Yoga Beyond Performance: Identity, Access, And Ashtanga

2025-08-12

Finding Harmony Podcast

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1:30:03

This conversation explores the lived experience of practicing and teaching Ashtanga as a visible minority, and what it takes to evolve a lineage without losing its heart. We examine how unspoken norms, lack of clear standards, and performance-driven culture can exclude people, and what a more inclusive, structured, and compassionate approach looks like in real rooms.

What You’ll Hear

Identity, visibility, and belonging in traditional Ashtanga spaces
Why standards matter, and how “no structure” quietly creates inequity
Mixed messaging around asana achievement vs yoga as healing
Practical inclusion: bodies, props, pacing, and permission
Decolonizing the mat and having necessary, uncomfortable conversations
Teachers’ responsibility around food, body image, and modeling care
Reframing progress when life, injury, or anatomy write the rules
Community dynamics after leadership changes in Mysore
Privilege, access, and taking practice to underserved communities

Key Takeaways

Clear standards protect students and teachers and reduce bias.
Inclusion is practical: adapt sequence, use props, cue options, honor cycles.
Your value is not your vinyasa. The practice is a lab for self-knowledge.
Community health > cults of personality. Build learning organizations, not pedestals.

About Our Guest

Jamaica-born and South Africa–based, Shakira Bouwer is an Ashtanga yoga teacher authorized in Mysore. She began yoga in 1999 while working in corporate finance, later earned an MBA, and ultimately followed dharma into full-time teaching. Her work centers on accessibility, decolonizing the mat, and creating spaces where every body can practice with dignity.

Connect + Resources

As shared in the episode: