Conference Schedule

2020 has been relentless. The world has forever shifted. We were forced to slow down and take a deep breath, whether we could or not. Most of the world took a grand pause. Things slowed down for some of us and ramped up for others. What did 2020 teach us about global accessibility, equity and unity? How did we redefine accessibility, and who gets to claim it? What has 2020 taught us about life, partnerships and connections? What is the greatest lesson we can learn from accessibility in 2020? Let's discuss how we change the world in our own small way to create a seismic shift that encompasses equity for all. 

In this presentation, Lakshmi will share her reflections on the historical Bhakti movement in medieval India as a social justice movement by sharing stories of revolutionary bhaktas who challenged casteist, patriarchal, communalist norms and how their courage is relevant to our times. We will end with a meditative practice that honors and elevates the feet, a part of the body that in Indian culture is considered lowly and polluting and is (not by accident), associated with the Feminine and also with low-caste peoples. We will also discuss what this means in terms of cultural appropriation.

At this session, hosted by Yoga Alliance Foundation, we will share brief stories about yoga providing resilience to teachers and others in this time of crisis. We would like to hear how yoga has supported and enabled you to maintain your practice throughout pandemic.

Please plan to share your experiences and perspectives on the following questions (responses may be submitted prior to the workshop or during the session):

• How has yoga supported you during this period of crisis and challenge?
• What has been the role of “community” in strengthening your ability to navigate adversity?
• What other types of support do you need most during these challenging times?

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed if it is not faced." - James Baldwin

Now is the time to acknowledge and bring power to unified voices. This unique panel is filled with cultural leaders in the field of Contemplative Practices who will share a discussion inspired by the words of James Baldwin and his extensive fight to create a more just, accessible and equal nation. The panel is composed of Dana Smith, Kiesha Battles, J Miles and Shankari Goldstein, four thought leaders that have lent their voices tirelessly to the upliftment of Black, Indigenous People of Color and underserved communities. They will ask the listener to give rise to the following questions:

• What is our greater humanity asking Black people to reconcile themselves to?
• How long is the road to justice and progress?
• What is the price of trust and are White people or those in power willing to pay for it?
• What does it look like to examine one's own culture and your own inner spirit and shadows?
• What is the role and future for Contemplative Practices and Yogis in this profound moment?
• What does it look and "feel" like to preach the Gospel of Equality?
• Our panel will take you on a cultural journey through the history of the Black Yoga experience and how Black voices are powerfully emerging as the pioneers and leaders in the field, not only in our larger national conversation on systemic racism, but the Wellness World as a whole. We will dive into what it looks like to ""Reassemble the house of our fallen Heroes,” as James Baldwin asked of us many decades ago.

We Call Forward the Change Makers who like Baldwin, brought the cry for freedom into cocktail parties, universities, and the streets. So to have these presenters who have been asking the Yoga Industry to craft new visionary ways to practice the very traditions and knowledge with the Black and Indigenous people that helped bring them to life.

Will this profound step in the right direction we are witnessing be enough? Time and love will tell, but in the words of brother Baldwin, "How much time do you want for your Progress?”

Mic Drop.

Sarah is an experienced yogini and teacher who has worked in multiple communities across the US. Come enjoy a brief lecture on best practices for working with neurological disorders, disabled athletes, and SCI. And then engage in a conversation about finding your voice as an Accessible Yoga teacher in a tempestuous industry.  

In this workshop, we will begin with a typical Guided By Humanity All Abilities sequenced practice for grounding. We will discuss the importance and need for trauma sensitive practices within the I/DD community. We will discuss factors such as physical access and barriers, person centered language vs. identity first language, unexpected behaviors that may show up in your class and varying physical abilities. We will end our discussion with a Q & A session and resources.

Though yoga is for everybody, images of yoga on social media or the environment of a public class can send the message that yoga isn’t for every body. How can we change the perceptions of what a yogi looks like and make the practice more welcoming and accessible to students with larger bodies? Come join Jacquie and other participants to share and discuss!

Accessible Flow is a gentle chair vinyasa practice where props are encouraged for added support and stability. 

Come join Rajarajeshwari and other participants to explore and learn of the journey and experiences of a Deaf Yogini's journey; through the lenses of culture, language & spirituality. This interactive convo benefits Yoga Studio Owners and Yoga Teachers who have had Deaf Yoginis and Yogis in their yoga space. 

