POWER & PRIVILEGE IN THE YOGA CLASSROOM - Curvy Yoga

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Power and Privilege in the Yoga Classroom ! ! Two things that show up in every yoga classroom in varying ways are power and privilege. Awareness of how they show up contributes to a safe environment for your students. Power When we think about who has power, we typically mean that in a power over kind of way. In other words, a situation where one person (or a group of people) has power over another person (or group of people). 1 Power typically accrues to those who most closely approximate the mythical norm. In yoga in the US, the mythical norm is a white, able-bodied, thin, youngish, middle-to-upper class woman. If you’re wondering who has power in a given situation/class/institution, consider the following questions from Paul Kivel 2 : • Who is in authority? • Who has credibility (whose words and ideas are listened to with most attention and respect)? • Who is treated with full respect? • Whose voices are heard? • Who has access to or is given important information? • Who talks most? • Whose ideas are given most importance? • Who is assigned or expected to take on background roles? • How is the space designed? Who has physical access? • What is on the walls? © Curvy Yoga www.CurvyYoga.com 1
! • What language(s) are used? Which are acceptable? ! • Who decides? Privilege Privilege is an invisible package of unearned assets 3 . Until we develop awareness of our privilege, it is generally something that we are blind to and/or perceive as the norm. For example, in Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (included in your binder), she gives examples of white privilege that include: • I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented. • I am never asked to speak for all people of my racial group • If a traffic cop pulls me over, or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race Why This Matters In the yoga classroom, unexamined power and privilege can lead to students ignoring what is best for their own body and self, possibly leading to injury. And in the worst-case scenarios, it leads to large-scale abuse of power, as we’ve seen recently in the yoga community with John Friend (Anusara Yoga), Kausthub Desikachar and Bikram Choudhury (Bikram Yoga) 4 . Power With Fortunately, there are other options than “power over.” Power with is collaborative and relational. Rather than one person having power over another, power with empowers a group to create consensus together. Examples: © Curvy Yoga www.CurvyYoga.com 2
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POWER & PRIVILEGE IN THE YOGA CLASSROOM - Curvy Yoga

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