Starting my own home yoga practice came from a wish to deepen my physical yoga practice. But my yoga self-practice has done so much more than that for me.
If you missed the introduction to my Complete Handstand Guide, go read it here and then head back to this post, which is the first part of my 5 post series! Learning to do a solid handstand is all about having the foundational strength and flexibility/mobility in place first. The reason I emphasize this is
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
In this essay the author describes how to decolonize your yoga practice. She offers helpful and insightful reflections on how to practice yoga.
These are a few ways to decolonize your yoga practice:
1. Inquire within.
One powerful way we can decolonize yoga and reunite it with its true aim and purpose is to practice Gandhian svadhyaya, or self-rule and inquiry, and to truly learn the full honest, integrity of an authentic yoga practice.
2. Explore, learn and cite correct cultural references.
As practitioners of yoga I would love to see more of us citing cultural references as we attempt to understand and connect with the complexity, culture and history from which this tradition comes. I’m not suggesting people put on a watered down, context-removed faux Hinduism. To me that is not the answer.
3. Ask ourselves, and other yoga teachers, the hard questions.
These tension asks us to bring all of ourselves to the table. So what I am suggesting is for us to decolonize yoga we need to inquire deeply. We each have our unique story and gifts to share as do all the practitioners we teach or learn from. Lets ask ourselves “For whom is yoga accessible today and how might that be a legacy of past injustices that we have the opportunity to address through our teaching practice and our lives?”
4. Live, know, share and practice all 8 limbs of yoga, not just asana.
We can also decolonize yoga by studying the depth of practice beyond the postures. In addition to asana we need to understand, practice and teach all 8 limbs of yoga: yama or ethical conduct, niyama or personal practice, pranayama or working with the breath, pratyahara awareness of the senses, dharana, meditation, concentration and insight, dhyana or being present with whatever arises and samadhi, or interconnection with all that is.
5. Be humble and honor your own and other people’s journey.
When we humbly and respectfully consider yoga’s history, context, many branches and practices we give ourselves a fighting chance achieving yoga’s aim of enlightenment of mind, body and spirit.
By really engaging the full, whole and multifaceted face of yoga we not only liberate ourselves but we may just overthrow this 2nd colonization of yoga, freeing ourselves as well as the yoga
practitioners of the future to experience the full, liberatory,authentic and true practice of yoga. We allow our own practice to grow and our gifts to really shine.
With mutual understanding, respect, and a deep reverence and caring for the history we can decolonize ourselves, the yoga-industrial-complex, and stage our own ahimsa, or nonviolent revolution of the mind, body and spirit.
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