Jesal and Tejal met years ago in a training in NYC. Each of us was relieved to finally make a Desi yoga teacher friend who could relate to the other’s experiences with yoga in America vs. yoga in India, and to have someone to bitch to about the cultural appropriation, racism, exploitation and general belittling that we experienced in that training and in many others. But after a few years of having these conversations in hushed tones so as not to offend our white colleagues, we decided it was high time our voices and experiences were heard. We created the Yoga is Dead podcast as a way to jumpstart critical conversations, elevate oppressed voices and perspectives and to expose the problems felt by anyone who isn’t in the “in” crowd of the yoga industry. Yoga is Dead is a revolutionary podcast that explores power, privilege, fair pay, harassment, race, cultural appropriation and capitalism in the yoga and wellness worlds. Join two Indian-American hosts as they expose all the monsters lurking under the yoga mat.

Lakshmi Nair is the founder, co-president, and a member-owner of Satya Yoga Cooperative, the first yoga co-op in the country, owned and operated by people of color.  The mission of Satya Yoga Co-op is to be a to be a healing force by and for POC, using yoga as a tool for both personal liberation and social transformation.  In 2014, Lakshmi started an 8 month long yoga immersion/teacher training for people of color which teaches yoga as a first and foremost a spiritual tradition with roots in South Asia but which honors the principle of "Truth is One, while paths to Truth are many"  We honor and acknowledge the Truth in all of our indigenous spiritual traditions.  We aim to model and teach a liberation oriented yoga that acknowledges systems that fracture wholeness.  We just graduated our 5th cohort.

Your Free Gift: Sanskrit pronunciation guide: Yamas and Niyamas

(PW: asteya)