Colorado finds an urgent need to regulate yoga schools, and, indirectly yoga classes.

It was evening at one of this city’s most popular yoga centers, and teacher training was about to begin. Students wore flowing genie pants. Votive candles lit a classroom. Annie Prasad Freedom, the studio’s founder, greeted arriving yogis. “Hello,” she cooed to a man with dreadlocks. “Nice to see you.”

It all seems good--flowing genie pants, votive candles, dreadlocks man--but under the surface all is not well in hippie land.

“I get pretty fired up about this new thing with the government,” said Ms. Freedom, 45, sitting outside her studio, Samadhi Center for Yoga and Meditation. “How can you have people who know nothing about yoga regulating yoga schools?”

Ms. Freedom (if that's her real name) doesn't like government regulation. Does any one else here care to guess Ms. Freedom's party affiliation, and whether she's perfectly happy voting for a party that regulates everything else?

Studio owners say the rules — which involve paying hundreds of dollars in fees and submitting curriculums for approval — will cut into their into tiny profits and limit their yogic creativity.

Do you think government rules limit yogic creativity? Do you think the government has rules limiting the number of downward dog thrusts they can do between "ohms"? Or do you think liberal yoga instructors are only complaining about the thing they claim not to care about... like money?

But officials of the state agency, the Division of Private Occupational Schools, say they are trying to protect aspiring teachers from fraudulent and unsafe programs.

I'm sure unsafe yoga is the leading cause of death in Colorado. And fraudulent yoga must be rampant. A person can claim to be a yoga instructor, and lure unsuspecting students in, but after 45 minutes of stretching, students realize they've been ripped off with phony stretching exercises!

 And they point to the case of Bikram Choudhury, a well-known yoga teacher accused of sexually assaulting students, as evidence that schools need government supervision.

So what does government regulation have to do with yoga teachers raping their students? Do you think they will enact a regulation requiring everyone doing yoga to keep one foot on the floor at all times?

A group of yoga buffs, meanwhile, has persuaded state lawmakers to introduce a bill that would specifically exclude the training programs from agency oversight.

No no no no no. If regulations are good enough for every other kind of business, I say they're great for yoga studios. I want every liberal cottage industry--abortion mills, yoga studios, herbal medicine nuttery--to be subject to the same number of intrusive rules as every other business.

Several states have tried to force yoga schools to seek licenses, only to have their efforts repelled by angered practitioners.

Can't you see the protestors, sitting outside the government offices in the lotus position with their eyes closed, all chanting "Ohm.... Ohm.... Ohmmmmm!" in protest?

Normally I would be on the side of the small business person being oppressed by the government. And this is clearly a case of a government regulating something that has no need of regulation.

But here, I think the liberal yogis are getting what they reap.  I just look forward to the inevitable regulations detailing how often yoga instructors must bathe and how sheer their tights required to be.

Pedro Gonzales is the editor of Newsmachete.com, the conservative news site. His yogi is a bear.