yoga legal matters

[The following should be understood as risk management advice and NOT legal advice or counsel. If you have legal questions or concerns, contact your local legal professional.] Can we talk about this? Anyone who has taught for any length of time has almost certainly discovered that something happened in a yoga class you taught where a student had an unpleasant outcome physically. Let’s stop right there. Check in on your thoughts and emotions right now before proceeding. Just listen to the internal chatter in response to that stimulus. Agreement? Denial? Acknowledgement? Offense? … there’s probably a spectrum of responses that if you will watch a bit longer may invite closer consideration of what I have to write this morning. Consider this…what if one of these lands on my work surface with YOUR NAME in:         JANE DOE Plaintiff vs. YOUR NAME Defendant       Stop… listen again for protests, gasps, incredulity, silence, etc. What emerges for you? What are these responses based on? What do you think about me the author? What do you think about the legal system? How about the plaintiff (person claiming to have been harmed)?   Recently much has been written about yoga injuries. So why bring this up again? The reason I bring this up is because despite a good deal of discussion as to whether yoga injuries are a real problem, who’s responsibility they are, and should the industry be regulated, the actual practice of risk management in settings where…