October 9th, 2026 Q & A
It felt important that the questions asked were anonymous, so I recorded a summary of the questions and of my report that you can listen to like a podcast. -R
I also built a checklist called The Yoga Alliance “Before You Renew” Checklist. Find it here.
THE TRANSCRIPT. Downloadable here.
title: "Yoga Alliance Q&A Recap: Transcript" subtitle: "Private podcast episode, recorded October 9, 2026"
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Questions from attendees are anonymized because we deserve to ask candid questions without worry.
Opening
Hi friends, it's Rebecca. Welcome to this private kind-of-podcast episode. If you joined me for the Yoga Alliance Q&A earlier today, on Friday, October 9th, thank you. And if you registered and couldn't make it, this one's for you.
Instead of a replay, I put together the best of Friday's session: what we know so far, and the questions you asked, answered properly. This is how I'm going to do these from now on when I have Q&As, because I want live sessions to stay live. Afterward, everyone gets a recap like this one. That way, the people who ask questions get to stay anonymous, and we get to actually talk. Which means you can ask me the hard stuff and not worry that the entire world is listening to you do it.
And you get the answers in about 25 minutes of recording, without the waiting-for-people-to-unmute parts. And mostly without the me going, "Oh my God, everybody's here, and I'm so grateful" parts, because I said that a lot.
So here's what we're going to cover: what we know so far about the Yoga Alliance changes, why this connects to Issue 2 of Inside Yoga Magazine, and the questions you asked.
What we know so far
The announcement
First is the announcement. I covered this a little bit in my social media post.
Yoga Alliance announced that starting in 2027, membership and the credential become two separate things. Right now, when you pay your dues, you're paying for both together, and it's a registry, not a credential. After 2027, those are two different products.
The credential will move toward what they call demonstrated competency. That means passing an assessment, not just completing training hours. Yoga Alliance is going to offer an optional course to prepare for that assessment. And they say the new credential is modeled on best practices from the Institute for Credentialing Excellence.
"Modeled on" is not the same as "accredited by." I did check the Institute for Credentialing Excellence's directory of accredited programs, and no yoga certification program is on there at all, from Yoga Alliance or anyone else.
Membership is also opening up beyond teachers, to people Yoga Alliance calls practitioners: people who practice yoga but don't teach.
And right now, if you join or renew, they'll hold today's rate through your 2029 renewal. More on that when we get to cost. As of now, they have not told anyone how much any of this is going to cost.
The webinar
Yoga Alliance released a 42-minute video last week explaining how they got here. They worked with a research firm called Forum One and surveyed 1,904 people in 2024. A few things stood out to me. It's worth saying that I transcribed this webinar myself, and if you want the transcript, you can hit reply and I'll get it to you.
First is their 71% number, which they have in really big letters on their website. Yoga Alliance's webpage says that 71% of respondents are likely to seek, quote, "a teacher with a credential from Yoga Alliance," unquote. But in the webinar, the line is that 71% would seek out "a credentialed teacher." Any credential. Yoga Alliance's name isn't in it. And the very next statistic they share in that same webinar is that only 35% of all respondents had heard of Yoga Alliance at all.
So these two things don't match up, and we should be taking notice. One says that people value a credentialed or trained teacher, which makes sense. The other is marketing for Yoga Alliance.
Second, their own researchers said that the credential is, quote, "carrying more public safety weight in the practitioner's mind than it was ever built to carry." That's their finding, not mine. Students say safety matters most to them, and most of them have also never checked their teacher's credential. I believe we need to have a real reckoning about student safety on all levels, and Yoga Alliance's own research findings agree with that.
Third, the research told them what you would be worried about, what the public and teachers would be worried about. Support for their credential changes was, in their words, "roughly six in 10," but, also quoting, "it wasn't enthusiastic." The top worries were cost and what happens to people who are already certified. Those are the two questions the announcement still doesn't answer. Instead, at the end of the webinar, we're told, again quoting: "I'm excited to offer a different perspective: learning and professional development as a form of service." I'm going to talk about that more in a little bit.
And one more number for context. Of those 1,904 survey respondents, 1,305 were practitioners: people who practice but don't teach or run a business. That means 68.5% of the respondents are not people who teach or run a business.
