‘The Yoga Police Are Real’

Abstract

The development of modern yoga has inevitably involved the development of diverse forms of institutionalized authority. Recent years have seen increasing criticism by yoga teachers of Yoga Alliance and similar, more localized bodies that accredit the teaching of contemporary yoga in national and transnational contexts. That criticism involves demands for both accountability and individual freedom. Put simply, while some demand that yoga institutions hold their members to account for ethical transgressions, others are equally determined to prevent this power being held by any specific institution. As older systems of patriarchal, institutionalized authority within yoga are breaking down, and financial precarity increases, the emerging calls to professionalize or regulate yoga teaching from multiple quarters are increasingly incompatible with a widespread distrust of formal institutionalization. This article uses a series of case studies detailing attempts to reform yoga teaching in the US and the UK. These examples provide illuminate a fast-evolving situation that is key to defining and controlling the future of transnational yoga in localized practice. I ask: what can we learn from these encounters about the nature of authority and its relationship to vernacular knowledge? How do national contexts shape transnational concerns? And how might contemporary yoga evolve to reconcile the twin issues of student safety and freedom of expression?