A Fair­fax County yoga instruc­tor and a state del­e­gate, whose wife is a yoga advo­cate, have teamed up against efforts by state reg­u­la­tors to require that yoga instruc­tor train­ing be cer­ti­fied in Virginia.

On Dec. 1, three Vir­ginia yoga instruc­tors filed a fed­eral law­suit in Alexan­dria against the State Coun­cil of Higher Edu­ca­tion for Vir­ginia claim­ing efforts by the coun­cil to reg­u­late yoga instruc­tor train­ing is an infringe­ment of free speech.

“It is a student-protection mea­sure. We are required by Vir­ginia admin­is­tra­tive code to cer­tify all voca­tional prac­tices,” said SCHEV spokes­woman Kirsten Nel­son on Mon­day. “Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion means that the finan­cial invest­ments of all 9,000 stu­dents of var­i­ous voca­tional stud­ies in Vir­ginia are pro­tected, because cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of voca­tional insti­tu­tions includes being bonded.”

But Del­e­gate David L. Bulova (D-Fairfax), whose wife prac­tices the ancient art, thinks the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion — which comes at a cost of $2,500 — is unnec­es­sary. “I have found that by and large, yoga instruc­tor train­ing facil­i­ties are small, mom-and-pop oper­a­tions that main­tain their own cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards and do not need to be cross-burdened by state cer­ti­fi­ca­tion,” he said.

“Teach­ing is speech,” said attor­ney Robert From­mer of the Arlington-based Insti­tute for Jus­tice, who rep­re­sents the plain­tiffs in this case. “Under the First Amend­ment, the gov­ern­ment has to have a real jus­ti­fi­ca­tion before it acts, and in this case Vir­ginia does not.”

“We didn’t just wake up one morn­ing and decide that it was time to reg­u­late yoga instruc­tors,” Nel­son said. “We were charged by the com­mon­wealth in 2005 to reg­u­late voca­tional train­ing insti­tu­tions. It is a process that takes time. This is where we are now, and we feel that this falls within our purview.”

Bulova is not so sure.

“That is why leg­isla­tive action is nec­es­sary,” Bulova said Mon­day. “Just a few hours ago, I got the ball rolling by pre-filing leg­is­la­tion that will exempt yoga instruc­tor train­ing facil­i­ties from state cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as long as they have met other forms of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by rec­og­nized pro­fes­sional organizations.”

Bulova said he has found that most of Vir­ginia facil­i­ties have already been cer­ti­fied by the Yoga Alliance, an inter­na­tional pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides yoga teacher cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. The Yoga Alliance reg­is­ters both indi­vid­ual yoga teach­ers and yoga teacher train­ing pro­grams, or schools, who have com­plied with min­i­mum edu­ca­tional stan­dards estab­lished by the organization.

But plain­tiff Suzanne Leitner-Wise, one of the suit’s plain­tiffs and a yoga instruc­tor at U.S. Yoga Teacher Train­ing in Fair­fax County, is cur­rently a lit­tle miffed with the Yoga Alliance. “I have paid them thou­sands in dues over the years and they are not sup­port­ing us in this,” she said. “They should have spo­ken up and told SCHEV that there already is a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram in place. But instead, they have been strangely quiet on the subject.”

Efforts to con­tact Yoga Alliance spokes­woman Shay Har­ris were unsuccessful.

“I am grate­ful for Del­e­gate Bulova’s help in this,” Leitner-Wise said. “What the state is attempt­ing to do is rub­bish. It is a fal­lacy under false pre­tense of con­sumer pro­tec­tion. I wish they would come up with some sta­tis­tics as to how many peo­ple in the last 5,000 years have lost their money from Yoga instruc­tor training.”