Why I Did Not Renew My Iyengar Yoga Teacher Certification in 2020
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Iyengar Yoga is not safe. There is a known sex offender working his way back into the Iyengar method, again. The organization that oversees Iyengar Yoga in the United States, IYNAUS, is severely out of date with current ethical practices in the United States in regards to preventing sex abuse and protecting their community from known sex offenders. The Iyengar Family is not enforcing their own banishment of the sex offender from Iyengar studios and national conventions worldwide.
In 2019, IYNAUS spent considerable amounts of time and money to investigate a renowned senior teacher, Manouso Manos, on allegations of sex abuse. That investigation concluded that Mr. Manos had committed 6 counts of sex abuse of yoga students in the past 15 years*. He was decertified*. It seemed like we were on the right track.
However, there is no licensing for yoga teachers in the United States so Mr. Manos continued to teach. He was even given a “grace period” by the Iyengar family and IYNAUS to finish out his already-arranged international teaching engagements. Like many of the survivors and advocates, I was outraged at the idea of a decertified teacher and known sex offender headlining “Iyengar Yoga National Conventions” and workshops around the world, especially in Russia and The Ukraine. But, apparently we were in the minority. Too bad, because that undeserved grace period has institutionalized Manouso Manos into these studios in Russia and The Ukraine as an annual event and he is re-booked for 2020, despite having been banned from doing so by the Iyengar family.*
Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers who are sympathetic to Mr. Manos here in the US have organized secret workshops and recruited their students to these workshops, with Mr. Manos, a known sex offender.
I realize that since these workshops were “secret” I don’t have any proof that they happened and you have to take my word for it. What I think is important is IYNAUS’ reaction to the idea of secret workshops, whether or not they actually happened.
In my own direct communication with IYNAUS on this topic, and in communications with fellow teachers, the IYNAUS Ethics Committee members and the IYNAUS President have stated that:
- It is OK for Iyengar Yoga teachers to organize secret workshops with a known sex offender
- It is OK for Iyengar Yoga teachers to take classes and workshops with a known sex offender, as long as they don’t count it towards their continuing education hours
- It is OK for Iyengar Yoga teachers to recruit students to a secret workshop with a known sex offender
- It is OK for teachers who are not Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers to call their teaching “Iyengar-influenced” and to even go so far as to say that a known sex offender is the guru of their “Iyengar-influenced” teaching. And they don’t even have to pay licensing fees!
I don’t know about you, but I think both 1, 2, and 3 are huge ethics violations and really unsafe behavior. To say otherwise is an absurdity. IYNAUS cannot really expect any rational adult with a sense of propriety to accept these statements as valid. Iyengar Yoga teachers who organize these workshops, attend them and recruit students to them are not safe. #4 is a total cop-out on enforcing their own trademark of the phrase “Iyengar Yoga”.
Letting Go
Letting go of my Iyengar certification has not been a quick or easy decision for me. In addition the amount of time I have invested in becoming a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher and maintaining my certification, I have also spent considerable time trying to be part of the solution since the story about Manouso Manos broke in the fall of 2018:
- I have volunteered to help research and write a new ethics training manual. It was a bittersweet success because the manual was published with some serious omissions and edits that I was not in favor of, including IYNAUS removing an entire chapter on diversity and inclusion.
- I have spent time holding space for and advocating for the sex abuse survivors. We’ve had some successes, but overall I have observed some very backwards statements and disturbing attitudes from the Iyengar family in Pune and from IYNAUS leadership in the United States.*
The overall impression I am left with is that the Iyengar family is very uninformed and IYNAUS, despite being a US entity, blindly follows them in their ignorance in the areas of abuse prevention, receiving abuse disclosures, trauma sensitive teaching, and diversity and inclusion.
Drawing A Line
Since IYNAUS won’t do it themselves, I have to draw the line somewhere. I refuse to remain a member of an organization that enables a sex offender. I have a Master’s Degree in Education and I am a parent to a teenager. I know better and I have to do better for myself, my family, my students and my community.
I will not lose sleep ever again wondering what might happen if my daughter decided to try Iyengar yoga because her mother is an Iyengar yoga teacher and ended up getting recruited into one of these secret workshops. It simply can’t and won’t happen. When she noticed how furiously I was typing she asked “Mom, what’s wrong?”. I told her about the secret workshops and she replied “Sounds like a cult to me”. So, there we have it. Theme from 2019: Listen to the 17 year olds.
To my students, I know that taking classes with a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher may be important to you, and I am sorry that I can no longer fill that space for you. But, at this point, I would no more call what I teach and practice “Iyengar Yoga” than call it “Harvey Weinstein Yoga” or “Jeffrey Epstein Yoga”. I plan to keep us a lot safer than that.
If you are a current member of IYNAUS, please stop supporting IYNAUS. Consider donating your annual membership dues to survivors of sexual abuse instead.
If IYNAUS and the Iyengar family do not bring Iyengar Yoga into alignment with current ethical practices in the United States and if they do not enforce their own rules regarding Manouso Manos’ decertification, then I have to agree with Donna Farhi, that Iyengar Yoga is best left in the past.
We can do better than this.
Friday, January 24, 2020
I am greatly relieved to update this article with news from the Iyengar family in Pune, India. Today they issued a letter to all Iyengar Yoga teachers, institutes, national organizations worldwide that makes it very clear that they have severed all ties with Manuouso Manos and that teachers who organize classes and workshops for him and recruit students to them could face losing their Iyengar certification. This is a huge step forward in keeping the Iyengar community safe. However, there is still much work to be done.
If you cannot read this JPEG image of the letter, there is a PDF Version here
After Words
The irony is that I did not receive this letter directly. A friend had to forward it to me. After I published this article but before the Iyengar family responded to the issue, IYNAUS removed me from their mailing list and disabled my teacher’s account in their online membership website. We hadn’t even received a response from the Iyengar Family and IYNAUS had already chucked me out. Technically, my dues from 2019 were not supposed to expire until the end of February 2020. But, since IYNAUS can’t tolerate dissent, even when the Iyengar family is about to show up on the side of the dissident, they had already removed me and a friend had to forward the letter to me. I am not afraid to say that I think it was pretty cowardly and pathetic for IYNAUS to not have the decency to send the response from the Iyengar family to me themselves. But, that is pretty much how IYNAUS operates.
*References
Important: Some of these references contain graphic descriptions of sexual abuse. Please read with caution.
