Worth a read if you’re following this topic.

From a legal standpoint, it’s an issue of the validity of legal paternalism, which is currently in vogue in the US. The theory here is that the state, by requiring registration, is somehow protecting the prospective consumer by “looking out for their interests,” which typically does more harm than good when you consider second-order effects. Reminds me of an old Ronald Reagan quote: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

As an industry, yoga teacher training is largely self-policing. While there’s no restriction on who can open a studio (provided the studio is able to attract enough members), studios typically choose to require teachers to have at least a 100hr teacher training certification through the Yoga Alliance or related industry organization. (NYS was actually using the Yoga Alliance public registered membership list to send their cease-and-desist letters.)

The probable purchaser of yoga teacher instruction is an avid yoga student who (1) is interested in learning more about the practice, and (2) is interested in potentially becoming a teacher in the future, but wants to learn more before they take the leap. Kelsey (my wife) recently completed her teacher training certification training, and the vast majority of her classmates didn’t know if they wanted to actually be teachers – the primary benefit was deepening their practice and learning more about what’s involved, and being certified to teach was the final benefit. These benefits were strong enough for these students to warrant paying the ~$2000 course fee.

The simple fact is that an organization like the Yoga Alliance is far better at evaluating quality of teacher training programs than any government body will ever be. By requiring an 8+ month registration process, the state is doing a few things: (1) limiting availability of quality teacher training; (2) requiring time and monetary expenses the studio / teacher could put to better use elsewhere; (3) making it more difficult for yoga studios to stay open, since the bulk of the operating revenue comes from teacher training vs. $15-20 class fees. There’s no active monitoring on the part of the state after registration, so there are many costs to this action without many benefits – any fraudulent or harmful schools (registered or unregisterd) would still be handled through civil court system proceedings, which already exists.

Individual customers are in a much better position to judge the worth of a teacher training program than the state is, since they’ll always be closer to the situation. As I said before, people should always be able to learn from or teach whomever they agree to work with, without governmental or regulatory interference.

Hope this helps!

I can think of other professions that are regulated by gov’t — CPA’s, financial advisors, public school teachers, real estate agents, lawyers, hair-dressers, builders, professional engineers, chiropractors. Pretty much anything that involves a consumer and a professional has some kind of occupational license associated with it.
These professions are loaded with businesses which thrive on teaching more teachers who “might” go out and open schools and teach more teachers, etc. (a questionable motivation to enter a business I think — thriving in an ecosystem where less than a tenth of your students will succeed as teachers opening a school?)

OK, so your post is about the yoga teachers needing an occupational license and if we put that restriction on them, there will be less of them and the consumer will not be served as well.

Unfortunately…. I think…. when you go down this road of picking and choosing who’s a teacher and who’s not, who gets an occupational license and who doesn’t, you get mired up in this mess trying to answer the question, “who is being served by this rule?”.

You say the state. The state says the consumer.

To that argument there is no clear side. And so I submit that this new law is simultaneously harmful and virtuous.

Help me understand where I am misguided.

It seems to me that our society has allowed a number of flies in the ointment grow into matters of legislation. The long range implications of which are disconcerting at best.

While I’ll never be surprised at the lengths legislators will go to get their hands in other people’s business (and pockets), this was probably spurred on by the Yoga establishment. Who is more likely to push for this legislation: overworked, underfunded politicians, or those who stand to profit from raising barriers to entry for competitors.

My guess is that Big Yoga is pushing this legislation — a Yoga trade group (or groups?), possibly some large Yoga-training chains, maybe even producers of yoga DVDs (who would gain sales if it became too expensive to get one-on-one training).

If you allow me to indulge in paranoia for a second, Big Pharma probably kicked in some funds too — who wants people getting relaxed and finding inner peace naturally when there’s a perfectly good prescription pill they could buy?