Trauma informed yoga is taught with a sensitivity to the various needs of trauma survivors in mind. The focus is on creating as much safety as possible and minimizing harm to people who may already feel vulnerable in their bodies and in yoga spaces. Unresolved trauma can cause hypervigilance, anxiety, depression and shut down. Being neurodivergent, although not necessarily a trauma, can be traumatizing in a world oriented towards neurotypical brains. It is also important to be aware of how trauma may present differently for neurodivergent students. Trauma informed yoga must include understanding and awareness of neurodiversity and the different needs of neurodivergent people. This class is taught by Hala Khouri, a neurotypical trauma therapist and yoga teacher, and Laura Sharkey, an autistic yoga and meditation teacher, and disability justice activist. Together they will collaborate to offer best practices for working both with trauma survivors and neurodivergent people. Topics we will cover include.

• What is trauma?
• Basic elements of a trauma informed practice.
• How to support neurodivergent students.
• How to distinguish neurodiversity from trauma symptoms.

This workshop will also include a short practice.

Come meet Dr. Yoko Nakano and Dr. Teruki Nakano, based in Tokyo, Japan, and other participants in Asia.  Learn about Teruki and Yoko's work with MEDCAREYOGA and how to approach social distancing and frailty in older people. Discuss together what yoga instructors can do in the "Corona" Era.

In this keynote we will explore the roots of yoga as socially engaged and accessible. We will cover the history of colonization and oppression, cultural issues, appropriation, modern day segregation in yoga, and explore concrete tools for how to create inclusion such as allyship and accompliceship. In this immersive talk, for practitioners, teachers and students of yoga Susanna Barkataki will guide participants on a rich cultural journey into the roots of yoga, breakdown inaccessibility, colonization and oppression and invite participants into intersectional skill-building for accessibility with inclusion and diversity while embracing the heart and roots of yoga.

Just because we can't gather in person doesn't mean we aren't gonna party! Join us for a joyful opening night celebration with fun, games, and a dance party! Dress however you feel best (glitter! fancy clothes! costumes! messy hair and PJs!) and come to mix and mingle with the Accessible Yoga Board and other conference participants! See you there!

This session explores healing addiction at its deepest level and how it is possible even in a time like now. In a WTF moment like this one of proliferating global crisis; the vile Coronavirus, climate and economic catastrophe, the opioid epidemic, and divisive white supremacy just to name a few, it is exceptionally easy, maybe even seemingly preferable, to lose connection with ourselves and our world.

Addiction can be described as ‘the dis-ease of the lost self’. As we look outside of ourselves for something that can only come from inside we become increasingly disconnected from lasting peace and tranquility. True and lasting joy and fulfillment come from knowing our own intrinsic identity. Only from that place can we work toward collective healing.

This session approaches healing through the understanding presented in classic yogic texts, which recognize that most all of us are addicted to how we process reality. Through that lens, we present the solution for healing addiction, even the root addiction to power and control, as a set of practices used to cultivate and apply principles to bring true healing into our lives and into the world.

Making relaxation accessible means more than just adding props to ensure students are physically comfortable, it means creating an environment and adjusting practices to help students feel safer. This workshop will provide an overview of the autonomic nervous system, polyvagal theory, as well as relaxation and meditation practices. Learn how to create an open dialogue around the challenges people face when practicing relaxation and meditation. Explore the multi-factorial backgrounds that often lead to people feeling unsafe. Engage creatively with an overview of how to make spaces feel safer, how to adapt practices to treat pain, work with trauma, and help students feel more comfortable and more at home in their practice.

Join Accessible Yoga representatives and Ambassadors in Europe and UK to meet one another and discuss the history, present, and future of accessibility in yoga in Europe/UK.  Come connect and share! 

Join in on this panel discussion by 3 of the authors of the ground-breaking white paper, How Yoga Therapy Serves in Comprehensive Integrative Pain Management. The focus of this discussion will highlight the barriers to access of services, the limitations of training for yoga professionals, and practical action steps for increasing pain literacy and access for all stakeholders. This promises to be an engaging and aspirational discussion for anyone interested in expanding yoga access for people living with pain.

This presentation, through the story of Shri in New England, will provide insight and direction into how to create your own effective social enterprise serving large populations of students with an intent on building community and empowering both teachers and students.  Best practices and methodologies will be discussed in a call for action approach.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were overworked, stressed, and lacked self-care tools and consistent contemplative practices. Due to the demands of social and physical distancing, and a shift in how we work and communicate, we are collectively experiencing a new level of overwhelm, and emotional and mental exhaustion.

Creating a paradigm of compassionate collaboration and community that is rooted in conscious relationship, self-care, and contemplative practice, Amina and Pamela will help you discover how to use yogic practices to serve others. These include:

• Unpacking the consequences of moral injury
• Developing distinctive and empowering self-care techniques
• Using yogic principles, compassion, and energy healing tools
• Discovering unconventional methods of collaboration, partnership, and community building to help you navigate your personal and professional lives.

