In 1999 the House of Lords published a report into complementary therapies in which they called for the regulation of the professions. They broke therapies up into two categories. Class 1, for which they called for statutory regulation and included acupuncture and herbal medicine, and Class 2 for which they called for voluntary regulation. This covered the majority of the other therapies. Although this group included yoga therapy, it did not include yoga itself, and I will come back to this a little later.

Following the publication of this report a number of emerging regulatory bodies were set up with a view to organising and regulating the individual therapies. I personally had been involved in the Nutritional Therapy Council since its conception and more lately the Aromatherapy Education Working Party and the British Council for Yoga Therapy. Initially a little bit of funding was available from the Prince of Wales Foundation to assist groups mainly in appointing an independent chair, but all the rest of the work was done on a voluntary basis. After initially reviewing the current situation and approximating (because that’s the best that could be done), the number of therapists in each profession, the next and most important task of each emerging regulatory body was to set training standards.

Group 1 therapies are required by the government to obtain statutory regulation. This means that they will be officially recognised and governed, and following a Commons Bill, will be on statute books. They will also have protection of title. This means that only people who are trained to the required standard and are on the register of the regulatory body will be able to call themselves an acupuncturist or a herbalist. However, with Group 2 therapies the House of Lords called for voluntary regulation, meaning that standards that are set are done so on a voluntary basis and that therapists join the register voluntarily.

Most therapies are now at the stage where they have prepared and published their core curriculum and those schools and colleges who wish to work with the voluntary regulation bodies and who wish their students to be able to join the register, now at last have a set of standards to work to. Prior to this, therapies were trained at different levels in different aspects of the therapy. There were no overall guidelines for educators to work to. We now have a situation where training standards are set at a higher level and that those who train to these levels can be assured that they are receiving the best training available. It also means that their clients will also know that their therapist has received good training and is a competent practitioner.

Now I’ll come back to yoga. As I said, yoga therapy was placed under Class 2, however, yoga was not. All Class 1 and Class 2 therapists come under the auspices of the government’s Skills for Health Department which unfortunately is not the case with yoga. As everybody will appreciate, to set standards for yoga is extremely difficult.

Yoga is a way of life that is built up over many years of study and practice. There are many different aspects of yoga and many different methods of studying it. I personally am of the opinion that the only standards that can be set for yoga teachers is that they have an adequate knowledge of anatomy and physiology and a good understanding of health and safety so their classes are run in a safe and organised manner. Good class room skills is important too – a brilliant yogi but with poor verbal skills, pacing, range and no eye contact does not retain and nurture students. What they teach will be up to them, and will of course be based on their own studies, beliefs and philosophies, and this is the way that it should be.

Sadly, you will find opportunists in every walk of life, and this I’m afraid, does not exclude yoga. One leading organisation unable to work under the auspices of Skills for Health turned to another government quango, Skills Active, in order to try and bring about regulation which was never called for. By doing so, this particular organisation is attempting to take yoga down the route of a fitness exercise. It is trying to restrict the ability of genuine highly trained yoga teachers passing on the benefits of this ancient practice.

As could easily have been predicted, this is not a situation that was going to be accepted by the vast majority of yoga teachers and as a result the Independent Yoga Network was formed. The purpose of the IYN is to bring together established, reputable, and dedicated yoga teacher training organisations in order to establish safe working standards for yoga teachers without putting them into a straightjacket of conformity which can only restrict their ability to be good yogis. I think everyone will agree that training standards are necessary and desirable as long as they do not restrict the ability to perform the task in a caring, holistic, and spiritual manner. “Times are a changing”, and we must make sure that they change for the better.

The above contribution represents the personal views/researches of the author - a founder member of: www.independentyoganetwork.org. Peter White (Principal) may be contacted directly at: peter@kevala.co.uk or www.kevala.co.uk (International tel: + 44 1803 215678 fax: + 44 1803 215609 UK tel: 01803 215678 fax: 01803 215609)

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