The Origin and Roots of the Canadian Yoga Alliance
A note from the Founder, Violet Pasztor Wilson
After thirteen years, the Canadian Yoga Alliance has grown into an alliance of 2000 yoga teachers and complementary health care practitioners. This article is about CYA’s origin and reason for being. It is an interesting story that I would love to share with our members.
Fifteen years ago when I was an active yoga teacher of ten years full-time practice and five years of teaching experience, I was interested in joining Yoga Alliance in the U.S.A. I felt that it was relevant to join an active Yoga Alliance because I was a yoga teacher and my life was teaching yoga and living yoga. I wanted to join an association with a community of like-minded individuals and thought YA was that association.
To my dismay I was informed by YA that I was not qualified for membership and that I would have to study with one of their registered YA teachers in order to become a member or registered yoga teacher. This meant that I would have to study with an individual who may have had only 200 hrs. of teacher training and 1,000 hours of teaching experience.
I had spent ten years learning yoga; studying on my own with various teachers and, practicing daily before even considering teaching. When I made the decision to quit the mainstream world and live ‘yoga’, I taught full-time, sometimes 30 classes per week, and opened my own yoga studio. I had many yoga students, dedicated and growing as yogis themselves. Now, YA was telling me that I wasn’t qualified and didn’t meet their requirements to be registered.
The I Ching states, 'Out of Chaos comes Opportunity' and being the optimist that I am, I decided to do some research on what was available in Canada. With some background experience in internet and domain registration, I discovered that Canadian Yoga Alliance was an available domain that could be registered. I immediately felt that this was my destiny and decided at that moment that I was going to start Canadian Yoga Alliance.
A note from the Founder, Violet Pasztor Wilson
After thirteen years, the Canadian Yoga Alliance has grown into an alliance of 2000 yoga teachers and complementary health care practitioners. This article is about CYA’s origin and reason for being. It is an interesting story that I would love to share with our members.
Fifteen years ago when I was an active yoga teacher of ten years full-time practice and five years of teaching experience, I was interested in joining Yoga Alliance in the U.S.A. I felt that it was relevant to join an active Yoga Alliance because I was a yoga teacher and my life was teaching yoga and living yoga. I wanted to join an association with a community of like-minded individuals and thought YA was that association.
To my dismay I was informed by YA that I was not qualified for membership and that I would have to study with one of their registered YA teachers in order to become a member or registered yoga teacher. This meant that I would have to study with an individual who may have had only 200 hrs. of teacher training and 1,000 hours of teaching experience.
I had spent ten years learning yoga; studying on my own with various teachers and, practicing daily before even considering teaching. When I made the decision to quit the mainstream world and live ‘yoga’, I taught full-time, sometimes 30 classes per week, and opened my own yoga studio. I had many yoga students, dedicated and growing as yogis themselves. Now, YA was telling me that I wasn’t qualified and didn’t meet their requirements to be registered.
The I Ching states, 'Out of Chaos comes Opportunity' and being the optimist that I am, I decided to do some research on what was available in Canada. With some background experience in internet and domain registration, I discovered that Canadian Yoga Alliance was an available domain that could be registered. I immediately felt that this was my destiny and decided at that moment that I was going to start Canadian Yoga Alliance.
I formed the CANADIAN YOGA ALLIANCE in 2002. Membership was free at that time. CYA needed a Manifesto and my very close friend David Donnelly and I co-wrote the CYA Manifesto. We spent a few very intense evenings together going over what we felt CANADIAN YOGA ALLIANCE should be, and what it should not be.
We all know that if we upload anything to the internet, eventually somebody will see it or read it and better yet, share it with friends. Unbeknownst to us our CYA Manifesto was read by yogis all over the world within a short period of time.
A few months later, we were invited to become honorary members of the International Yoga Federation. At that time, we didn’t know who or what the IYF was. We really didn't know how to respond to this association as we were not interested in belonging to another association that dictated yogic policies. We researched IYF a bit and discovered it was, in fact an organization that was about pure Yoga; it's president at the time was Swami Maitreyananda . I decided to accept the membership.
We would get email from the IYF Yahoo group on a regular basis and kept an eye on what was happening in the yoga world. Not long after it came to our attention that YA in the U.S.A. didn’t like our Manifesto. We read and re-read commentary from the international yoga community and to our amazement we were informed that the IYF had revoked YA’s membership because of their derogatory comments about CYA. It appeared that the IYF was defending CYA. Shocking! but interesting and, to top it all off, I wasn’t even aware of what had been going on behind the scenes. It all seemed so silly to me. Why on earth do ‘yogis’ act like non-yogis? Possibly it has nothing to do with yoga but everything to do with ‘business’– the business of yoga.
A few years after founding CYA, we grew into the hundreds. I was now spending more time registering and organizing yoga teachers than ever before. I had to implement a small fee for membership to cover the time I was spending doing the admin tasks. After a while, I realized that the CYA was going to be a full-time venture and eventually was working full-time.
I formed the CANADIAN YOGA ALLIANCE in 2002. Membership was free at that time. CYA needed a Manifesto and my very close friend David Donnelly and I co-wrote the CYA Manifesto. We spent a few very intense evenings together going over what we felt CANADIAN YOGA ALLIANCE should be, and what it should not be.