Yoga Alliance's response to me
I sent about 10 questions, I think it was 11, to Yoga Alliance last week as a journalist, and they did respond to me. A representative wrote, "We are sharing the details of these changes with members first and in phases rather than releasing everything at once." And they said members with questions can email info@yogaalliance.org.
They didn't answer any of my specific questions. I've since sent follow-ups, and whatever they say will go in the article I'm writing about this. I also asked the person who responded to me to verify their name and title, which I'm still waiting on.
The Issue 2 frame
If you're new here, I also run Inside Yoga Magazine, a trade publication for working yoga professionals. Issue 2 is The Accountability Issue, and its central argument is that accountability in the yoga industry is performed rather than practiced.
I didn't plan for this announcement to land in the same month as the Accountability Issue. But this is exactly what that argument looks like in real life: a big announcement, a lot of language about listening and transparency, and then the questions that matter most, like cost and what happens to current credential holders, left for later.
Keep that frame in mind as I answer the questions that came up.
Question 1: Do current credential holders have to "up-level"?
This one came in ahead of time, from someone who holds an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher and a Registered Yoga School credential. What she asked me was: "From what I can tell, this update doesn't require additional credentialing for current E-RYTs or RYSs. It seems to be focused on accountability, opening registration to students, and reorganizing classifications, presumably with additional fees attached. Am I reading that correctly?"
The short answer is that nothing Yoga Alliance has published says current credential holders must up-level. But nothing rules it out either. That gap is the problem.
Here's what they've said. In the webinar, they framed the question as, "How do we open the door wider without diminishing what our current members have already earned?" That sounds reassuring, but it isn't a policy. They also said the credential is moving toward, quote, "education requirements paired with demonstrated competency," unquote. What they haven't said is whether that applies to people who already hold the credential, or only to new applicants.
Their own research flagged this. Forum One reported "genuine fear," and that's their quote, among experienced teachers about losing standing and having to backtrack over something they'd already done. So they know this is a question. They just haven't answered it yet.
On the rest of your read: you're right about opening membership to students and reorganizing how membership and credentials fit together. And "presumably with additional fees" is a fair guess, but it's still a guess, because they haven't published prices.
One correction, though: this update isn't really focused on accountability. There's a short paragraph about a new accountability framework on their webpage, but the 42-minute webinar doesn't mention it at all.
So my advice, again, is to email info@yogaalliance.org and ask directly whether your current credentials will require an assessment, and by when. Then forward me what they say, please. The more members ask, the harder it is to leave this unanswered. If you're listening to this and you have that same question, the more we flood Yoga Alliance with these emails, the more they'll be pushed to answer our questions.
Who decides what a credential means?
That question about up-leveling leads to a bigger one I talked about in the session: who decides what a credential means, and who holds them accountable for it?
The philosophy finding
This connects to the philosophy finding, which we talked about in the Q&A as well. In the webinar, Yoga Alliance said they asked what makes a good teacher, and their quote was, "Philosophy scored lower than expected." They said they focused instead on core skills, regardless of the tradition or philosophy a teacher comes from.
So I want you to think about why people come to yoga. They come to us for achy backs, for stress, for anxiety, for grief, for mobility, because a doctor told them to. Almost nobody walks into their first yoga class and says, "Please tell me about the yamas and niyamas." That's not a failure on the students' part. It's our job as teachers to show them that philosophy is part of this tradition.
So of course philosophy scored low with a group that is more than two-thirds students. You can't miss what nobody has shown you yet. Yoga Alliance hasn't said whether philosophy scored low with teachers too. But if students' answers helped push philosophy down the list, then the people who know the least about the tradition helped decide how much it matters.
Who chose the competencies?
Related to that is another question I saw a lot on my Facebook post, because that post reached something like 20,000 people and a lot of people were commenting: who chose the competencies?
They describe the competencies as coming from the community. Their words: "The community handed us a curriculum." They also say, again quoting, that they "took a close look at the data and noticed what the competencies have in common." So the community answered the survey, and Yoga Alliance decided what the answers meant.
