230 - Nadia Gilani - A Reclamation of the Principles of Anti-Colonial Yoga Practice

Dec 27

“We're living in a world that doesn't really want us to change our mind or make mistakes.” - Nadia Gilani

One of the things I love about Anne's episodes is I get to experience them as a fangirl first. Anne's conversation with Nadia Gilani, a London-based yoga teacher and author of The Yoga Manifesto, is no exception (there’s a reason Anne calls Nadia “a warrior pose of a woman”). Sure, the tl;dr header is appropriation vs appreciation within the retail-oriented, whitewashed atmosphere of modern yoga. However, the unabridged version goes deeper, like a good asana, inviting folks to explore their relationship to yoga and its tenets, question the teachers, and consider how our favorite classes are taught and sold.

"I don't think [yoga] really belongs to any of us in the sense that none of us owns it. I'm not even Indian. I'm [of] Pakistani heritage," says Nadia. "I don't think it belongs any more to me because of ancestral lineage than to you. It's an ancient practice, a spiritual practice rather than a religious one. I see it as a secular practice also, which has offended some people." While Westerners don't own yoga, we sure have "innovated" the practice into something well beyond its original spirit. Our commercial and competitive scene still peddles exclusivity to those who meet an able-bodied, racially homogenized, and financially comfortable ideal.

Before you @ us…Neither Nadia nor Anne view able-bodied, white students as the problem with yoga. Instead, they balk at teacher trainings and studios that foster (either overtly or covertly) a colonizer POV, dismissing the origins of yoga and the contributions of all bodies. "I don't think it's enough not to take other people's stuff [ ] and not to take more than your fair share," Nadia says. "That's important. But then, why don't we flip that around and think about generosity? We need to do it with respect and integrity. The classes are getting quite mixed up with alcohol, puppies and goats (!?), music that turns it into a rave."

There’s no “proper way" to asana (that’s colonizer thinking!). Nadia and Anne simply, gracefully encourage everyone to get into a sloppy lotus if that’s where they’re at today, investigate their relationship to this vital living practice, and question their participation process, whether that’s as a teacher or a student.

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Nadia Gilani (she/her) is a yoga teacher and author of The Yoga Manifesto a part-memoir, part-polemic on the wellness industry and state of play within modern yoga.

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