Maestro on the Mic

Yoga is dead…or is it?

The yoga and wellness spaces are rife with random organizations, arbitrary certifications, and corporations with less than honorable interests. This ancient tradition that was once a mental, spiritual, and physical practice has become commodified and commercialized. The cultural image of a “yogi” has become synonymous with the image of a young, thin, and able-bodied white woman… but yoga is so much more than that.

Jesal Parikh is on a mission to re-educate the world about the true origins of yoga, and (in her words) “expose all the monsters lurking under the yoga mat.” Racism, harassment, privilege, capitalism, and cultural appropriation have taken up space in the yoga world for far too long.

Jesal is my kind of people. Much like the rest of us, she is a disrupter. Piece by piece, she is making the yoga space more inclusive, more diverse, and more aligned with the true purpose and cultural history that yoga has always stood for. Yoga might appear to be dead, but people like Jesal are ensuring that it’s more alive than ever.

In This Episode You'll Hear:

• Who Jesal is and what she has created
• Being a life-long disrupter
• Frustration leading to critical thinking
• The Yoga Alliance certification and conflict of interest
• The influence of clothing brands
• Do only white people have a voice in the yoga space?
• Applying western, capitalist structure to yoga
• What “Yoga Is Dead” really means
• Bringing hope and change
• Finding yoga collectives with a commitment to diversity
• Being conditioned within supremacy and scarcity culture
• Holding the industry accountable for diversity
• Build your own exposure
• The Yoga is Dead Podcast
• Finding an audience that you can build a community with
• Yoga Teacher of Color Platform
• Cancel culture and allowing for personal and professional growth
• Calling out vs. Calling in

Links & Resources For This Episode:

Follow Jesal on Instagram: @yogawalla
Check out Jesal’s website: yogawallanyc.com
Listen to the Yoga is Dead Podcast
yogateachersofcolor.com
@yogateachersofcolor