HEALTH | YOGA | WOMEN’S HEALTH
Is Yoga a Dangerous Place for Women?
Especially when Yoga Alliance doesn’t require staff background checks.
Strangely, Yoga Alliance — the international governing body of yoga schools and teachers, whose mission is to ‘advocate self-regulation in the yoga industry and universal access to safe practices’ — doesn’t require a police, disclosure or background check as part of the qualifying process when new yoga teachers graduate their 200, 300 or 500 hr certified teacher trainings.
No problem there you may say.
But even during the recruiting process, yoga studios and retreat centers who hire teachers have no legal requirement to screen potential staff in this way. Staff who, no matter how many Om Shanti’s they’ve chanted, are tasked with leading a room of emotionally and physically vulnerable students, where touching is permissible and often occurs without verbal consent. And, the majority — a whopping 72% — of whom are women, are typically wearing little more than micro-Lycra triangles or less.
Which, when you think about it, is pretty darn weird.
Who wants a criminal, abuser or sex offender resting their hand on your third eye, or spreading over your inner thigh, tweaking your down facing dog?
