YOGA PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Ethical guidelines for teaching
Yoga is awareness. It is integrity of purpose become beautiful, useful action in the world. As a spiritual practice concerned with freedom, self-realisation, and real embodied living for the highest good of all beings, yoga aligns well with ethical conduct.
As a practitioner and independent professional teacher of yoga in these complex, changing, and often confusing times when traditional and contemporary models coexist, I adhere to the following ethical guidelines.
- I align myself with and learn from my Gurus and lineages of yoga and tantra and cherish the beautiful wisdom of my heritage.
- I commit myself to deep continuing study and spiritual practice, and a conducive, earth-friendly, beings-friendly lifestyle.
- I shall represent myself, my learning, my work, and my affiliations with integrity and clarity.
- I shall judiciously share only what I know to the extent that I know it. I shall ensure the authenticity of what I share in terms of both theory and experiential practice.
- I shall welcome all those who seek to learn, regardless of their physical/mental conditions/challenges (see point 7), gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnicity, nationality, religion, caste, and socioeconomic status. I shall not tolerate any prejudice or discrimination.
- I shall create a clean, safe, supportive, respectful environment for my students that is beneficial to their growth. I shall also eliminate any elements that are not in line with this and/or cause them harm.
- I shall ask my students, if they so wish, to confidentially disclose beforehand any medical conditions; surgeries; accidents; or physical, mental, emotional, or sexual trauma that they believe could impact their practice and that I should be aware of as a teacher. However, I shall not presume to give medical advice, therapy, or counselling. I shall also not make physical asana adjustments when they are unsolicited, unnecessary, or inappropriate.
- I shall be aware, at all times, of the potential power differential in a teaching/learning scenario, and shall never exploit this for any gains, whether strategic, financial, sexual, or other, nor harm my students in any way.
- I shall charge only that which is fair according to context or teach on a donation basis. I shall provide yoga service (projects, teaching, support materials) completely free of charge to those who need them, absorbing the costs myself or sharing them with my project partners.
- I shall reserve the right to decline any work that is not consonant with my values and this code, and shall make all efforts to settle any disagreements or disputes amicably.
These guidelines are not exhaustive. I shall try to carefully assess any situation that arises, and act reasonably and lawfully to the best of my abilities. I shall also refine this code of practice based on my experience and that of my teachers, peers, and students.
Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for your support.
This work, Code of Yoga Professional Practice by Kanya Kanchana, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This means that you are free to share the work (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) or adapt it to your needs (remix, transform, and build upon the material), provided you give appropriate credit, include a link to the license, indicate changes made, and use a ShareAlike license. You may not use it for commercial purposes or restrict others from actions that this license permits.