, the Yoga Studios and Yoga Practitioners.
The process for Yoga Regulation was started by Jennifer Buergermeister and other members of the Texas Yoga Association - NOT Yoga Alliance - The whole reason that the Texas Yoga Association was formed in the first place was because Yoga Alliance had nothing to contribute -
If Nebraska, Utah, Texas, New York, Virginia, Washington State, Missouri or ANY state was going through Yoga Regulation - the only thing Yoga Alliance could do is say "Please Stop," and that's all. If the Government says "no" - then they are constrained by their own rules.
Yoga Alliance does NOT have the power to manipulate a "yoga market-share" for one reason above all others: the majority of yoga teachers and studios in the USA - and the world for that matter - DO NOT belong to Yoga Alliance. Yoga Alliance is NOT a Federal Reserve of Yoga. They are hanging on for dear life, and this faulty - bid for more time - and misguided allegation is false, false and false.
Yoga Alliance does not have 40,000 members, unless they are lying on their 2009 Non-profit Tax Return, in which they had 21,000 members.
Yoga Alliance can manipulate behind closed doors. Transparency is the only KEY to their survival.
Yoga Alliance moans: "Don't start another credentialing "opportunistic" yoga entity, because they will only succeed in dissolve the validity of yoga more (than we already have) - when, in fact - the only thing that has united yoga in the past five years was directly because Yoga Alliance was not involved in the process for the "Yoga for NY" and "Virginia Yoga Teachers" movement - led by yoga teachers, yoga practitioners, and yoga studios - again - the only reason unification occurred was because yoga stood up for themselves.
Because of Yoga Alliance's manipulative closed door policies, secret meetings where they hired and fired incriminating Yoga Alliance employees, and regulative actions between the years of 2006 through 2010 - they almost lost the right to have anything to do with yoga.
As Yoganomics has pointed out the flaws within Yoga Alliance, they have changed for the better. Are they telling the truth? No, not completely... but they are getting better at almost being partially honest, because it suits their own needs.
Yoga Alliance and the 2011 Texas Yoga
Conference
“We are right, we know what is right, we can support or sink you. Pay us a lot of money and keep quiet.”
- anonymous yoga teacher commenting on Yoga Alliance
Recorded February 26th, 2011
The real tragedy in the Yoga Alliance saga is that the people who really were affected by their dishonesty, and their complete inability to "own" their problems - are the same people who subscribe to their service. Rather than holding a healthy respect for yoga, Yoga Alliance has opened the gates and paraded low standards as a badge to be worn with pride. The board of Yoga Alliance are the new corporate titians of yoga - because thats where there focus is - which is nothing short of a reluctance to admit fault or failure.
With the New Chairs of Yoga Alliance (Annie Mahon, Brandon Hartsell, Margie Deutsch Lash, Linda Rowe) they are still headed in the direction of blatant Yoga Corporatism.
Rather than admitting that Yoga Alliance messed up, they continue to douse their embedded problems with gasoline and asking their subscribers to strike and continue to carry the torch. What yogis are simply not realizing is that by adhering to Yoga Alliance's unlawful parameters, yoga teachers are losing their ability to earn money - specifically, because Yoga Alliance rules cater to a select few, and are not enforceable, costly and useless in relation to their mediocre "novice" credentialing.
New Developments:
The Above Recordings show four important things:
John Matthews originally from Louisiana, played the Southern gentleman in Texas tonight by addressing almost every single point of contention brought up by Yoganomics. For almost two years now, Yoganomics has been pressing Yoga Alliance about the blatant misconduct and irresponsibility in handling the credentialing process for yoga - without any comment from Yoga Alliance. At the Texas Yoga Conference, John Matthews readily admits that Yoga Alliance has just filed for a new non-profit status as a Trade Association, and that at the current point and time, Yoga Alliance's Credentialing process is incomplete, openly admitting that the current structure of Yoga Alliance is not working and that the current structure is not really suited for credentialing yoga teachers.
Is Yoga Alliance too late, or will that be just the amount of standardization they need to compete for a legalized spot to credential yoga nationwide. You decide.
Without mentioning his name, John Matthews defers Yoga Alliance "credentialing" responsibility to the workings of the previous Yoga Alliance president, Mark Davis. He apologized and said that because of the beliefs of a Yoga Alliance chair "person" and one other employee, that Yoga Alliance took actions that were against the ever changing Yoga Alliance mission, and continued to say:
"We do not take a Libertarian point of view for Credentialing.... It is not in our mission to take a stand on that (Government Policies)... Rather than try to make the Government intervention work, we (Yoga Alliance) think it's better to avoid it entirely. So we (Yoga Alliance) take a straight up and down stand on it. Does that make sense?? And that has always been our position. I am so sorry that we... that we were led down... we uh, however it happened... (pause) That we took action against our own position. (reference to the older Yoga Alliance Mission) ... We don't do that anymore." [direct quote]
Yoga Alliance was saved from the ditches because of the tireless and hard work of unnamed Yoga Alliance chair Lynn Bushnell, who worked so hard to save Yoga Alliance. He continues to say that right now they are launching all new programs that they "should have launched 5, 6, or 8 years ago." [direct quote]
John Matthews went on to say that Yoga Alliance has "a very clear black and white, not nuanced position, we come down very firmly against government regulation of yoga... (even though they refuse to take a position on all) but that Yoga Alliance has tried to stay out of yoga regulation "
"I didn't know how bad things were [at Yoga Alliance]." - John Matthews [direct quote]
He continues to say that the problem with Government Regulation is that it kills smaller studios and they are the ones hardest hit. Yoga Alliance is prepared to "mitigate and insert ourselves into the marketplace and help adjust the marketplace." [Direct Quote]
One Yoga Studio owner asked Someone asked You say you don't want to be with corporate yoga, but your two new board members are very corporate... YogaFit and Sunstone Yoga, so to me they're kind of contradictory.
Willy Collins answered by saying that both corporations YogaFit and Sunstone Yoga are committed to non-regulation, but neither Willy Collins or John Matthews answered directly why Sunstone Yoga or Yogafit were chosen for Yoga Alliance's Board.
John Matthews went quite in-depth about new practices of Yoga Alliance - and although he incorrectly blamed the last Yoga Alliance President and a past Yoga Alliance worker for Yoga Alliances betrayal towards yoga, he did bring up some interesting points. Out of the 5 digital recordings that were sent, I had to listen to them four or five times each recording.
My hope is to make those recording available online very soon.
It is very important to be able to read between the lines when listening to the mostly true remarks about Yoga Alliance. I am sure that John Matthews was as honest as he could be, but without a doubt, for a fact that many of the things he said were purely speculative propaganda.
Yoga Alliance will get it right - eventually - however the real question is - will they be around as they continue to lie to the public... and will their members stick around till then.
