By Alexandra Cheney
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
Yoga teachers may soon have cause to praise Vishnu.
Within the next 10 days, Gov. David Paterson is expected to approve a bill that would exempt yoga teachers from state regulation of their training programs.
The likely exemption comes after almost a year of rallies and protests by yoga instructors to avoid the licensing process.
"Small studios don't have the umbrella of large studios and can't even afford licensing procedures to hold teacher trainings," said Caitlin Casella, a yoga teacher and teacher-traininer YogaWorks.
Paterson has until March 24 to sign the bill, which both the State Assembly and State Senate have approved. The Education Department has also backed the bill, despite the fact that they were part of the initial push for the licensing of yoga teachers.
The bill lists yoga as well and martial arts as exempt from state oversight.
“This was just a bureaucratic error that I’m happy we corrected,” Senator Eric Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat, who sponsored the bill, told the New York Times.
