For me, the question of cultural appropriation comes down to intent and knowledge. How knowledgeable are yoga teachers on the background of yoga? I can only speak for myself. I have studied yoga’s roots for years and I teach yoga history and philosophy in my 200-hour teacher trainings. But I received very little history on yoga when I went through my teacher training. I really liked how Dianne Lalonde described three ways to harm from cultural appropriation as nonrecognition, misrecognition, and exploitation. For the first point, I do not think most yoga teachers present yoga with roots in America. If someone does present yoga in any form as their original thought, that is cultural appropriation. To Lalonde’s second point on misrecognition, I think this goes back to knowledge as I referenced earlier. A yoga teacher may very well misrepresent aspects of yoga including its history. For me, the question as to whether it is culturally appropriate comes down to what they know and whether they change if they learn something different. I am sure I said yoga postures were 5,000 years old at some point because that is what I heard but when I learned that was not the case, I changed what I said. If I had continued to present yoga postures incorrectly once I knew better, you could make an argument of cultural appropriation since I would be misrecognizing yoga. To her last point of exploitation, I think that one is harder to draw the line. I don’t personally care for some of the yoga events like Heavy Metal Yoga or Goat Yoga, but Beryl Bender Birch made a great comment on J Brown Yoga Talks podcast years back. She said if that if goat yoga brings someone to yoga then she’s okay with it. I can see where some might look at that as exploitation, but for me it all comes to down the intent. If the intent is to exploit, that is clearly cultural appropriation. But if the intent is to bring more people to yoga, how could that be culturally inappropriate?
If I think about cultural appropriations in a class setting, I can think of some things that have been thrown around in other forums such as saying Namaste, chanting, or getting an OM tattoo. These are not things that I personally have an issue with, but I certainly understand where people are coming from when they feel something like these are not appropriate. Where I would personally draw the line is if someone were to dress in traditional Indian attire. I think in absence of that cultural background, that would be completely inappropriate. If someone were teaching without proper training or at least self-study, they would basically be a parody and that would be completely inappropriate. I think doing rituals or chanting without explaining the meaning (or background if necessary) is inappropriate. I think using music with Indian chants is okay provided you understand the meaning. But I think playing music to make the class “sound Indian” or “sound like yoga” is a problem.
I live in the southern United States, and yoga is often misunderstood as religion or being of Hinduism or Buddhism. Some churches here even tell their members not to attend yoga or even meditate. I can remember teaching a class and saying Namaste at the end and one student replying with “I love you Jesus.” Some YMCA locations will not allow for saying Namaste at the end of class. I have been in the position of having to defend or explain yoga. If asked to explain practicing a culture other than my own, I think my response would be something like, “Yoga has roots in India, it has been practiced for a long time. It is not a religion, and the yoga poses themselves are fairly new, especially in a class setting. Yoga in America has been adapted and perhaps a bit watered down to fit our culture. I try to teach yoga as authentic as I can for the populations that I teach using the knowledge that I have gained and continue to learn. Feel free to ask me any question and if I don’t know the answer, I will see what I can find out.” I hope to be flexible and open if I am ever presented with such a question.