Yoga Alliance’s 2027 Changes: What They Mean for the Anatomy in Your Teacher Training

Facts checked against Yoga Alliance’s own pages on 11 October 2026.

If you run a teacher training, you’ve probably had the email. On 28 September 2026 Yoga Alliance announced a new credential and membership model, starting in January 2027, and every school and teacher has a new path to walk by the end of 2027.

The obvious question for anyone responsible for anatomy in a training: does any of this change what you have to teach? For now, no. The anatomy hours stay as they are, and anatomy isn’t a topic on either new assessment. Here’s what Yoga Alliance has said, what it hasn’t, and what I’d do with your anatomy module in the meantime.

Why I’m watching this closely: I’ve taught anatomy in yoga teacher trainings since 1998, and more than 600 training programs have run their anatomy through my online courses for teacher trainings. When Yoga Alliance changes the rules, it lands on my desk too.

Photo: Sean Ambrose

What changes in 2027

• One school credential. RYS 200, 300 and 500, and the children’s and prenatal programs, become “specialty designations” of a single RYS credential.
• Everyone recertifies by 31 December 2027. Schools take a free online assessment, go through a business verification and describe their “educational framework”. Teachers take a 40-question assessment. Miss the deadline and the credential lapses.
• Credential and membership become two separate things. After a three-year transition, you can hold the credential without the membership.
• Continuing education changes in 2030. RYTs will need 30 hours every three years and E-RYTs 40, from almost any qualified source.

The details are on Yoga Alliance’s Find Your New Credential page, which has a separate FAQ for teachers and for schools.

A single RYS credential is easier for students, the yoga community, and the public to understand, and it opens up more ways to be an RYS.

Yoga Alliance, Find Your New Credential

What doesn’t change: the anatomy hours

Nothing Yoga Alliance has published mentions changing the curriculum hours. Its Standards for Registered Yoga Schools still ask for 30 hours of anatomy & physiology in a 200-hour program built to the 2020 standard (anatomy, physiology and biomechanics), 15 in a 300-hour, 35 in a 500-hour, and 10 in children’s and prenatal programs. The full breakdown, and which applies to your school, is in How many anatomy hours does Yoga Alliance require?

Schools registered before 2020 that never moved to the new 200-hour standard still run on the old 20 hours. That move was put on pause while Yoga Alliance worked on “a revised credentialing approach”, and now we know what that approach is. The new 300 and 500-hour standards that Yoga Alliance finalized in 2020 were put on pause and haven’t been published since.

Anatomy isn’t on either assessment

The teacher assessment covers effective teaching and leadership, ethics, safety, and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. The school assessment covers ethics, compliance and safety, business practices, customer service, and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Neither one lists anatomy as a topic.

The assessment doesn’t replace the education and experience you already have; it establishes a common professional foundation every Yoga Alliance teacher shares.

Yoga Alliance, Find Your New Credential

So the anatomy your graduates leave with is still entirely down to your training: how many hours, who teaches them, and whether any of it sticks. Here’s how we help teacher trainings with exactly that.

Where anatomy could come back into it

Two places to watch, without guessing:

• Business verification. Schools will verify “staff qualifications and training” and their “educational framework and teaching philosophy”. If someone other than a lead trainer teaches your anatomy, or your students learn it online, be ready to show who teaches it and how it fits your framework. (More on that in Who can teach anatomy in a Yoga Alliance teacher training?)
• The specialty standards review. After the initial changes, Yoga Alliance says it will “take a closer look at all specialty standards”, and schools get a voice in that from 2028. That’s where anatomy hours could change. Nobody knows yet whether they will, and I’ll update this page when Yoga Alliance says more.

What I’d do now

1. Write down your anatomy module as it stands: the hours, who teaches it, how it’s delivered and how you check that students learned it. You’ll need most of that for your educational framework anyway.
2. Check it against the standard you’re registered under: 20 or 30 hours for a 200-hour program, 15 for a 300-hour.
3. If any of your training is online, keep at least 15% of the program hours live. That rule, in effect since January 2024, hasn’t changed either. See Teaching anatomy online in a yoga teacher training.
4. Don’t rebuild anything on a rumor. Until Yoga Alliance publishes new specialty standards, the current hours are the ones that count.

If anatomy is the module you’d rather hand to someone who loves it, weigh your options in Teach anatomy yourself, bring in a specialist, or license a course, or see how our online anatomy courses for teacher trainings work.

