Frequently Asked Questions

NAFC is an industry leader, as our certifications focus on teaching our members practical skills and how to excel in their fields. NAFC trains students on an individualized level by establishing long-term relationships with students. NAFC’s primary goal is to evaluate each student’s skills based on their current knowledge, especially in areas that may be identified as requiring skill improvement. NAFC will create an environment to build on this evaluation in optimizing each student’s skill sets.

NAFC certification specialists have access to health and wellness professionals and master trainers to offer assistance in answering your questions.

NAFC does certify students in countries outside the United States, however we recommend that you verify that the laws in your country recognize this type of certification. Additionally, we advise that you check with your potential place of employment to insure they recognize certifications provided by NAFC. We continue to reach out to fitness facilities, organizations and individuals to broaden the NAFC sphere of influence as a provider of continuing education in the health and fitness industry. We are dedicated to providing our students with the skills necessary to maximize their potential for job opportunities wherever they may reside.

maximize their potential for job opportunities wherever they may reside.

Our program is fully accredited, meeting educational guidelines. Registration does not indicate necessary educational markers or give credibility to the registrants Yoga program. RYTs® and RYs® denotes Yoga Alliance registration only. Yoga Alliance registration guidelines do not support educational guidelines or learning outcomes. 

A Yoga Alliance certificate does not denote the credential, accreditation, or credibility one may be led to believe. Being registered with Yoga Alliance does not constitute a genuine education credential.

Yoga Alliance does not conduct certification exams or independent assessments of any Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT®s). Rather, the RYT® credential is derivative of the Registered Yoga School (RYS®) or school registry, and is entirely voluntary.

NAFC is an accredited organization which also holds a career school license. NAFC’s is committed to providing substantive, proven fitness and health education to professionals in the industry, ensuring their credibility and value to clients, members, and even medical professionals. The Yoga 200™ certification course is part of this commitment. 

There are several published articles in which Yoga schools identify Yoga Alliance as having a negative impact on Yoga. This is due to very minimal guidelines and educational credibility. There are far too many Yoga classes that demonstrate and lead risky movements and poses taught by minimally educated teachers. Yoga practice has been documented to offer many profound benefits, but it’s also producing an enormous amount of injury. As excerpted in the New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Broad stated, “a growing body of medical evidence supports (the) contention that, for many people, a number of commonly taught Yoga poses are inherently risky. The problems can and have ranged from relatively mild injuries to permanent disabilities”. Surveys by the Consumer Product Safety Commission showed that the number of emergency room admissions related to yoga, after years of slow increases, was rising quickly due to no regulations. The populations that are being taught, for the most part, sit in chairs all day and rarely lift anything heavier than an iPad. After sitting all day, they then go to yoga classes, for an hour or more, they flow quickly through poses, bearing weight in an unfamiliar way on their wrists, spines, and knees. The irony is, yoga was developed to help heal.

The number of Americans doing yoga has risen which means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. Currently, there is no specific curriculum that is required to be taught, nor is there any required assessment of a registered teacher’s skill. Simply requiring that a certain number of hours be spent covering each of the five areas of study (practice, methodology, anatomy, philosophy, ethics, and hours of practice teaching) is not enough.

https://www.yogaalliance.org/Designations/Standards/Educational_Categories

The content of Yoga training is left up to the schools that do register through Yoga Alliance. There has been an astonishing decline in the quality of classes over the past 20 years. What is needed is a lengthy set of specific objectives that a Yoga teacher training needs to meet, as is the standard for almost all other vocational training. There needs to be a body that ensures that all yoga teachers are appropriately educated, trained, and considered credible. It is NAFC’s intent to train/educate our students/teachers in a manner that honors science, functional movement, critical thinking skills, safe practices, integrity, compassion, and growth, all the while keeping the Yoga community intact.

NAFC is an accredited educational body. We are recognized as an application-based education organization both in the fitness and medical communities. With regard to the PHIT Act (Yoga Alliance is pro-PHIT Act) being pushed to the legislature, there is a chance the government will more than likely also take into consideration the credentials of the trainers/teachers leading these classes that will be considered a pre-tax deduction for medical expenses. Accreditations and long distance learning are recognized by the US Higher Education and it has established credibility. Accreditation has long been recognized in the domains of hospitals, rehabilitation, and higher education as the way to maintain higher standards of accountability and quality. There are concerns with lack of credibility in the fitness industry.

NAFC is dedicated to improving the quality, standards, and outcomes of preventative health care services while also educating the public on health fitness and wellness issues. Today’s fitness consumers are more sophisticated and knowledgeable than ever, and, they want more information about their fitness and wellness provider. Insurance companies are seeing more accountability and professionalism for their “after care health club memberships.” Medical practitioners are more concerned than ever about the professional qualifications of people they refer their patients to for exercise programs. Performance indicators are becoming more important than ever in medical rehabilitation services. We believe it would be in Yoga Alliances’ interest to also consider long distance learning schools and licensures to stay relevant in a changing industry where medical/fitness integration IS happening.

We understand Yoga Alliance is against licensure and regulation(s), as are many organizations in the fitness industry. However, our industry continues to evolve and is headed in the direction of licensure. Due to the increase of injuries and the correlation with metabolic diseases, an industry that is non-regulated and self-governed according to a loose set of standards, it is clear that what will be required going forward is what is expected from most other industries – standardized education markers and credentials recognized throughout the healthcare industry. NAFC is ahead of the game.

YOGA AND LONG DISTANCE LEARNING

US Department of education data from 2016 (Distance Education is a Key Component of Higher Education in the United States):

Report Link: http://wcet.wiche.edu/initiatives/research/WCET-Distance-Education-Enrollment-Report-2016

• 2002: 1.6 million students taking at least one Long Distance Learning Course
• 2008: 4.6 million students taking at least one Long Distance Learning Course
• 2014: 5.8 million students taking at least one Long Distance Learning Course

And this continues to rise – One-in-seven (14%) of all higher education students took all of their courses “exclusively” at a distance.

More than one in four students (28%) enrolled in at least one of their courses at a distance in the fall of 2014.