Yoga for Every Body
and Every One
Every body is a “yoga body.” In the grassroots movement for inclusion, this has become a common catchphrase, one utilized frequently by the Yoga and Body Image Coalition as well as many other advocates and activists for a body-positive, all-inclusive, and accessible cultural projection and practice of yoga. The writers in this section pose tough questions and invite us to look closely at why yoga remains inaccessible to many and why it’s so necessary to continue to reverse this trend and create a new norm.
The epitome of the “yoga body,” Gwen Soffer was plagued by a lifetime of whittling away a body that took up too much space. The external rewards were great, encouraging her to continue to exert a tremendous amount of time and energy on maintaining the “ideal” until the veneer cracked and her practice became a place of solace marked by acceptance with no size requirement.
Jacoby Ballard reminds us that self-love is a journey, one that winds and turns and requires vigilance and introspection. Loving ourselves isn’t always instantaneous or easy. Our relationships with our selves require effort (like any long-lasting and meaningful relationship). Sharing his own journey, practicing with pain, exposing old wounds and turning toward his whole self, Ballard demonstrates how he has made love a daily practice.
Bullied in elementary school and far removed from the myopic representations of beauty found on TV and in movies, Jessamyn Stanley was saddled with insecurities and a deep sense of self-loathing. Ironically, the seeds of transformation came from two unlikely places—Westernized, studio-culture yoga, often perceived as something only affluent, thin, white women practice, and the bikini + beach saturated world of yoga on social media. Stanley quickly had a practice and a medium to work through and document her journey to self-love, and she offered a new picture of yoga to inspire and validate others en masse.
North America has seen an explosion of yoga in mainstream culture over the last seventeen years, growing out of a fair amount of obscurity to a full-blown cultural phenomenon utilized by corporations to sell products, services, and lifestyle brands. As an Indian American, Lakshmi Nair shares the strange and contradictory space she occupies in conventional yoga spaces. In advocating for accessibility, she encourages us to examine the intersection of consumerism, racism, and cultural appropriation while sharing the need for safe spaces for people of color as a necessity for healing and as a form of social justice.
Dr. Sabrina String continues with what many may view as an uncomfortable and triggering conversation about the covert racism within yoga culture, a reality that is a reflection of the culture at large. In today’s charged political climate, it’s a familiar refrain to hear people claim that racism is a thing of the past and that, certainly, it couldn’t exist in a “spiritual” place such as in a yoga class. Strings offers evidence to the contrary. She reminds us that if we’re committed to making yoga available to everyone, we must also ensure that those yoga spaces are safe and welcoming as well. That end can only be reached if we can begin by listening to the experiences of those who have felt marginalized and excluded.
A lack of representation and a cultural value system that continues to equate female “beauty” as the most worthwhile goal for girls and women resulted in body dysmorphia and disordered eating for Chanelle John. The rewards of meditation and her burgeoning yoga practice proved to be healing. They inspired her not only to seek out more diverse and accessible yoga spaces but to create them. She reminds us that everyone is valuable and, though it may be challenging, we all benefit from unraveling the structures that oppress us through our collective liberation.