For this episode, I sat down with Susanna Barkataki. Susanna is a yoga teacher, Certified Yoga Therapist and the founder of Ignite Yoga and Wellness Institute where she runs Ignite Be Well 200/500 Yoga teacher Training programs. She is the author of the forthcoming book Honor Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. With a degree in Philosophy from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Education from Cambridge College, Barkataki is a diversity, accessibility, inclusivity, and equity yoga unity educator who created the ground-breaking Honor {Don’t Appropriate} Yoga Summit with more than 10,000 participants.
1- Originally, the practice was meant to help transcend the attachment to the body. A full yoga practice is far beyond the physical. It includes all 8 limbs, yoga philosophy, ethics, mantra, mudra, spiritual and lineage acknowledgment and appreciation, and more.
2- To be a responsible and holistic yoga teacher today, you need to have some understanding of social justice and social equity since yoga is about unity.
3- Yoga was pre-religious, it was a earth based spiritual practice. Yoga came from the elements as a way to understand suffering, understand the world around us, and to learn to be more in harmony with that world and with ourselves. It later co-existed and was influenced by the major world religions. It's at least 2,500 BCE, possibly 5,000-10,000 BCE.
4- The lack of accessibility, representation and equally in yoga classes is a public health issue. As a teacher, ask yourself who is not here and why are missing?
5- As a student, diversify your feed, seek out a variety of teachers, support organizations that work towards equality and diversity. Commit to stick to a variety of practices. There are no rule book. It's about thinking critically and acting in a way that brings balance to the power difference and tries to heal the harm that was made in the past.
Thank you so much for listening and being part of our 69th episode! If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, rate and review anywhere you listen. As always, I really appreciate your support with this podcast whether it’s through reviews or through Patreon. With even a small donation of $5/month you can get access to more content, exclusive episodes, tutorials, guided meditations. On October 1st, you got a Restorative Yoga Class on Video. You can also have access to some or all the classes we’ve recorded on zoom and continue to record during this shelter-in-place. If you’d like to have access to all this and/or support me in the creation of this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/onandoffyourmat and become a PREMIUM member on the tier of your choice.
An Indian yoga practitioner in the Shankaracharya tradition, Susanna Barkataki is the founder of Ignite Yoga and Wellness Institute and runs Ignite Be Well 200/500 Yoga Training programs. She is an E-RYT 500, Certified Yoga Therapist with the International Association of Yoga Therapists (C-IAYT). She is the author of the forthcoming book Honor Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. With an Honors degree in Philosophy from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Education from Cambridge College, Barkataki is a diversity, accessibility, inclusivity, and equity (DAIE) yoga unity educator who created the ground-breaking Honor {Don’t Appropriate} Yoga Summit with more than 10,000 participants.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.