More for lead teachers

• How many anatomy hours does Yoga Alliance require? 20, 30 or 15, and which applies to your school
• Who can teach anatomy in a Yoga Alliance teacher training?
• Teaching anatomy online in a yoga teacher training
• Teach anatomy yourself, bring in a specialist, or license a course

References

1. Yoga Alliance. Membership and Credentials, Reimagined (published 28 Sep 2026). Checked 11 Oct 2026.
2. Yoga Alliance. Find Your New Credential (published 6 Oct 2026), FAQs for teachers and for schools. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
3. Yoga Alliance. Standards for Registered Yoga Schools (PDF, dated October 2025). Checked 11 Oct 2026.
4. Yoga Alliance. 200-Hour Standards (RYS 200 Legacy Standards), archived copy, July 2024. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
5. Yoga Alliance Help Center. When do I need to up-level my RYS program to meet the new 200-hour standards? Checked 11 Oct 2026.
6. Yoga Alliance Help Center. Are there changes to the standards for the RYS 300 and RYS 500 credentials? Checked 11 Oct 2026.
7. Yoga Alliance Help Center. I hold an RYS credential. What are the requirements to offer my training online? Checked 11 Oct 2026.

Originally published at Yoganatomy

Internal Versus External Shoulder Rotation in Downward Dog: Both Sides Miss the Point

Someone with a biomechanics background is telling you to internally rotate your shoulders in downward dog. Someone else is telling you to externally rotate while internally rotating your forearms. Oh, one of them has to be wrong, right? Maybe the question itself is the problem. This month’s question is about shoulder rotation in downward dog.

The Question:

Marta wrote in and asked about shoulder rotation in downward dog. One of her instructors, who has extensive biomechanics experience, advocates for internal rotation of the shoulders in the pose. His reasoning is that because the shoulders are in flexion, internal rotation provides a more effective way to engage the push through the hands. He also believes the common cue to externally rotate the shoulders while internally rotating the forearms is simply incorrect.

The Answer:

The push through the hands

Marta, let me take this in pieces, because there are actually three separate things that seem to be tangled up in this one question. First, the push. The push through the hands in downward dog is primarily serratus anterior and triceps. Serratus is protracting and upwardly rotating the scapula. Triceps is extending the elbow. Neither of those is a rotation of the humerus or shoulder rotation in downward dog. So when your instructor connects internal rotation to a more effective push in downward dog, I think he’s describing a sensation and attributing it to the wrong structure. The push isn’t a rotation argument at all.

Rotation at the shoulder joint

Second, we have the rotation itself. I’ve always taught and understood that external rotation at the glenohumeral joint (the shoulder joint) is what creates more space in that position. When the arm goes into full flexion overhead, external rotation is what gives the greater tubercle clearance underneath the acromion. I demonstrate this. I feel it in my own body. I honestly don’t know where the internal rotation argument is coming from here. It’s possible that something was lost in translation between what was said and what you heard. I’m just holding that out as a possibility.

Anatomy versus felt sense

Third, and this is the piece I think matters most, the cue about externally rotating the shoulders while internally rotating the forearm in downward dog is not a literal anatomical instruction. I don’t think it ever was. Your hand is fixed on the floor. That’s what we call a closed chain. What you feel as a spiral is a resistance pattern, not actual joint rotation in the directions being named. It’s felt sense anatomy, not literal anatomy, and that’s fine.

Felt sense cues have real value in a yoga room. The problem comes when we dress them up in anatomical terminology. Then people start hunting for a specific joint action that isn’t actually happening. We end up arguing about whether a cue is correct when it was never a description of literal mechanics in the first place.

This is the same thing happening right now with the shoulders away from the ears, that whole debate. People are arguing that the cue is wrong because you need upward rotation and elevation for proper scapulohumeral rhythm, and there’s a legitimate point buried in there. You do, but like most of these arguments, all the nuance gets stripped out. It turns into a position people defend rather than a thing people actually explore in their own body.

External shoulder rotation in downward dog

So my answer is this: external rotation at the glenohumeral joint makes more space. That part I will stand behind 100% because the spiral cue and the internal shoulder rotation in downward dog cues are both describing what someone feels, not what the joint is literally doing. Pick the cue that produces the result you want in the body in front of you, and be honest about which kind of language you’re using.

If you’ve got a question you want me to answer, go to yogaanatomy.com/myquestion. See you next month.

Originally published at Yoganatomy

Why Can’t I Do This Yoga Pose? – Our Singularity Bias In Yoga

Why can’t I do this yoga pose? Or, there’s the other version: why can’t my student do this pose? This is one of the two most common questions I hear in every workshop and class that I teach. The other question I hear most often is some variation on: why does this pose hurt, cause pain, or how do I work with an injury in this pose? There are many reasons why someone struggles with a posture. But what students so often don’t consider is that it likely isn’t just one thing that prevents us from accessing a pose in yoga.

