It’s been quite a ride, being a student and teacher of yoga over the last two decades. Like riding a tsunami. At this point, yoga has washed over the country, and nearly every single family in America has been touched. Who’d ever thought that so many of our moms, dads, aunts, and preschool cousins would be doing yoga?
So, it’s really high time for the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) to hold their first Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research (SYTAR). A fascinating collection of clinical researchers, medical professionals, and yogis and yoginis will gather in LA in mid-January to discuss the state of this rapidly growing field.
When I first began teaching yoga, I was amazed at the quasi-health advisor role that many yoga teachers play with just a month or two of training (and those were the ones to take more comprehensive training). This after training for nearly twenty years to become a Registered Dietitian, qualified to skillful counsel people on what they should eat, or how to determine therapeutic nutritional needs.
Well, things are getting better, as far as defined national certifications for yoga teachers (though many rightfully mourn what is lost with the quantification of yoga training, when it was traditionally a Guru-teacher style training, and the guru followed his own track – the trackless track).
Coming back to therapeutics and the symposium, my abstract: Yoga and nutrition for weight management: a case study in program rationale and design was accepted for inclusion in the program. Who-ho. I’ll post the abstract here after the conference, as I think I need to let the IAYT have first publication rights.
Yoga therapy is a gem for those with mind-body issues, include weight and eating issues. Having all these yogis gathering to talk about ‘what works best for this, what works best for that, and still keeping it the wonderful practice that it is’…will benefit us all.
Read more about the association and the conference at the website, www.IAYT.org.
