Empower
Elevate
Collaborate
Mentor
Organize
Honor
We believe that yoga is a lifelong journey and that collectively we have the ability to create space in which all practitioners feel safe, supported, and empowered, with clear pathways to lifelong study. To do this, we must address ethics and quality within the professional community—and create and agree to mutual accountability. By choosing transparency and communication from the outset, with a foundation in ethics, we can ensure that the field of yoga as a practice and study is both elevated and preserved, to the benefit of many.
This is why all YU members participate in the structure of the organization. Qualified professionals rotate into peer review panels, and anyone may nominate fellow members—of any level—to rotating seats on Governing Councils. As you explore your own yogic journey, we mark those milestones and allow them to be witnessed. In doing so, we lift each other up, do the work of reigning in the ego, take care of one another, and support the evolution of the yoga community.
Grants / Scholarships
- Create the guidelines for redistributing the majority of revenue above operating expenses back out into the yoga community in the form of grants for professionals, scholarships for all, and funding for research.
- Develop sliding scale fee structure.
- Form strategic partnerships for scholarships.
Diversity / Equity
- Create action plans to support and nurture organizations, studios, schools and professionals with the aim to diversify the yoga space. Focus on identifying and dismantling systems and status quo practices that prevent and preclude equitable access to yoga across racial, accessible, and economic constructs.
- Reflect this equity within the organization board and staff, grant and scholarship distribution, and Qualified Professional representation.
Grassroots Organization
- Create and implement the most forward-thinking grassroots approach to build a yoga network that includes students, professionals, studios, schools, and organizations with the aim of recognizing our mutual accountability and responsibility.
- Develop regional chapters, inviting leadership and conversation within local yoga communities.
Professional Ethics
- Develop a strategy around prevention, education, and yogic ethics as applied to both the teacher and the student.
- Create a system of accountability for the qualified teacher, studio, and school that has been awarded Qualification with YU.
- Partner with #NotMe to create an app for policies, simple reporting, and communication with members.
Qualifications / Peer Review
- Construct the process and guidelines for recognizing yoga teachers at their current level of competency, based on individual peer review.
- Embrace educators and professionals across traditions.
- Develop peer review processes for awarding qualification.
Educational Structure
- Develop a clear and navigable organization of yoga studies to create searchable pathways to learning for yoga students and for yoga professionals continuing education.
- Make Yoga Unify Catalog of studies and Qualified YU Professionals Directory widely available.
- Implement Mentor Program and student advisors to nurture and support continuing yoga studies.