We could group the reasons why we struggle with a posture into categories to help conceptualize them. Our challenges in yoga postures could be grouped like this:

• You need more flexibility in some area
• You need more strength in some area
• You have an anatomical restriction, for example, proportional relationships between body parts like torso and femur length, or a past surgery, like a joint replacement or spinal fusion
• There is an important piece of technique missing from how you’re approaching a pose
• You are missing an essential pattern for a more complex pose that you haven’t been training in simpler poses
• You simply need more time and practice for the pose to evolve

The above list can help you consider reasons why you are struggling with a particular type of yoga pose, but what isn’t necessarily clear from this list is that the real reason you can’t do a yoga pose is probably not just one thing. If you are trying to problem-solve, either because a posture seems inaccessible or because something hurts, it’s essential to understand that you are probably looking for more than one thing.

As humans, we like a good story, one with a clear plot and a single villain. We have what I’m going to call a singularity bias, a bias towards wanting every situation to have one single cause. We habitually carry that desire into arenas that are far too complex to be delineated in that way. The human body is not simply a system of pulleys and levers. It’s more akin to a complex ecological system with a long list of always interrelated variables.

When our yoga practice is humming along smoothly, we don’t necessarily stop to consciously think about that. But when we feel stuck, confused, or experience pain, we hopefully pause and begin to problem-solve. This means zooming out and not just looking for the one answer, but for the multiple interrelated factors that we need to change.

Let’s look at some examples of how this impacts our understanding of problem-solving in yoga postures.

Marichyasana C

Let’s say a student is struggling to do the twisting posture, Marichyasana C with a bind. Where might you look to see what’s restricting them? There are multiple issues that might come up, most of which can occur at the same time.

Flexibility issues

Tight hamstrings can pull the pelvis under (into a posterior tilt). That makes it harder to sit up in Marichyasana C and bring your torso towards your knee. That means you have to reach farther to bind. Tight shoulders might also contribute to restricting a bind.

Strength issues

This is the one type of issue that probably isn’t going to come up in Marichyasana C.

Anatomical issues

Certain body proportions can make Marichyasana C more challenging. For example, if you have a long torso relative to your femur, it will make it harder to keep a connection between your binding arm and the knee you’re binding around. Additionally, long tibias relative to femur length can make it harder to sit upright.

Missing technique issues

A habit of leaning back and resting your weight into the back hand will set you up with your torso farther from your binding knee in Marichyasana C. This will make it harder because you’ll have farther to reach to connect the arm around the knee and bind. If you are very flexible and/or have long arms relative to a narrower torso, you might still be able to do the pose even with the missing technique piece, but it’s still worth considering each of these pieces as you assemble your pose.

Training the essential patterns in simpler poses

The essential pattern of moving your body toward your bent knee and connecting your armpit before reaching the arm is a pattern that comes up in other postures. Often students have encountered other twists like revolved side angle before they try Marichyasana C, for example. If this person has been doing other poses with the essential armpit-to-knee connection that’s necessary to bind in Marichyasana C, such as revolved side angle or ardha matseyndrasana, have they been working on that pattern in those other poses?

Need more time and practice for the pose to evolve

This is a possible part of accessing any pose. Marichyasana C in particular has multiple parts that intersect to create a complex pose. The more complex, the more time a posture will typically take.

I hope you can see how all of these aspects of a pose come together to make it more or less accessible. Which of these things is the reason that the person in our example is struggling with Marichyasana C? Trick question. The answer, of course, is that all of them might contribute. Although we might be primed to look for a single cause, it’s almost always more than one thing.

Let’s look at another example.

Bakasana

In this example, let’s say we are trying to help a student who is struggling to balance in bakasana, the basic version of crow pose. Let’s go through our list of where we might look for what is getting in the student’s way of finding a consistent balance and a confident bakasana.

Flexibility issues

While it’s possible that some tension around the pelvis or shoulders might restrict movement in some way, flexibility issues are not the most likely culprits for restriction in this posture.

Strength issues

Strength issues are likely contributors to struggling with bakasana, but again, there’s not only one strength issue we might need to work with. The first place I would look for sufficient strength is in the muscles that support the base of this pose. In an arm balancing posture, your base of support is your hands, arms, and shoulder girdle. The main large muscle that supports your shoulder girdle when you are weight-bearing on your hands and arms is the serratus anterior.

In this pose, I’m also interested in whether the student has sufficient strength in the erector spinae to keep the pelvis lifting. And, of course, developing a connection to the true core muscles, like iliopsoas, is also important. One of the complicated parts of this pose is that there could be multiple areas of the body where a student needs to develop more strength and make a connection to. It’s typically not just one thing.

