What is an anti-racist yoga practice?

Yoga represents a commitment to resisting the ego through humble self practice, attunement, and engagement with others. It involves understanding Yogic Philosophy, one of the schools of Indian thought, and in so doing an opportunity and attempt - for White people of European descent - to dismantle Western colonialist and capitalist frameworks. Elements is pursuing the goal of properly situating the practice of yoga. This involves wide scholarly reading and application, acknowledging the lineage of teaching, providing sanctuary from trauma - including identity based violence, and actively combating white supremacy. Elements believes everyone has the right to be in sacred space with embodiment practices such as yoga and somatics. That said,

Yoga in the West is also a form of cultural appropriation

Yoga is an ancient, Indian set of philosophies and embodied practices that were complexly commodified in a multidirectional process comprising post-colonial Hindu nationalism, Western consumerism, globalisation, and the rise of the neoliberal self in the 20th and 21st centuries. To say that Western yoga practice is ‘loaded’ with complex colonial significance is an understatement. When applied by those who do not understand the origins of the contemporary Western practice of Hatha Yoga, particularly its 20th century narrative surrounding the legacy of Krishnamacharya, yoga in the West is a form of cultural appropriation. All Western yoga teachers must acknowledge yoga’s heritage, and its complex ascendency to being a multimillion pound industry across the planet today. You have the agency to intervene in the practice of yoga as a hyper-consumerist neo-colonial nightmare by establishing an engagement with the philosophy beyond a generic asana practice, and by acknowledging that

Black lives matter in yoga.

There are many ways in which yoga can intersect with necessary antiracist praxis, and many resources testifying to this. At Elements, an intersectional understanding of yoga is promoted, underpinned equally by practitioners and scholars from a global perspective. I am currently working on a reading list which I will publish on the website soon.