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

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 5th: Session 1: Yoga & the Epics
• Tuesday, November 12th: Session 2: Yoga & Sound
• Tuesday, November 19th: Session 3: Yoga & Poetry
• Tuesday, November 26th: Session 4: Yoga & Visual Arts
• Tuesday, December 3rd: Session 5: Yoga & Fashion
• Tuesday, December 10th: Session 6: Yoga & Contemporary Representations

LIVE Session Recordings

You can watch the live session recordings using the video player below (once they become available) – 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.

• Please watch these supplemental videos associated with Session 2:
  • Video 1 – Vedic Chanting
  • Video 2 – Temple Music
  • Video 3 – Theyyam Practice
  • Video 4 – Devadasis
  • Video 5 – Bharatnatyam Dance
  • Video 6 – Nizamuddin Dargah

Completion Policy

Decolonizing Yoga Final Exam – Submissions Due by February 10th

Resources:

Session Slides:

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMIE7yyMqfCNUqTJ37SwKNkemZ-w9fO6/view?usp=drive_link

Preliminary Readings:

• Decolonization is Not A Metaphor – Tuck & Yang
• Decolonizing Yoga? Is It Going Deep Enough?
• Can the Subaltern Speak – Gayatri Spivak

Other Links Mentioned:

• https://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1894804/FULLTEXT01.pdf 
• https://escholarship.org/content/qt3v8504zx/qt3v8504zx_noSplash_9c0ffe318ea85144e1d3bd553d12818e.pdf
• https://missingperspectives.com/posts/reclaiming-yoga-navigating-decolonization-in-a-spiritual-tradition/
• https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/07/11/breathing-deep-and-diving-in-yoga-and-cultural-appropriation/
• https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/11/the-second-coming-of-guru-jagat
• https://time.com/7096209/breath-of-fire-hbo-guru-jagat/
• https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0812z285 

A personal narrative of my own journey in yoga as well as the questions I have been asking myself about what the meaning of decolonizing yoga is and how can I play a role in it. It has been published by the Race and Yoga journal, Volume 8, Issue 1.

Chat Boards

Questions

If you have any content questions, email them to Katie at info@yogamedicine.com.