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When Michelle Cassandra Johnson enrolled in a 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2009, she had been practicing yoga for years and working as a racial equity and anti-racism trainer. This training introduced her to the ancient philosophical teachings of the Sutras, but she was also taught about liberating practices, and how she felt when she was one of only two BIPOC students in the room. I still remember the feeling of disconnection.
The training promised to help her deepen her practice, Johnson said. But it felt incomplete.
Her perspective as an activist, educator, and Black American informed how she experienced the program. “What I felt was missing was an application of what’s actually happening to us and around us and in our communities,” Johnson says.
Although the social and political issues we face today are not all that different from what was happening in 2009 and years before that, “something feels different in people’s consciousness. , something feels different now in the amount of people talking about yoga and justice,” she says. “My question about that is, how much of it is about performativity and inclusion? And how much of it is a true intention of wanting to transform our wellness spaces, and how much of it is about performativity and inclusion? Do we really want to do the work necessary to create the conditions for health?”
In response, she and others have created a professional social justice movement aimed at addressing her questions and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the racial cleansing that has occurred in 2020. Launched Yoga Teacher Training (YTT).
Ancient traditions as tools for modern change
Social change is complex and multifaceted and requires intentional and sustained efforts. While yoga alone cannot heal unjust systems, Social Justice YTT operates on the idea that practice and philosophy can be used as tools to contribute to meaningful and sustainable progress.
At its core, Social Justice YTT shares the fundamental teachings of yoga as a tool for individual and collective liberation. These curricula emphasize how the inner work initiated by yoga is closely connected to the external changes needed in the world.
After her first YTT, Johnson enrolled in an additional 300 hours of weekend yoga teaching training. she also Bhagavad Gita She began incorporating yoga into her work as an activist. Over time, this developed into a body of work that included books, teacher training, and workshops called ‘Skills in Action’ to help people apply deeply transformative yoga practices to become agents of social change. It is intended to support you in becoming.
Training curricula will vary depending on the specific program and facilitator, but most will focus on how yoga can serve as a tool for internal and external change, creating greater equity and accountability within and outside the wellness community. Promote a collaborative space to discuss things. These interrelated areas of focus include:
- Honoring the roots of yoga and applying its teachings to current social issues
- Harnessing the psychological benefits of yoga to help people with systemic trauma
- Make your yoga space more accessible and inclusive
These trainings attempt to recover what can be lost, misappropriated, and commodified in popular contemporary approaches to yoga. They accomplish this by providing a unique and powerful space to explore personal biases and collaborate towards important collective healing work.
Rest as an act of resistance
All YTTs instruct students in the physical practice and philosophical tenets of yoga. With a focus on social justice, YTT explores how physical movement, breathing techniques, and meditation principles can harness the nervous system to address long-standing trauma related to racism, sexism, ableism, and other forms. People tend to spend more time on the psychological benefits of yoga, such as how it calms them down. systematic oppression.
“Statistics show that 70 to 80 percent of physical problems are stress-related. We know this,” says psychologist, yoga therapist, and board president of the Black Yoga Teachers Alliance. says one Dr. Gail Parker. “We also know that the practice of yoga, especially restorative yoga, yoga nidra, and meditation, triggers a relaxation response, which is an actual physiological response. Also, when the relaxation response begins, blood pressure decreases and We also know that your heart rate slows down, your metabolism slows down, your brain waves slow down, and your breathing becomes more efficient.”
Understanding the compounding effects of stress, especially stress related to systemic trauma, allows yoga teachers to embrace rest as an act of resistance, both in their own practice and in teaching their students.
“We are all negatively affected by racial stress and trauma,” says Tom, author of Restorative Yoga For Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma and Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress With Yoga. says one Mr. Parker. She cites the results of the American Psychological Association’s recent American Stress Survey. “Although our backgrounds and circumstances are different, we are all affected by racial and ethnic issues in this country. So my job is to support people to bring attention to it. is.”
Parker says the first step in dealing with racial stress and trauma is self-education, which is facilitated by the relaxed state yoga provides. “It is the individuals who make up the system. If individuals do not make their own inner efforts regarding race and ethnicity, nothing will change. If the focus remains external, that is, without changing the self, the system If we don’t change that and also make personal changes in individuals, things won’t change. And we’re seeing that.”
