Vajrasati teacher membership

December 18th, 2006

To retain your Vajrasati membership and certification, you need to fulfill the following criteria:

* Attendance at annual exchange of learning day and Vajrasati teachers’ workshop.

* Maintain regular contact with Vajrasati yoga members and with Jim.
(Please notify if there is any change of address or change of class cost, time location as well of any new classes etc.)
* As regular an attendance at classes – that is drop-ins, holidays, courses, retreats – as vicinity will allow with senior (qualified earlier than you, or Jim) qualified Vajrasati teacher. As well as any attendance with students in training.

Annual membership fee
Annual membership fee which will include our annual affiliation fee to pay to the yoga alliance as well as to cover the admin costs of running the website and newsletter, so don’t forget that these are there for your use. Our readership is on the up so the newsletter is getting round to quite a lot of budding Vajrasati yogites. This means that you can advertise new events workshops etc to a wide audience of receptive students (n.b: please encourage as many of your students to subscribe to the newsletter as you can.) The cost has been suggested at £25 per annum to cover these costs, there will be a much lower cost for those who are not currently teaching and so do not presently need these services, this will be more or less arbitrary and is currently just £5 per annum. The cost will not become effective until March 2007 and then again each year (Jim will pay the yoga alliance fee until then.)

Grievance procedure
Vajrasati yoga does not represent being in a club, or fitting in with a group mentality or that all teachers are the same. It does tell students that members are free-thinking, self reflective, conscientious. It also means that teachers are in a healthy relationship with their peers, so that their teaching ideas are tested and reflected on by others. It means that the good ideas of one will be shared in common by all. It means that teachings that spring from the common ground of self-reflective practice will reach out to communicate to as many types of people as possible and the essential experience of yoga will find expression through different emphasis and focus.

There are many types of people, physically, emotionally and mentally, and as Vajrasati teachers spread their wings, they will inevitably come into contact with this diversity: much will be learned ‘on the job’ that can be shared. It is also true to say that we individually are also infinitely changeable and so in our own practice over the years we will work with different moods and different physical conditions in ourselves, leading to a wider range of tools developed again ‘on the job’ to deal creatively with this whole range of experience.

These tools then inevitably will become refined by this intention to share. Each teacher will not only be resourced by their own experience but also informed and inspired by one another’s. This will mean that every Vajrasati teacher will be informed far more widely than can ever be possible without this contact.

Vajrasati teachers are people, therefore, who believe not in conservatism, in every man for himself, but on expansionism and openness, and this not as an ideal but as a means to success as individual teachers. It represents broadness and a clarity that comes when people share information. It symbolises a mutual recognition that we are not islands and that together we create a facility that is more than the sum of its parts.

For this system to work, it is obvious that the one factor that has to be in place to honestly say that individuals are benefiting from this resource is communication. Therefore, one would not be being honest if one is not in this communication. For any student to take this symbol (Vajrasati yoga) seriously, as a way of looking for a class that is taught by a teacher with this kind of support, we need to have a set of guidelines so that we have keep a check on our own standards.

Thus, the following grievance procedure is in place. Teachers will be struck from the approved list for the following reasons:

* If a student has not attended the two Vajrasati teacher’s sessions per annum as above and there has been no contact with the said teacher as to why.
* If the teacher has made no contact via email, letter or phone, or attended class with Jim for more than nine months.
* If the teacher is known to be teaching in a way that is contrary to the spirit of Vajrasati yoga (i.e not empowering students, not considering safety, not teaching yogic philosophy through experience or not pitching yoga teaching at the level of their students) and if the teacher is not willing to discuss these issues.
* If the teacher has not attended any teacher’s events for two years in a row.
* If the teacher has not paid annual subscription either at active teacher’s rate or as passive member.

If a teacher does become struck from the list, it will be possible for them to rejoin it through measures appropriate to each case, that will be discussed with Jim. This may involve a probation period during which the teacher will need to fulfill the criteria discussed.

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