When Catherine (who is Black) told the leaders of her TT-500 program Molly and Ann (who are white) that aspects of the DEIA training were problematic, she wasn’t sure what would happen next. What emerged was a partnership: Ann and Catherine created a new curriculum which spanned over 10 months with live Zoom sessions, reflective work, and reading assignments weaving Jivana Heyman’s Yoga Revolution and Deborah Adele’s The Yamas and Niyamas with many yogic maps. In this edited and condensed conversation, they reflect on the journey.
Molly: We’ve been trying to bring the Bhagavad Gita to people in an accessible way. One of the pieces I used was the Bagger Vance movie. And it’s always been a little bit cringe-y. Then Catherine explained its racist connotations. I took the film out, and we had a conversation. Things started to percolate.
Catherine: You’ve had a teacher training program with mostly white students. It was less likely someone in a prior cohort would point out the movie’s flaws. I was glad your response wasn’t ‘Oh, I’ll give you an alternative assignment.’ That would have been a breaking point for me. Then you and Ann suggested a possible collaboration. I appreciated how you did not expect me to be your magic DEIA fixer.
Molly: It’s really important to me that you heard that, because it felt like it could easily have come across as: ‘This isn’t working? Oh, help me fix this right away!’ But we all must come to some of these answers on our own and work collaboratively.
Ann M: Molly and I participated in the Art of Hosting workshop to help grow our own awareness.
Catherine: Being open about your own learning curve made me feel more comfortable suggesting how to weave social justice and equity throughout the whole cohort experience. Most folks only talk about racism or homophobia after a crisis. It’s uncomfortable. Remember that one day in my cohort, folks felt their lack of competence. We fell off the Ladder of Competence diagram you use for SomaYoga curriculum!
Ann M: But I want to clarify something. I don’t feel like you were falling: you put your educator hat on and you were helping, you were really brave. And I sat with your bravery; Catherine is sitting with a lot of knowledge and ability to hold the container.
Catherine: Thanks. I was also angry, like, ‘Dang! Why is it still so hard for people to talk about this?’ It wasn’t any individual’s fault in that room: it’s structural. But frustrating.
Ann M: Catherine, I don’t know if the idea of changing the curriculum emerged right then. Because that day everybody froze, like, ‘Uh, where do we go now?’
Molly: It was a moment of constriction, right?
Ann: It was constriction, a fear: ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I don’t want to say something wrong.’ And that’s what’s been great about combining the yamas and niyamas with the yoga revolution: we gradually dosed new terms and ideas. That allowed people to have exposure, to experience discomfort, but then return to engage, to break up avidya (ignorance) kindly rather than causing more constriction
Catherine: Folks ask, ‘can you just sprinkle some DEIA on top?’ People fixate on roadblocks: ‘Well, we can’t do it because we have this deadline,’ or ‘we already ordered the materials.’ But Black and Brown and LGBTQIA and differently abled teachers have been saying for years: don’t invite me to do a one-off talk for your teacher training program. Yogic philosophy supports our ability to confront and dismantle inequality. And both of you put skin in the game. You had to tell another instructor who teaches yamas and niyamas that we were changing it and teaching it. You made choices requiring extra labor.
Ann M: As a professor, you know it’s hard to change curriculum.That was really helpful for my process.
Catherine: And because we integrate concepts from the existing SomaYoga curriculum, it’s not just these two books standing alone. We weave in the mind maps, the sutras. We’re showing how these things all dance together. “Redundancy is resiliency,” Edgar Morin wrote. People need to go over things more than once.
Ann M: The maps set a foundation to moving towards unfamiliar or scary topics. And we led embodied practices. We demonstrated how to use our bodies, our breath, our minds, the kosha layers, to create space to integrate new information and discharge discomfort. I’ve been teaching the yamas and niyamas for years, and this brought a wonderful depth.
Molly: It re-energizes the curriculum. We can say, ‘Okay, here’s more complexity: How do you understand svadhyaya when it involves challenging your understanding of yourself or the world?’
Catherine: ‘Practice makes different.’ That’s from Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Like the ladder of competence: we can’t expect students to know what they don’t know! Why would you be in training if you knew everything?
Molly: Did you imagine we’d end up here a year ago?
Molly: I don’t think I would have imagined this. I hope people read this and say, ‘Maybe I haven’t done this right in the past; now I can re-engage in a meaningful way.’ Be part of a movement, rather than flailing on your own. I’m sitting here feeling the bravery of it and the effects that it’s had on the current collective. It’s been beautiful. Powerful. I think it will continue to create more ripples.
Dr. Catherine R. Squires (RYT-500) is Professor Emerita of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of multiple books and articles on media, race, gender, and politics, including Dispatches from the Color Line and The Post-Racial Mystique. Over the past fifteen years, Dr. Squires engaged in multiple community partnerships in the Twin Cities to uplift and share local Black histories, share accessible yoga practices, and facilitate intergenerational story sharing. Currently, she consults with local organizations to support community-led research, storytelling, and healing, and teaches yoga in the Twin Cities. She is always on the lookout for interesting birds.
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