The Ethics of Being a Yoga Teacher

I think about the ethics of teaching yoga a lot.

The simple truth is that I am a white Western woman teaching yoga and I take the ethics of that pretty seriously.

Honestly, I think there are more than enough white Western women teaching yoga.
And, I have a huge ethical dilemma with profiting from a tradition that isn’t mine, and which is so misrepresented and misunderstood.

How do I square this with my commitment to teaching yoga ethically and upholding its values?

Why am I teaching yoga if I’m so concerned with the ethics of doing so?

That second question is much easier to answer.

The philosophy and practice of yoga help me understand my place in the world, and part of that place is sharing some of that knowledge with others.

But, being a white Western yoga teacher is, as it should be, complicated, complex, and sometimes fraught with pits and snares.

I have a duty to uphold the traditions I’ve been taught, and to guard against misappropriating yoga for personal gain or notoriety.

I also have a ethical duty to be transparent about who I am, what I say and do, and how my words and actions affect the people and things and spaces of the world around m.

I don’t take these responsibilities lightly.

One of these responsibilities is to continue to be transparent about my place in the yoga world, the missteps I’ve taken, and ways I stay in my lane while still doing work that is important to me.

(h3>Staying In My Lane

It looks a lot like virtue-signalling to tell you all the things that I think I do “right.”
But, I’m going to do that – as a way of sharing information, information that can tell you if I’m authentic in my teaching, if I’m the right teacher for you, or to help you unpack the ways yoga has been appropriated, colonized, and misunderstood or misused.

• I only use Sanskrit words when I can tell you what they mean, and am confident in my pronunciation.
• By and large I follow the vedic tradition of only teaching what my teachers have told me I’m ready to teach.
• I spend at least as much time studying yogic philosophy as I do studying Western anatomy and physiology and exercise science.
• When possible I study with South Asian teachers.
• I design every class with the true purpose of yoga in mind, and weave core yogic principles into my teaching
• While I do bring in teachings from other traditions and from modern movement practices, I avoid ideas that are Western new-age practices that have been mislabelled as yoga.
• Maybe most important of all, I have a robust and consistent personal yoga practice.