Yoga fitness urgently needs standardization

If I ask you one of the most popular fitness projects young people nowadays, I think the answer must be yoga. Due to the many genres, variety, and high efficacy of yoga practice, it has become the best choice for young people with a fast-paced modern urban life.

While yoga fans are madly following yoga, yoga studios are springing up all over the country. Even traditional fitness venues have a soaring proportion of classes in their schedules. Yoga craze has also brought about an increasing demand for coaches. For a time, institutions that have become more coaches and trained more teachers have become "hot cakes". However, the threshold for yoga instructors has not increased. According to professionals from some well-known yoga colleges, although the threshold for coaching exists, it is much lower than people imagine.

So far, yoga has not been included in the 99 sports that have been approved in my country. Relevant national departments have not yet formed unified norms and standards for yoga coaching qualifications. Therefore, the standards of yoga instructors hired by various fitness clubs are even more diverse, and various training institutions and certificates are also mixed. As a result of this phenomenon, some training practitioners only spend a month or two practicing, and they can take up their posts with their training certificate. This phenomenon does not only exist among fitness institution practitioners. The author interviewed and found that many yoga practitioners in gyms do not care about the qualifications of yoga instructors.

Ms. Zheng, who had just applied for a biennial card at a fitness club, admitted to the author that she had never thought of asking the club whether the coach who taught her had qualifications. Another Ms. Xiao, who has been studying yoga for two years, believes that the main reason why she comes to the gym to do yoga is to healthy her body and reshape her body and mind. It is enough for the coach to guide her well during class and the exercise results are satisfactory. Whether she has qualifications or not, he doesn't think it's important. On the other hand, the complexity of the game also hinders the unification of coaching qualifications to a certain extent. Because yoga itself has multiple schools, each school has different understandings and uses of asanas and breathing. Some experts pointed out that to form a unified set of certification standards in such a chaotic and complex situation, coordination and cooperation among various institutions and schools are needed in various aspects.

According to a recent survey report by the Injury Risk Research Center in New South Wales in Australia, a quarter of the total number of practitioners have been injured due to improper practice. A related study in Taiwan, my country, also pointed out that some people who practice yoga for a long time experience a series of problems such as disc degeneration and wear due to incorrect postures or excessive force. Even some practitioners in their 30s have their spines aged prematurely to the age of 60. As the yoga craze continues to heat up,"yoga diseases" such as ligament strain, arthritis, disc wear, and spinal deformation caused by improper practice have gradually entered the ranks of "epidemics" in our country.

More and more problems have also aroused consumers 'vigilance, and the call for unified certification standards for the yoga industry has become louder and louder. This issue has also attracted the attention of relevant national departments. It is understood that the State Sports General Administration has selected seven provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hebei, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang, and Zhejiang to pilot projects to establish a "Vocational Skills Identification Station for Specific Types of Jobs in the Sports Industry". As a special course for aerobics, yoga also appears in the identification content. The assessment of yoga instructors is expected to be integrated into the assessment and appraisal of aerobics instructors.

When problems arise, corresponding solutions must be provided. The national establishment of a vocational skills appraisal station for unique types of work in the sports industry will stabilize consumers 'psychology to a certain extent. However, the norms of the yoga industry are not only reflected in a certain policy issued by the state, but more importantly, they require cooperation from multiple parties. On the one hand, fitness institutions must strictly control the quality of fitness instructors. On the other hand, consumers also have a corresponding understanding of the institution where they practice and the coaches they teach for their own health. I believe that with the joint efforts of all parties, the yoga industry will develop in a healthier direction. (Internship Editor: Wu Jinyu)