Decolonizing Yoga: Tracing the History of the Practice Teacher Training | Online 2025

Welcome to your Decolonizing Yoga: Tracing the History of the Practice Teacher Training! We created this live online yoga teacher training to better support you in an interactive format with discussions along the way. You can either attend the weekly sessions live or watch the recordings to stay on top of the information as it progresses – you will have unlimited access to the live session recordings and resources.

This training has six, 2hr live sessions running every week. Each session will begin with about an hour of lecture, followed by an interactive discussion to prompt deeper inquiry.

Please note that there are no actual “lessons/topics” built into the course. The videos are all on the home portal – so because there aren’t any lessons/topics to mark as complete, the course will continue to say 0% complete until you complete the exam. Once you pass the exam it will say 100% complete.

This yoga teacher training will count as 12 ‘in-person/contact’ hours towards your 500-hour/1000-hour Yoga Medicine certification. Directly following the last live session of the yoga teacher training you will be invited to take an optional online exam – you must pass the exam within 45 days to receive your certificate of completion and training hours. These online hours will also be recognized as 12 continuing education hours (CEUs) by Yoga Alliance.

LIVE Sessions Schedule (8-10am PST | 9-11am MST | 11am – 1pm EST):

• Tuesday, November 4th: Session 1: Yoga & the Epics
• Tuesday, November 11th: Session 2: Yoga & Sound
• Tuesday, November 18th: Session 3: Yoga & Poetry
• Tuesday, November 25th: Session 4: Yoga & Visual Arts
• Tuesday, December 2nd: Session 5: Yoga & Fashion
• Tuesday, December 9th: Session 6: Yoga & Contemporary Representations

Join the scheduled Live Session

LIVE Session Recordings

You can watch the live session recordings using the video player below – each week the new recording will be added to the playlist. Just use the white dropdown arrow in the upper left-hand corner of the video player to toggle between each sessions’ recording. Within this video player, you can go fullscreen, change the speed, add closed captioning, and more.

Decolonizing Yoga Final Exam – Submissions Due by January 23, 2026

Note: If you do not submit your essay by January 23, 2026, the essay discussion boards will be removed and you will no longer be able to submit your answers. Therefore, you will not be able to receive your certificate and hours of completion for this training.

Essay Question #1: What does the term “decolonize” mean to you and how can you apply it in a yoga-specific context? Feel free to draw on any examples from the course material that resonated with you and to draw from your own experiences in explaining both the word and the process of decolonization?

Essay Question #2: Describe your ideal yoga space in terms of decor, sound, color and artwork. What would you enjoy seeing and hearing when you teach or attend a class, based on their historical significance and links to the practice and/or their contemporary links to yoga?

Essay Question #3: A prospective student asks you what kind of clothing you would recommend for yoga. How would you explain the way yoga clothing has changed over time and the cultural relevance of certain kinds of clothing? What are your own thoughts over what to wear while practicing today?

Resources:

• Documents:
  • Full Training Sessions Slides
  • Decolonization is Not A Metaphor – Tuck & Yang
  • Decolonizing Yoga? Is It Going Deep Enough? – Patrick McCartney, Phd
  • Can the Subaltern Speak – Gayatri Spivak
  • The Hindu Nationalist Campaign to Promote Yoga – Deeksha Udupa & Raqib Hameed Naik
  • Reclaiming Yoga: Navigating Decolonization in a Spiritual Tradition – Simran Pasricha
  • How Women Colonized Yoga – Kat Rosenfiled
  • Decolonizing Yoga – Ayebainemi Abieyuwa Ése
  • I Teach Yoga – Its Appropriation by the White Wellness Industry is a Form of Colonialism, but We Can Move On – Nadia Gilani
  • The Culture Edit: On travel, Yoga and the Myth of the Melting Pot – Selene Brophy
  • Decolonizing Yoga Through an Intersectional Analysis in the Indian Diaspora: A South African Story
  • The Gita Enables Modi to Legitimize His Violent Erosion of India’s Constitutional Fabric
• Videos:
  • The Tradition of Vedic Chanting
  • Ritual Procession in Sri Meenakshi Temple (Madurai)
  • Bhagavathy Theyyam | Ritual Art Form of Kerala | Kerala Tourism
  • The Devadasis
  • Devadasi Dance | Yashoda Rao Thakore | Awara Musafir Diaries 29
  • Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, Delhi | The DelhiPedia

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