We all know that if we upload anything to the internet, eventually somebody will see it or read it and better yet, share it with friends. Unbeknownst to us our CYA Manifesto was read by yogis all over the world within a short period of time.
A few months later, we were invited to become honorary members of the International Yoga Federation. At that time, we didn’t know who or what the IYF was. We really didn't know how to respond to this association as we were not interested in belonging to another association that dictated yogic policies. We researched IYF a bit and discovered it was, in fact an organization that was about pure Yoga; it's president at the time was Swami Maitreyananda . I decided to accept the membership.
We would get email from the IYF Yahoo group on a regular basis and kept an eye on what was happening in the yoga world. Not long after it came to our attention that YA in the U.S.A. didn’t like our Manifesto. We read and re-read commentary from the international yoga community and to our amazement we were informed that the IYF had revoked YA’s membership because of their derogatory comments about CYA. It appeared that the IYF was defending CYA. Shocking! but interesting and, to top it all off, I wasn’t even aware of what had been going on behind the scenes. It all seemed so silly to me. Why on earth do ‘yogis’ act like non-yogis? Possibly it has nothing to do with yoga but everything to do with ‘business’– the business of yoga.
A few years after founding CYA, we grew into the hundreds. I was now spending more time registering and organizing yoga teachers than ever before. I had to implement a small fee for membership to cover the time I was spending doing the admin tasks. After a while, I realized that the CYA was going to be a full-time venture and eventually was working full-time.
Over time, members began asking for insurance and I looked around to get our members the best possible deal for insurance. It was difficult then to acquire insurance of this kind (independent yoga coverage) as it was a new product with which underwriters had little experience. One day, I received a telephone call from Lackner McLennan Insurance and we negotiated a policy for our members. At that time, CYA was the only organization in North America offering this type of yoga insurance for yoga teachers. Our insurance coverage included many complementary health modalities as well as yoga.
Three years later, I found another insurance company that would offer our members an even better rate as well as international insurance for traveling yogis. We formed an agreement with Hub International a couple years ago and I’m happy to say still using Hub to this day.
Summing up, as representatives of our members, we must prove that the teachers have proper training. Thus, CYA requests certificates of training from our registered yoga teachers. In the beginning this was not required for CYA membership; however, today it is a fundamental requirement for membership that includes insurance.
CYA collects training certificates (and now reference letters to authenticate certificates) so that we may continue to offer our members insurance and be confident that they have met the international standard of 200 hr. yogic training. When we send out our own CYA certificate, this indicates that we have the necessary documents on file to prove that these teachers are certified or insured. Last but not least, please note that CYA is not the ‘yoga police’! We do not investigate every teacher, school, or business. We have, however, viewed thousands of certificates over the years and have access to information about training schools, teachers and various organizations that certify.
All said and done, CYA is now a going concern. We recently welcomed Sandra Sammartino into our alliance. As the original founder of Yoga Alliance in the U.S.A, we are so happy and delighted that she is now a member and advisor of CYA. Yves Panneton a senior yogi under the tutelage of Swami Sivananda and Joanne Preece have also joined our team as advisors. You can find all three of them on our web-site under 'About Us'.
Last but not least, one of our future-visions for CYA is an EC0-DOME community based on the philosophy of Ubuntu. It may take a few years, but I hope the reader will follow CYA on it's journey into the future and the evolving world of yoga. Thank-you for reading.
Love, Light & Blessings
Violet Pasztor Wilson
Founder, Canadian Yoga Alliance
Three years later, I found another insurance company that would offer our members an even better rate as well as international insurance for traveling yogis. We formed an agreement with Hub International a couple years ago and I’m happy to say still using Hub to this day.
Summing up, as representatives of our members, we must prove that the teachers have proper training. Thus, CYA requests certificates of training from our registered yoga teachers. In the beginning this was not required for CYA membership; however, today it is a fundamental requirement for membership that includes insurance.
CYA collects training certificates (and now reference letters to authenticate certificates) so that we may continue to offer our members insurance and be confident that they have met the international standard of 200 hr. yogic training. When we send out our own CYA certificate, this indicates that we have the necessary documents on file to prove that these teachers are certified or insured. Last but not least, please note that CYA is not the ‘yoga police’! We do not investigate every teacher, school, or business. We have, however, viewed thousands of certificates over the years and have access to information about training schools, teachers and various organizations that certify.
All said and done, CYA is now a going concern. We recently welcomed Sandra Sammartino into our alliance. As the original founder of Yoga Alliance in the U.S.A, we are so happy and delighted that she is now a member and advisor of CYA. Yves Panneton a senior yogi under the tutelage of Swami Sivananda and Joanne Preece have also joined our team as advisors. You can find all three of them on our web-site under 'About Us'.
Last but not least, one of our future-visions for CYA is an EC0-DOME community based on the philosophy of Ubuntu. It may take a few years, but I hope the reader will follow CYA on it's journey into the future and the evolving world of yoga. Thank-you for reading.
Love, Light & Blessings
Violet Pasztor Wilson
Founder, Canadian Yoga Alliance