Technique

What about techniques in bakasana? It’s not uncommon for students to imagine that arm balances are all about strength. But actually, learning to control anterior and posterior pelvic tilt while upside down is one of the main essential patterns for so many arm balancing poses. The pelvis contains our center of gravity, and it’s the heavy part in the middle of our body that we are trying to orient in space when we’re balancing upside down. Strength alone is not enough without technique.

Anatomical issues

Past shoulder injuries might make this pose feel unstable or even make it contraindicated depending on the situation. Other anatomical issues like proportional relationships in our body can also make this pose more challenging. Any anatomical issues we come in with will intersect with how long it takes to build strength, and how easy or difficult it is to apply the techniques in this pose.

Training the pattern

Knowing what the techniques or skills are isn’t enough. The more complex the technique, the more we need to train that pattern for some time in order to implement it reliably. If a student is struggling with bakasana, have they been training the arm-balancing base pattern by leaning into their hands in the forward fold in sun salutations and other simpler movements? What about practicing the pelvic tilt motion in postures like headstand?

Need more time to practice

Building strength and training the technical skill to do bakasana typically take time. Building connections to moving in new ways routinely takes some time to unfold. This is especially true when we’re talking about learning to balance on our hands, as well as building the strength to do so. With arm-balancing postures, even simpler ones like bakasana, the combination of skill-building, acquiring strength, and adapting the pose to our individual body often takes months, not days. All of these aspects have to come together in order for a student to reliably set up bakasana.

Conclusion

Yoga postures are composed of multiple interrelated pieces. Although we tend to have a singularity bias and want to name one thing to blame our challenges in yoga on, postures all have multiple moving parts. Next time you or a student is struggling with a yoga pose, ask yourself about all of the pieces and parts that come together to create the pose. Then consider how you might work with all of them, not just one, to create a cohesive posture.

Originally published at Yoganatomy

Why Am I Struggling With Seated Wide-legged Forward Fold?

You’ve been practicing for years. Every pose has slowly opened except one. Seated wide-legged forward folds feel exactly the same as they did eight years ago. So is this a muscle problem, or is something else going on?

The Question:

In this month’s question of the month, Lana wrote in and asked about her seated wide-legged forward fold. She already read my article on the subject, so she came with the specifics, which is good. She feels extreme tightness on the inside of her upper thighs from the groin all the way down toward the knee. But here’s what makes her situation interesting. She has no difficulty in baddha konasana. She connects her full thighs to the floor with no problem. In frog pose, her pelvis nearly touches the floor with no discomfort. Standing wide-legged forward fold is challenging but isn’t burning in the same way. But there’s been zero change in her range of motion in seated wide-legged forward fold over five to eight years of practice.

The Answer:

Bony restriction is one possibility

So first of all, Lana, I really appreciate the depth you went to in submitting this question, and the fact that you already did your homework by reading the previous article. Let’s start with the caveat because it matters. The level of sensation you’re describing, and more importantly, the fact that nothing has changed in five to eight years raises a flag. That kind of non-response to consistent practice can suggest a bony restriction. That’s not a guarantee, but it’s possible there’s a shape in the hip joint that simply behaves differently when the legs are out in front of you compared to externally rotated as they are in baddha konasana or frog (bhekasana). So keep that in the back of your mind because if it is structural, the approach changes entirely.

Adductor magnus

Now, if it is soft tissue, the most likely culprit is adductor magnus. In this particular position, adductor magnus starts to behave less like a true adductor and more like a hamstring. And remember, it attaches down near the adductor tubercle, which is very close to the bottom of the femur and very close to the knee joint. And that could explain exactly the line of sensation you’re describing running from the groin area down toward the knee.

What to do about it? Beyond just doing more upavishta konasana (seated wide-legged forward bend), the more useful thing would be to find a body worker who can palpate that tissue specifically when it’s not in a lengthened position. If there’s an excess of sensation or tone in the muscle at rest, that tells you something. It might suggest the tissue itself needs direct work rather than a passive kind of stretching.

Standing versus seated

The standing versus seated difference in wide-legged forward bend is also worth investigating further. My guess is that in prasarita padottanasana, your feet might turn out a bit more, which introduces some external rotation and maybe changes the line of pull on that tissue. So here’s a test worth trying. In the seated version, does the sensation change if you allow your legs to externally rotate more? Or does it get worse if you internally rotate even slightly? That differential might give you a clearer picture of exactly what tissue is being loaded and why.