When they ranked ideas after the research, it was, in their words, "the full leadership and program team in one room." So my question is: did they ask anybody else? Were there experienced teachers, teacher trainers, or experts of any kind, in yoga or in assessment, involved in deciding what you'll be tested on? They haven't really said. And if more than two-thirds of the survey respondents were students, again, that's not a small detail. They've only said it was the full leadership and program team in one room. We don't know who else, if anybody, they asked.
What it takes to call something a credential
In that vein, someone else in the session asked what it takes to call something a credential.
Here's the thing about credentials. Anyone can call something a credential. There's no law against it. What makes a credential mean something is accountability from outside the organization that issues it.
In professions that take this seriously, that usually looks like:
A practice analysis, where experienced professionals define what the job actually is.
A validated exam, built by assessment experts, not just written by an organization's staff.
Separation between training and testing, which I referenced briefly in the session, and I'm really grateful I get to expand on it here. The people selling the prep shouldn't be the people writing the test. Those two things need to be separate.
A real disciplinary process that can actually take a credential away. That gives a credential more validity.
Third-party accreditation, from bodies like NCCA, which is run by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence, or ANAB, which uses an international standard for credentialing.
Yoga Alliance says its new credential is modeled on the Institute for Credentialing Excellence's best practices. "Modeled on" means they looked at the rules. It doesn't mean anyone outside Yoga Alliance is checking whether they followed them.
Without outside accountability, declaring yourself a credential is a little like Michael Scott standing in the middle of the office yelling, "I declare bankruptcy!" Saying it doesn't make it so.
So the most important question isn't just what the credential will measure. It's who checks Yoga Alliance's work. Until they answer that, the credential means whatever Yoga Alliance says it means.
Question 2: How much does a credential cost?
In short, we don't know.
Here's what we know for sure about today's prices, from Yoga Alliance's own page. For teachers, annual dues are $65, and that covers membership and the credential together. New Registered Yoga Teacher applicants pay a one-time $50 fee. For schools, it's $240 a year, plus a one-time $400 application fee for new schools. If you join or renew now, Yoga Alliance says it will hold that rate through your 2029 renewal.
What we don't know is literally everything after that. Yoga Alliance hasn't published what membership will cost in 2027, what the credential will cost on its own, what the assessment will cost, whether the prep course will be free or paid, or what specialty designations will cost.
So here's what bothers me about this. Think about how it feels when someone asks you to get on a call before they've told you how much their program costs. "Hey, let's hop on a call and I can tell you all about it." Yoga Alliance is asking people to lock in a rate before the end of the year, for a product that hasn't been priced for the future, while saying more details are coming later this year.
And they know this is a question. In the webinar, their learning and development lead said it out loud; I quoted it earlier. When people hear credentials are changing, she said, they think, "What now? What else do I have to do? What is it going to cost me?" She said she understood that completely. And then she offered "a different perspective": learning and professional development "as a form of service."
I want to sit in the pause of that word for a second. To most people, "service" is a neutral word. To us, it is not. In yoga, service, or seva, has a long history of being the language used to ask teachers for unpaid labor. I don't know if that's what she intended. But that's the word they chose, at the exact moment they chose not to answer a question about cost.
One more thing. In the same webinar, Yoga Alliance said the new membership will deliver "an estimated $5,000 value each year." That's their quote. Their own strategic plan says "member value has to exceed what it costs." So they've put a number on the value, but they haven't put a number on the cost. And we can't do the math on whether this is a good deal without both numbers.
For comparison: what other credentials cost
Another question was: what do other credentials typically cost? In other words, what does a credential cost in professions where you actually have to pass an exam?
In the Q&A, I said around $250. But since I'm doing this private podcast for everybody, I got the chance to go back and quote real numbers, so I did a little research this afternoon.
The National Pilates Certification exam costs $295, which covers the application, the test, and your first two years.
The yoga therapy credential from IAYT, the C-IAYT, which is a credential I once paid for, is a one-time application fee of $225 to $250. If you started your program after July 2023, there's also a $230 certification exam. Then it's $85 a year in membership and $130 to recertify every three years.
