How can kink/BDSM reflect the practices that go on in our modern yogic communities, where power plays abound? I spoke to someone on the kink scene to find out a little more about how self-aware practitioners combat consent issues.
Interview: Harriet McAtee, Lead Trainer, Yoga Quota
Harriet McAtee is the Lead Trainer of the teacher training programme at Yoga Quota, which works to bring yoga to underserved communities across the UK. Here she talks about what consent means to her, how Yoga Quota chooses to confront these issues, and what she thinks the yoga community is doing well, and what needs to happen next.
Interview: Eunice Laurel, founder of Movement for Healing
Eunice Laurel is a movement practitioner who founded Movement for Healing, which provides access to yoga and other healing arts tools to women impacted by sexual and domestic violence. Here she talks about her background and her thoughts on what consent really means.
Why can't I say no? The future of yoga teaching
Why can't I say no? All about consent
Why can't I say no? The teacher-student power imbalance
Power imbalance between teacher and student, whatever the discipline, is real and complex, affecting boundaries inside and outside of class. It’s time we considered how this imbalance affects us as teachers and as students; what impact it has on our consent practices, our use of touch, our interactions and the respect we have - or don’t - for each other.
The moral imperative: sexual violence and accountability in yoga
Last week I was privileged enough to spend some time at the Brighton Yoga Festival, organised by the Brighton Yoga Foundation. Chaired by Theo Wildcroft and Jacqueline Hargreaves, the panel hosted Jubilee Cooke and Karen Rain, who had both flown over from the States specially, and Josna Pankhania, who had flown over from Australia.
DON'T DO AS I SAY; DO AS I DO: on the role of the teacher as facilitator, not leader
In today’s world, where thousands of yoga classes take place every week, where we train as teachers and have to try and maintain our lifestyles by bringing in students, it might seem somewhat of an anachronism to ideate the idea of facilitation ahead of idolatry, which is what yoga, with its guru-led systems, has dealt with for so long.