If you’ve got a question and you want me to answer it, go to yoganatomy.com/myquestion. I’ll see you next month.

Originally published at Yoganatomy

Telegram Feeds Are Back and Better Than Ever!

We’re thrilled to announce that recent issues with Telegram Feeds have been fully resolved!  They are now running smoothly and steadily, ready to power up your Telegram content strategy. No further action is required on your end, so you can get right back to curating awesome content for your Telegram audience.

Not familiar with Telegram Feeds? Here's a quick rundown

Telegram Feeds is a powerful tool within RSS Ground that lets you create self-updating content feeds from any public Telegram channel. This allows you to monitor and collect content from various sources without having to manually check or join each channel individually. Simply enter the Telegram channel URL, and RSS Ground automatically generates a feed that updates whenever new content is posted. This is a fantastic way to stay on top of industry trends, curate relevant content for your audience, and save valuable time.

Ready to get started or re-engage with Telegram Feeds? Head to the FEEDS section of your RSS Ground account and start generating those feeds!

Read more about Telegram Feeds

Don't Forget About Telegram Poster

Once you’ve curated a collection of compelling content with Telegram Feeds (or any other RSS feed!), our Telegram Poster tool lets you automatically share those feeds to your Telegram channels and groups (public or private).This dynamic duo streamlines your entire Telegram content strategy, ensuring consistent engagement and freeing you from manual posting tasks.

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As always, we’re continuously working to improve RSS Ground and value your feedback. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and suggestions – we’re always listening!

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Originally published at RSSground.com

Available AI Models in Personal Feeds Just Updated

The Real Game-Changer: AI-Powered Image Creation and Transformation

 

As you know, our AI Assistant in Personal Feeds has become a go-to tool for overcoming writer’s block. It helps you craft compelling titles, descriptions, and entire articles, turning your ideas into polished text in seconds.

But great content is more than just words; it’s also about powerful visuals. That’s why our editor also includes robust image capabilities, giving you access to a vast library of stock photos and the ability to generate unique AI images from a simple prompt.

We are thrilled to announce that we have updated our list of available AI models, unlocking a revolutionary new way to handle your visual content:

GPT: 5, 5 mini, 5 nano, 4.1, 4.1 mini, 4.1 nano, 4o, 4o mini, o3, o4 mini, o3 mini, o1 mini
Gemini: 2.5 Pro, 2.5 Flash, 2.0 Flash, 2.0 Flash Lite
Gemini for images: Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview), Gemini 2.0 Flash Image (gemini-2.0-flash-preview-image-generation)
DeepSeek: chat, reasoner

Image Editing is Coming In Near Future

We’ve always believed that great visuals are key, and we’re about to give you a level of creative control you’ve only dreamed of. Get ready for the next evolution in content creation.

You might have noticed a new Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model on the list. Soon, we will be rolling out an update featuring this model that will let you go beyond creation and step into the world of AI-powered image editing. Imagine finding a great photo in the integrated Unsplash library, but wanting to tweak it. With this upcoming feature, you’ll be able to send that image directly to the AI with a simple prompt and command it to change a sunny day into a moody, moonlit night; turn a summer landscape into a winter wonderland by adding snow; swap elements within the image or even edit existing text.

This upcoming feature will allow you to take any stock image and make it completely your own, ensuring your content is 100% unique. Get ready to transform your visual content like never before. Stay tuned for the official release!

Your Ultimate Content Creation Companion Awaits

RSS Ground Personal Feeds have evolved into a comprehensive content creation studio. You can now move seamlessly from an idea to a finished piece all in one place. Start by generating compelling articles and headlines with the AI text assistant, format them perfectly in the advanced post editor, and then find the perfect visual from a vast stock library or create one from scratch. And now, with the groundbreaking ability to transform any image to match your exact vision, you have an unprecedented level of creative control.

This powerful, integrated suite of tools makes RSS Ground Personal Feeds your all-in-one solution for crafting unique, polished, and engaging content without ever needing to leave the platform. The power to generate, rewrite, and now visually transform your content is right at your fingertips.

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Originally published at RSSground.com

A Heartfelt Thank You This Thanksgiving from RSS Ground

Dear RSS Ground Community,

As we gather around our tables this Thanksgiving, we want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you! 

This is a time for reflection and appreciation, and our thoughts turn to the incredible community we have the privilege to serve. Your support and engagement have been the driving force behind our continuous growth and innovation. 

Seeing you use our tools to create, syndicate, and grow your online presence is what motivates us every day. We are genuinely thankful that you have chosen us to be a part of your journey.

We hope this holiday brings you joy, peace, and wonderful moments with your loved ones.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Originally published at RSSground.com