This workshop immersion is designed for everyone, including those searching for more meaning and purpose to discover embodied, synchronistic connections. When our inner spirit is depleted, everything suffers, including our service to others. Through self-inquiry, discussion, breathwork, meditation, and embodied movement, we will learn how self-care and healing are a necessary part of a life of service.

This session will focus on the experiences of people who are Blind/Visually Impaired within the yoga setting and discuss how a social-emotional teaching/learning model can facilitate a more inclusive environment for students and teachers alike.

Honoring the classic structure of a hatha style class – one breath, one movement- When moving in a symmetrical way, the right side is usually the first to move, thus, all setting and refining cues provided on the right side are in English, by the time we transition to the left side, which usually is the second side to move, we also transition to a different language: Spanish! Do not fret, all cues remain the exact same on both sides and languages.

Open to all levels of experience, with demonstration along the way so you never feel lost and always know where you are going. Together we will support our asana practice with the usage of props. What a joy spending time in community furthering malleability in all your bodies: physical, mental and spiritual!

All children can benefit from yoga. How can we make it more accessible so that we reach more populations?
We will facilitate:

1. A discussion of how you are making yoga accessible for children with disabilities in your community (addressing and removing barriers, ie. location, financial, communication, etc).
2. A platform to share ideas of how you are supporting children with disabilities in practicing yoga and using the “tools” of yoga to support their development.
3. Brainstorming various ways of reaching out to and including families of children with disabilities or other special needs.

Casteism is a taboo subject in the mainstream and yet its pervasiveness has seeped insidiously in every realm of life in India and the Indian diaspora, much like racism here in the United States. We will first understand the complexity and the history of the case system and how this is manifested in Yoga. For those of us who want to think about equity and accessibility, the caste system has played an often silent role in the way we learn and practice Yoga that many are unaware of. We will then discuss how we can help disrupt this power paradigm in our Yoga classes.

Come and join Amma Fandino in this conversation to share experiences about bringing yoga to the Spanish speaking community, especially with people that have little or no access to the teachings.  She´ll share her experience teaching in prisons in Colombia in her commitment to support rehabilitation of those deprived of liberty. Amma, also will tell about teaching in palliative care centers supporting cancer patients to improve their life quality and their ability to cope with the difficult circumstances of the disease.  This will be a unique space to meet and share with other participants living and/or working with Spanish speaking communities, and to learn together about ways to make the yoga practice accessible to all.

Join Mei Lai Swan, founder of Yoga for Humankind, for an exploration of trauma-informed yoga that is woven with social justice and spirit for a trauma-transforming practice of hope, healing and collective wellbeing.

Trauma-informed yoga is expanding rapidly around the world with our growing understanding of the prevalence and impacts of trauma, and the benefits of yoga, contemplative and body-based practices in recovery and resiliency. Much-needed and powerful, many current trauma-informed yoga approaches draw from traditional hatha yoga, mindfulness practices and neuroscience, with a focus on important theoretical, practical and clinical knowledge and skills. But they often miss out on the heart of what humanizes us: the honouring of our unique and individual wholeness, and our inherent interconnectedness with each other, the world, and spirit.

This approach offers us a whole human, whole system framework and practice to move from trauma-informed to trauma-transforming.

In this workshop, Mei Lai combines a presentation and embodied practice that explores:

• Understanding and transforming personal and collective trauma through the yoga of embodied experience, spirit, social justice and trauma theory
• Honouring our humanity, wholeness and uniqueness
• Exploring connection, hope and possibility
• An introduction to knowledge, practices and skills for trauma-transforming yoga and facilitation

Michelle C. Johnson will offer a keynote focused on how we can most effectively meet this cultural and political moment with practices rooted in liberation for all. These are tumultuous times and we need to be creative in how we respond to the tumult from a grounded and centered place. This keynote will include conversation, meditation, and questions for your reflection. 

This seated class will focus on progressions of movement in a flowing motion. It is designed for wheelchair users or those with a mobility disability who have some upper body mobility. A graduate of the Chair Yoga Teacher Training Course by Yoga Vista Academy, I have been inspired by the movement philosophy of Sherry Zak Morris who is an aficionado of keeping the body moving in safe and effective ways for the ageing population. Hence I bring a lot of sequencing into my classes, when working on the upper body in particular, which is also so beneficial to wheelchair users with often over-worked muscles and joints in our upper bodies. During this class we will move steadily from one seated stretch to the next, progressively building on movements. We will be guided by the breath to bring focus while freeing up our joints and boosting blood flow. Multi-directional seated movements will be used to ease the muscles and fascia in our neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, spine and hips. Using sequences is wonderful for concentration and coordination, kind to our joints and brings life force to the body and mind. I hope you enjoy this class!