The massage licensing exam, the MBLEx, is $265, and that's before your state charges anything for the license itself.
Personal trainer certifications from organizations like NASM or ACSM, which are externally validated, run roughly $900 to $1,400 for a package that includes study materials and the exam.
So compared to Yoga Alliance's $65 a year, plus a $50 fee if it's your first time, credentials that require an exam usually cost hundreds of dollars up front, plus renewal fees. And remember, that's on top of what you already paid for your training.
I'm not telling you what Yoga Alliance will charge, because I don't know, and they haven't said. But if they're building an assessment, a prep course, and specialty designations, it would be very unusual for all of that to stay at $65 a year. That's exactly why the price should be public before anyone is asked to lock anything in.
So, how much does a credential cost? Today, $65 a year. After 2027, Yoga Alliance hasn't said.
Question 3: What can we do about abuse at studios?
Someone asked what we can do about people who abuse folks at studios. Is there anything to be done about it? Is Yoga Alliance taking up the charge?
I want to take this one slowly, because it matters to me, and to all of us, more than anything else we've talked about. If you were on the call, I probably ranted a little bit on this one. This particular topic hits a nerve for me, and for a lot of us, I think.
So of course, first: if someone is in danger, call 911. If what happened is a crime, including sexual assault, it can be reported to the police. And if you or someone you know needs support, the National Sexual Assault Hotline is 800-656-4673, and it's available any time. It is my deep responsibility to share that information with you.
Second, here are the other places you can go, and what we can do:
The studio. Tell the owner or manager in writing, so there's a record. Write down what happened, when, and who was there.
Yoga Alliance, if the person holds a Yoga Alliance credential. Right now, the "File a Claim" link is at the bottom of their website, and it goes to their general help center contact page. They've announced a new Restorative Accountability Framework, but they haven't said how it will work or who will run it.
A licensing board, if the person holds another license. Many yoga teachers are also licensed as massage therapists, physical therapists, or counselors. Those professions have state boards that take complaints seriously. We should too.
An attorney, who can help you understand your options.
Now, is anything being done about it? Here's the honest answer: in the U.S., there's no government license for yoga teachers. There's no state board that can take away someone's right to teach yoga. So accountability depends on studios, on organizations like Yoga Alliance, and on us.
This is exactly why Issue 2 of Inside Yoga exists. Magnolia Zuniga takes on sexual assault and accountability in yoga. Kate Hart Walters writes about accountability in teacher training programs. And the Labor and Profession column looks at how Yoga Alliance and IAYT actually handle grievances. If this question is on your mind, I'd start there.
I'm also working on a standalone piece about accountability at Yoga Alliance. It's going through legal review right now, so I can't share anything about it yet. But when it's ready, you'll be the first to know, my friends.
Question 4: Is Yoga Alliance a 501(c)(3)?
This is a question I didn't expect to talk about, but I should have, because it's very confusing for people. Is Yoga Alliance a 501(c)(3) nonprofit? No.
Yoga Alliance is a 501(c)(6) organization. Its separate foundation, the Yoga Alliance Foundation, is the 501(c)(3). And the Yoga Alliance Foundation holds most of their money. Their website calls both of them "Yoga Alliance," which is a big part of why people get confused.
So here's the difference. A 501(c)(3) is a charity. Donations to it are generally tax-deductible, and it's limited in how much it can lobby the government.
A 501(c)(6) is a business league, the same category as a trade association or a chamber of commerce. It exists to promote the common business interests of a profession. Dues to a 501(c)(6) aren't charitable donations. And that's who we've been paying dues to: the 501(c)(6). Let me reread that definition: it exists to promote the common business interests of a profession. That's who you're paying dues to. Your dues may count as a business expense; of course, check with your tax preparer. And a (c)(6) can lobby the government on behalf of its industry without the limits a (c)(3) has.
Why does this matter? Because a (c)(6) is supposed to serve the people who work in the profession. That's us. So when Yoga Alliance opens membership to practitioners, who we would call students, people who don't teach or run a yoga business, it's a fair question how that fits with being a business league for yoga professionals. Associate and student memberships are common, so it isn't automatically a problem. But it's worth watching how big that membership becomes, and whose interests it serves.
