I was once hired at a recreation center for a class called “All Levels Hatha Yoga”.  The core group had been taking this class for a year.  I soon realized they had never been taught alignment, pranayama...well, let's just say, they pretty much hadn't really been taught anything "yoga" in the course of the year.  They were also all over 60 years old.  Not surprisingly, I had to teach with a lot of modifications and props.

After nine months, a director (a non-yoga instructor) takes my class (they develop a performance assessment based on one class) for my yearly appraisal.  A week later, we have my performance discussion. 

Director: You do this weird breathing thing that I’ve never seen.
Me:  You mean pranayama?  No other yoga teacher here does pranayama?  So, I then explained what pranayama was and why I have the class do it.

Director:  We advertise this as a Hatha Yoga class.  Why are you not linking breath to movement?
Me: Do you know what Hatha Yoga means? So I explained Hatha, Vinyasa, etc. and the differences between styles.

Director: Why don’t you use modifications like other instructors?
Me: The poses are already "modified" to the level of the students.  I don’t show them the hardest version and then modify down-that’s demoralizing.

Director: You need to make the class harder, so more students come. 
Me: So, the students you have are not important and you would rather I drive them out of the recreation center in order to increase numbers.  It sounds like you want young students and don’t value your older students.  You also understand that if I make it harder-your current students will get hurt, right?

And so the discussion went….which leads me lead this crazzzy concept called ETHICS!