Decolonizing Yoga

A 5-part livestream series spanning 8 months to explore yoga history, colonialism, caste, Brahminism, Islamophobia, cultural appropriation, spiritual bypassing and how all these systems relate to yoga practice and teaching.

Tara Sonali Miller will guide you into this layered material, leaning on yoga practices to be with the complexity of two seemingly opposite impacts of yoga in the world: liberation and harm. The yogic concepts of satya (truth) and ahimsa (non-harming) can be guiding lights that invite us into truth telling and seeking, repair, and transformation of the complex harm that has come from yoga’s appropriation and proliferation around the world.

Rather than reviewing do’s and don’ts or checklists, Tara will support you to hold many questions that yoga teachers and students navigate on a daily basis:

- How can I teach or practice yoga with cultural appreciation rather than appropriation?

- What does it really mean to decolonize yoga?

- How can I/we acknowledge, repair, and transform harm that is done in the name of yoga?

- How can I facilitate yoga as a practice for liberation?

This series is an introduction to these topics and will likely prompt further study and research of these vast topics.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

• 5, 3-hour sessions

• Articles, podcasts, and reflection prompts

• Recordings of sessions, which are available for up to 2 weeks after each session

NOTE

If you join the Decolonizing Yoga Immersion, you will be joining a cohort of students who are embarking on a 300 hour yoga school and teacher training program. Sessions are catered first and foremost to our trainees, who will be participating in-person. You will be joining us online. You will be able to listen in to the conversation, ask questions over chat (which is monitored by a TA), and have discussions when breakout rooms are possible with other online participants. We are thrilled to open this section up to others who are excited to dive deeply into this topic with us! 

If you're interested in an in-person option and would like to a well rounded, indepth yoga education, then consider applying for the entire Yoga teacher training program.

DATES + FORMAT

DATES

• 9/25/26 - 10/23/26: self-directed study

  • Podcasts, articles, reading from the manual, reflection prompts

• Meets on Fridays, 5:30pm - 8:30pm PST, on Zoom. Dates:

  • 10/23, 1/29, 3/19, 4/23, 6/4

  • Assignments are given between sessions to deepen your study

FORMAT

Livestream with Pre-recording available for playback.

INVESTMENT

Amplifier: $289 - Pays for your spot and supports others

Sustainer: $269 - Pays for your spot

Supported: $249 - A need-based discounted rate. Please select this rate if you cannot afford the regular rate. See our Equity Pricing Information to determine whether this rate is for you.

APPLY

About Tara Sonali Miller

Tara (they/them and she/her) is Co-Director of the BYMC and the Soma School of Yoga and Somatics. Tara has completed multiple yoga teacher trainings and has most recently been deepening their practice and study through advanced trainings with Khushi Malhotra. They are excited to share these deep healing practices with you.