Come meet Bill Brown, Executive Director of Prison Yoga Project (PYP) and discuss the personal, social, and intergenerational trauma yoga teachers face head-on entering into prisons and jails, an environment that compounds trauma. In this context, where everything, especially power dynamics, is intensified, how we show up is vitally important. Connect with each other and discuss how good intentions can inadvertently harm the people we seek to serve. To be effective, we need a deep practice that helps us face our attachments and conditioning to act without attachment to the outcome. When we can begin to do this, we create a healing holding space that is the foundation for personal and social transformation.

Take a moment to ask yourself: Why do I practice yoga?

Whatever your answer, the reasons that you practice yoga are many of the very same reasons that transgender and non-binary folks seek out the practice. Unfortunately, many have come away from yoga spaces feeling ignored, unseen, inappropriately asked to educate their teacher, or actively harmed by the experience.

This panel, facilitated by three of the founding collaborators of the Trans Yoga Project, is designed to challenge dominant, colonialist assumptions about gender and gender expression, break down the barriers that keep trans and non-binary people from accessing yoga and wellness services, and provide insight into how members of the yoga community can aid in safeguarding trans folks’ spiritual, mental, and physical wellbeing, actively affirm trans lives and experiences, and co-conspire with trans and non-binary people working towards liberation.

The Trans Yoga Project is currently an early-stages collaborative project to support trans people's spiritual wellness through community (re)education, advocacy within the yoga and wellness industries, community building, and the creation of supportive and affirming content and guided practices by and for trans and non-binary people. This group has committed to both internal and external work in service to ALL trans, non-binary, and queer siblings, and thus is vested in dismantling all systems of oppression, including white supremacy and capitalism in all of their manifestations. The project's eight founding collaborators are all queer, trans, and non-binary yoga and meditation teachers based throughout the United States. Learn more and help fund this work by visiting patreon.com/transyoga.

Take up space.

In a world that ask you to play small we invite you to take up space. Take up space by being. Take up space by breathing. Take up space by using your voice. Take up space for your community. Take up space for the world. Take up space for YOU.

This experience is for BIPOC to share collective memories, laughter and joy! Join us as we celebrate the beauty of our collective experience of being seen, heard and loved. Join us in taking up space.

Yoga is Dead is a revolutionary podcast that explores power, privilege, fair pay, harassment, race, cultural appropriation and capitalism in the yoga and wellness worlds. Join Indian-American hosts Tejal + Jesal as they expose all the monsters lurking under the yoga mat.

Come meet Marie Prashanti Goodell, President of the Accessible Yoga Board and other members of the Board of Directors.  Learn about the mission and vision of the organization and join in conversation about the future of Accessible Yoga.  Your questions, comments, concerns, and ideas are all welcome.

Mindfulness is a practice of paying attention to the present moment of thoughts, emotions, and sensations with curiosity, acceptance and compassion. This session will focus on the body and breath as anchors to introduce formal breathing practices, gentle movement and relaxation techniques that may be used to promote awareness, connection and clarity to the individual experience amongst the community. This session may be completed on a mat/towel and/or a chair.

Let's Talk about Mental Health: Mental health issues are complex and challenging; but, by coming together as a group , we can increase our understanding and raise awareness to make a difference in our communities.  We will have a real conversation about mental health to break down misperceptions and stigma and promote recovery and healthy communities. 

Summer 2020 saw murders of unarmed Black people in the media, reignited Black Lives Matter protests, nationwide demands for racial justice, COVID 19, and a louder demand for racial healing.

In this virtual session, members of THE COLLECTIVE STL, will introduce participants to the ancient African philosophy of Ubuntu, meaning humanity to others, or- “I am because you are, you are because I am” . Having a clear understanding of the 11 principles, participants will be able to apply the learning to their yoga studios, or home practice, in order to create what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the beloved community. Our beloved community is one in which Black lives matter, where Black lives are affirmed and where Black people are loved. This workshop is for anyone who is interested in creating safe/brave spaces for Black yogis as we construct the beloved yoga community.

Is living with a disability an impediment to the yogic realization of asana? The truthfully complete answer, if not the socially and politically correct one, is both yes and no, but not for the reasons one might expect. Drawing upon his 42 years of living as a spinal cord injured person and 29 years of practicing yoga, Matthew Sanford shares some insights and challenges from his yogic path, especially with respect to asana. He explores both the advantages and disadvantages that come with his ‘dis’ability as a central feature of his yoga practice. Along the way, Sanford hints at a more expansive and possibly more fundamental conception of what asana is, at a deepened appreciation of what it means to be ‘dis’abled with respect to asana and within our culture at large, and whether he wishes his yogic path could have been otherwise. He asks the question, Is it really so bad to be considered ‘other’ within this mainstream, commercially-driven yogic landscape?