Tamika Caston-Miller is the director of the 200-hour virtual social justice yoga teacher training through Ashé Yoga. Dubbed “Subtle Aspects of Yoga,” it focuses on Yin and restorative yoga practices. While restorative yoga is a “practice of rest,” yin yoga taps into the resilience already inherent in oppressed and marginalized communities, Caston-Miller says.
Many YTTs are social justice-minded, welcoming, creating safe spaces, and uplifting people who are often excluded and underrepresented, such as BIPOC, gay people, and people with disabilities.
Creating an inclusive space
Courageous Yoga was born out of director Jordan Smiley’s need to create a yoga space that seeks “not just yogic self-awareness, but yogic self-awareness in the collective.”
“This is a great way for us to study trauma and how we deal with it, and to understand the implicit ways in which white supremacy, homophobia, ableism, classism, and other harmful biases impact wellness spaces and our world at large. “This means investigating both physical and explicit methods,” Smiley says in an email. “We work to cultivate behaviors that consciously disrupt and decolonize the spaces we live in.” At Courageous Yoga School, she has 200 hours of training and 300 hours of training. It offers.
Andrea Palace, who graduated from Smiley’s 200-hour training, had already taken 200 hours of YTT, but the history of yoga and its appropriation in the United States was not recognized in her first program. It was. At Courageous, she has found an inclusive community of people who honor yoga’s roots and want to expand its offerings.
“After getting trained in yoga, I wanted to teach yoga to larger people like me so that they could feel liberated in the same way that I did,” said Ms. says Pares, who teaches yoga classes.
Beyond the walls of the studio
Yoga as a tool for social change by definition extends yoga beyond the walls of the yoga studio. Prison Yoga Project (PYP) offers his 200-hour teacher training in practicing yoga in a restorative justice model. This means supporting organizations beyond the jail and prison system (such as youth support programs and government agencies) to reduce cycles of crime and recidivism by providing trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness programs. The focus is on self-development and rehabilitation.
“Everyone deserves to feel comfortable in their mind and body,” says Jen Lindgren, PYP Lead Trainer and New Hampshire Chapter Director. Teacher training is designed for accessibility, freeing energy, and exploring the communities in which students feel called to serve.
Lindgren says the question becomes, “How can we really be there with a small window of support and provide this practice that maybe people didn’t even think was for them?” .
Since its inception in 2002, PYP has grown to more than 120 programs in nine countries, including the United States. When Lindgren held her first YTT in 2016, she taught 10 of her incarcerated women in New Hampshire, all of whom were released from prison. Some of her first YTT students have gone on to become lobbyists, work as caregivers for adults with autism, and host mental health peer support groups. In 2021, this training became her six-month virtual program for anyone called to serve inside or outside of prison.
Safety and accountability
Felicia Savage Friedman’s 200-hour virtual teacher training in antiracism and social justice leverages her work at the Center for Health Equity at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. Friedman, founder of YogaRoots on Location (YROL), launched her yoga program that makes yoga accessible to people who don’t normally have access to the teachings. Consider prison yoga and line dancing classes, as well as community courses focused on driving yoga. Her approach to training is based on her yoga teachings, which focus on honoring humanity through meditation and energy practices.
“We’ve never done this level of work before, so we’re actually asserting our humanity. We’ve definitely never done that within our community.” Friedman says. She explains that collective liberation work takes place by people working on themselves in close-knit communities where they can be both responsible and vulnerable.
About contributors
Allie Sivak is an author, yoga teacher, and food scientist based in Denver, Colorado. Her yoga has been in her life for over 10 years and has helped her tremendously in getting through the changing seasons of her life. She sees her yoga practice as her lifelong tool for embodiment, awareness, and growth, and writes about holistic health and culture.
Allie has a 200-hour yoga teacher certification, certifications in yoga anatomy and yin yoga, and currently teaches vinyasa and restorative classes. When she’s not practicing or writing on her mat, she enjoys cooking and sharing meals with her friends, traveling, and spending time in nature.