Those In Our Midst

The value of learning yoga in the physical presence of a teacher has never been a controversial claim within our profession. It is, in many ways, the founding premise. A teacher instructs, observes, reads the room, notices compensatory patterns that a student cannot see in themselves, and creates meaningful dialogue. These are irreplaceable acts of professional skill, and they depend on shared physical space.

The pandemic required our profession to adapt, and it did so with impressive speed. Online delivery kept teachers connected to students and training providers operational through lockdowns, and that adaptability brought real and lasting efficiencies. Remote learning opens doors for people in rural and regional communities, connects Australian teachers with international expertise, and allows theoretical content to be delivered flexibly. Bhagavad Gītā reminds us that yoga is skill in action, and deft deployment of technology is entirely consistent with that principle.

The emergency itself, though, is over. And with its passing, the profession can return to a clear-eyed assessment of what must be learned in person and what can be supported at a distance.

Anyone who has guided a person through their first headstand, noticed hesitation in someone’s breath, or helped trace the origin of pain to another part of the body knows that these skills exist in the paradigm of proximity. Teaching skills are learned through years of supervised, mentored practice, through shadowing experienced teachers and being watched in turn. A screen flattens all of this, removing peripheral vision, the felt sense of a room, the instinctive step forward to steady someone who starts wobbling. For one-on-one delivery contexts where clients present specific health conditions, the case for in-person training is even more direct.

Scholars of clinical phenomenology describe how touch provides access to “pathic knowledge,” a form of emotional knowing that exists only in physical presence and cannot be transmitted remotely.¹ Studies in interoception, the body’s capacity to detect and interpret its own internal signals, demonstrate that these awareness skills develop most effectively through guided, in-person, body-oriented practice.² And in physiotherapy, where hands-on pratical skills closely parallel yoga’s own manual competencies, research during the pandemic found that techniques learned solely through online teaching produced measurably weaker outcomes, confirming that the acquisition of manual skills cannot be replaced by digital materials alone.³

With the launch of Yoga Australia’s private health rebate registration program, we have an opportunity to articulate these truths in formal terms. In the language of the broader health sector, hands-on and clinical components of training must be taught and assessed entirely in person to fall within scope of practice. For yoga, this means:

• Āsana and prāṇāyāma protocols and sequences
• Physical adjustments and kinaesthetic instruction
• Anatomy, palpation, and body reading
• Observing and responding to individual presentations
• Examinations and competency assessments, conducted and marked by the lead teacher at their premises

Beyond these practical components, we recommend that at least fifty per cent of remaining course hours are also delivered face to face, and most health funds will also stipulate this. Prior to 2020 the standard was seventy per cent, so the new threshold already represents a significant reset toward flexible delivery.

Yoga is a pluralistic tradition thousands of years old, encompassing the physical, the spiritual, the psychological, and the transformative. Therapeutic dimensions that attract the attention of health fund frameworks are important, and yet they sit within a far larger vehicle. Yoga already encompasses the breadth that modern integrative health is working toward, and recognition alongside allied health and complementary medicine disciplines affirms what the tradition has carried for eons.

For some teachers, this shift will mean reviewing whether their training meets the in-person threshold. For many, it will simply confirm what they already know and do. In all cases, meeting these standards is an act of service toward their students, the teachers of tomorrow, whose eligibility for private health fund rebates relies on the structure of the training they receive. Strengthening your in-person offering opens the door for every budding teacher who comes through your program, including qualified teachers who wish to top up their skills.

Yoga Australia’s broader program of work this year spans professional standards, governance, and leadership within our sector. The centrality of in-person training sits at the heart of that work, and reaffirming it is a commitment to the depth, rigour, and lived wisdom that our members already bring to their teaching and that the communities they serve have every right to expect.

References

1. Verdonk, P. & Abma, T. (2019). “Losing touch? Refining the role of physical examination in family medicine.” Canadian Family Physician, 65(11), 780–782. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, the authors argue that clinical touch provides access to “pathic knowledge,” a form of emotional knowing experienced as being present in the moment.
2. Price, C. & Hooven, C. (2018). “Interoceptive Awareness Skills for Emotion Regulation: Theory and Approach of Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT).” Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 798. Research demonstrates that interoceptive awareness skills develop most effectively through guided, in-person, body-oriented practice, with significant improvements in emotion regulation and reductions in psychological distress.
3. Borresen, A. et al. (2023). “Effectiveness of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic on practical manual therapy skills of undergraduate physiotherapy students.” BMC Medical Education (via PMC). The study found that manual therapy techniques learned solely through online teaching produced measurably weaker competency outcomes, concluding that the acquisition of new manual techniques cannot be replaced by digital learning materials alone.