You have tried yoga before. Maybe more than once. You rolled out the mat, showed up to the studio, followed along. And somewhere in the middle of it something felt off. It might have been in the playlist, the language, the room full of bodies that did not look like yours.
Not wrong enough to name out loud. Just off. It might have been an ick you couldn’t quite place, or a feeling that you were missing something.
If that is a familiar feeling. The yoga studio might not be the only place you have felt it. But now you are specifically in a place where you are wanting. torelax, and yet still feeling a tension arise.
What Happened to Yoga
Yoga is a practice with roots in the Indian subcontinent stretching back thousands of years. Grounded in Vedic and Dharmic traditions, it was never simply a physical practice. It was, and for many practitioners still is, a path toward liberation: from suffering, from ego, from disconnection.
What arrived in North American studios is something different. Under British colonial rule, Indian spiritual systems were often dismissed as backward or irrational. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Westerners began selectively embracing certain South Asian practices, including yoga reimagining first as a novelty and then solely as fitness. Over subsequent decades, the North American yoga industry stripped away much of yoga’s philosophical and spiritual depth, repackaged it as a fitness product, and built a multi-billion dollar industry around a practice it did not originate.
The result is a yoga world that has, in many studios, centred one kind of body, one aesthetic, and a western perspective – while the communities from whom the practice originates are frequently made to feel like guests in their own tradition.
Indian-American teachers Tejal Patel and Jesal Parikh spoke to this in their podcast Yoga is Dead, which explored power, privilege, harassment, race, cultural appropriation, and capitalism in the yoga and wellness worlds. Their work, along with a growing movement of BIPOC yoga teachers and scholars, has opened a necessary conversation about what it means to practice yoga with integrity.
Decolonizing Yoga
Decolonizing yoga is not about restricting who can practice, nor about defining who is or isn’t “allowed” to participate. Yoga is Dead points to a few places we can start: acknowledging yoga in its cultural and spiritual fullness, resisting the status quo that reduces it to a product bought and sold, divesting from the yoga industrial complex, and repairing the harm this has caused.
An anti-colonial approach to yoga asks deeper questions. Who holds authority in yoga spaces? Do teachers respect Dharmic and Vedic foundations — or erase them? Does the practice honour yoga as a cultural and spiritual path — or does it market yoga as a product? Moving from extraction to reciprocity, from consumption to relationship — that is the anti-colonial work. It isn’t only individual either. It demands collective commitment, and each of us plays a part.
For BIPOC students, this matters enormously. A yoga space that claims inclusivity but centres whiteness, thin bodies, able-bodiedness, and Western wellness aesthetics does not actually keep everyone safe. The discomfort you feel in that studio isn’t sensitivity. It is accurate perception — the feeling that arises when a space wasn’t built with you in mind.
Vancouver’s own Kendra Coupland – a Black yoga teacher whose Substack “The Sacred and The Struggle” documents her experience building trauma-informed practice – has written specifically about the gap between mainstream “trauma-informed” yoga and practice that can actually hold BIPOC bodies.
Pointing to something the mainstream yoga industry has been slow to acknowledge: that for BIPOC people, the body is not a neutral site. It is the site of intergenerational memory, of racialized harm, of colonial history. A yoga practice that ignores that context (which is what we see in the yoga industrial complex) cannot fully serve the people walking through its doors.
Why a BIPOC Yoga Teacher Makes a Difference
Research consistently confirms that cultural resonance in wellness practice improves outcomes. A scoping review published in the Clinical Social Work Journal (Springer Nature, October 2025) found that BIPOC clients prefer practitioners with extensive cultural training and resonance – not necessarily practitioners who share their exact background, but ones who have done the work of understanding the context their clients move through.
In yoga specifically, that work looks like:
- Understanding the body’s relationship to racialized experience. Hypervigilance, difficulty with breath work, discomfort in certain positions – these responses in BIPOC bodies may connect to racialized trauma, not personal limitation. A BIPOC yoga teacher who understands this does not pathologize these responses. They hold them.
- Not requiring explanation before the practice can begin. A BIPOC student should not have to explain why the playlist feels appropriative, why the Sanskrit pronunciation matters, why the room’s demographics feel alienating. A teacher who already understands these dynamics creates space for the practice itself to do its work.
- Offering a practice rooted in liberation, not performance. The mainstream yoga industry rewards flexibility, aesthetic achievement, and productivity. Decolonial yoga practice asks different questions: What does your body need today? What does rest look like? What does it mean to take up space?
- Pricing that reflects a commitment to access. Many BIPOC practitioners in Vancouver offer sliding scale options, community classes, and reduced-rate options specifically because they understand that the communities most underserved by mainstream wellness are also most frequently priced out of it.
What to Look for When Searching
Finding a BIPOC yoga teacher in Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, or Richmond does not have to mean scrolling through pages of studio websites hoping something feels right. Here are specific things to look for:
- Explicit values language in their bio. A teacher committed to decolonial, anti-oppressive, or trauma-informed practice will name it. Look for language that goes beyond “inclusive” or “welcoming” – both of which are being used to brand a place as such but in practice they fall short – toward something specific about how they understand the body, the practice, and their community.
- Lived experience alignment. A BIPOC teacher does not automatically practice from a decolonial framework. Equally, a non-BIPOC teacher can do this work with genuine depth and commitment. What matters is whether the teacher has examined the practice they are offering and the power dynamics of the space they are holding.
- Sliding scale or community access options. A teacher committed to equity will have thought about how to make their practice financially accessible. They may have sliding scale options available or point you to someone who does.
- A free or low-cost introductory option. Many BIPOC wellness practitioners in Vancouver offer a first class, a trial session, or a community drop-in at reduced cost. This would give you the opportunity to experience a teacher’s approach before committing.
Ready to find a BIPOC yoga teacher in Vancouver? Browse yoga teachers and holistic wellness practitioners in the Healing in Colour directory
The Yoga Industry Is Shifting
The conversation Tejal Patel and Jesal Parikh started with Yoga is Dead in 2019 opened something that has not closed. Yogis are becoming more aware of the lack of representation and need for decolonizaiton in Western yoga.
In Vancouver and across Canada, that shift is visible – although it is still nacent. More BIPOC yoga teachers are becoming aware of the commercialization of yoga. Studios are examining their rosters, their pricing, their aesthetic choices, and their relationship to the tradition they are drawing from. More students are refusing to accept that discomfort in wellness spaces is simply the price of access.
About Healing in Colour
Healing in Colour connects BIPOC clients across Canada with therapists and allied professionals who practice from anti-oppressive values. We believe BIPOC people, in all our intersections, deserve care that supports our healing and liberation.
Learn more: About Us | Our Statement of Values
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