And one more thing: because Yoga Alliance is a tax-exempt organization, its annual filing, the Form 990, is public, and anyone can read it. I've been through several years of them. Too many years of them. And that's where a whole bunch of my reporting starts.
What now?
This is the part of our live session today that I didn't really expect to talk about. But it's worth acknowledging that this is the question people ask me most often, because it's where pretty much every conversation I have these days ends up. Once people understand what Yoga Alliance has and hasn't said, the real question is: okay, so now what do we do?
I want to be honest with you. We can keep waiting for national or international organizations to take care of us, or we can start building what we actually need for ourselves. And I think it's time for the second one. I really do.
Build local and regional networks
We need to build local and regional networks. If you're outside the United States, countries are typically smaller than ours, so you can actually build organizations per country or per region.
The single loudest finding in Yoga Alliance's own research, the one they talked about in this webinar, was that people want connection: real connection, in person, with other teachers near them. You don't need anyone's permission to build that.
Start small. Find three or four teachers and studio owners in your area. Go get coffee. Share what you charge, what's working, and what isn't. Talk about the student who worries you, or the studio policy that doesn't sit right. Regional networks are where we can share information, back each other up, and eventually advocate together. If you're in the U.S., or a country with states, regions, or provinces, that's the level where most of the decisions actually happen, and we can start advocating together there too.
If you want a starting point, The Work column in Issue 2 is about exactly this.
Get good at research
The next thing you can do, if it calls to you: get really good at research. You don't have to take anyone's word for anything, including mine. Learn to read that Form 990. Learn to ask who was surveyed and how. When an organization gives you a statistic, ask what the question actually was. Everything I've shared with you in this mini podcast episode came from public documents and their own video. Y'all can do this too.
Get good at business
The third thing is to get good at business. Yoga Alliance's research said the biggest gap for teachers was business survival: pricing, contracts, insurance, marketing, operations. I agree with that assessment. And here's the thing: that knowledge shouldn't depend on any one organization deciding to give it to you. The more we understand the business side of our work, and share it with others, the less anyone can sell us a solution we haven't priced.
Practice big-picture thinking
Practice big-picture thinking. This whole situation is a lesson in systems: a credential, a membership, a survey, a deadline. None of it happens in isolation. All these things are connected. When you start asking, every time something is put in front of you, who benefits, who decides, and who's accountable, you start to see the industry a little differently. That's the kind of thinking that lets us stop reacting to announcements and start shaping what comes next for ourselves.
What I'm building
That's what I'm going to be focusing on next year, in 2027, in The Back Room: helping people build local and regional networks, get good at research, get good at business, and think bigger about this profession. If that's what you need, I'd love to see you there.
Because the answer to "what now" isn't another membership. It's us, getting organized. We are the answer. And I do think now is the time.
Wrap-up
So here's where we are. Yoga Alliance's own research told them that cost and what happens to current credential holders are the two biggest worries. Those are the two things they haven't answered yet. Meanwhile, they're asking people to lock in a price before the end of the year.
That's not information distribution. They're not trying to make sure you see it clearly. They're trying to manage us. That's management.
A few things you can do:
Use the Before You Renew checklist I'm sending with this recording. It's in the email. It's built for exactly this decision. I built it this afternoon; I've been busy since this webinar. It's an offshoot of the Organization Reflection Checklist I've had in The Back Room.
Ask Yoga Alliance yourself at info@yogaalliance.org. And if you're so inspired, send me what they tell you.
If you took their survey, if you were one of those 1,904 people, I'd love to hear from you privately, or you can send me a message on social media.
Read Issue 2 of Inside Yoga Magazine, The Accountability Issue. It's the context for everything we talked about today.
My full article on the Membership Reimagined changes is coming soon, including whatever Yoga Alliance says in response to my follow-up questions.
Thank you for listening, and for asking good questions. I get to do this work because I run an independent media company dedicated to you all. So of course, if you haven't subscribed, please consider a subscription to support this work. I'm so grateful if you listened to this whole thing.
Let's go get to work, my friends. And as I always say on the podcast, I'll catch you around the water cooler next time.