Shanti Yoga
Empowering | Yoga | Community
Our Commitments to Diversity, Inclusion, and Change
Mission + Commitments
Our mission at Shanti Yoga is to bring you an inclusive community that celebrates the practice of becoming your most authentic self. Through transformative + accessible classes, our skilled instructors offer experiences to enhance the whole person.
We are committed to honoring the cultural traditions + roots of Yoga, teaching to its history, and speaking to the philosophical moral + ethical values that come with it.
Community Agreements
We have a zero tolerance policy for racism on any level within our business and will make it our responsibility to speak up when we witness racism in our studios or community, regardless of its potential effects on our profits.
By participating in classes with Shanti Yoga, I agree to a practice of anti-racism, honoring the ancestors and traditions of Yoga, while respecting gender identities and supporting my teachers in making a livable wage..
Our Commitment To BIPOC
As a white, cis-gender, women-owned business, we commit to holding ourselves and our teachers accountable in being active participants against racism in our studios & community on the micro level.
We dedicate ourselves to ongoing anti-racist education and enhancing our trauma-informed yoga practices.
Above all, we commit to being a safer and braver establishment for the BIPOC community.
On Cultural Appropriation
As teachers and practitioners of Yoga, we recognize the harm and racism of cultural appropriation and how the wellness and yoga industries have long benefited from silence and inaction on this issue. We are committed toward moving forward in the most respectful way possible.
Cultural appropriation is defined as the act of adopting elements of an outside, often minority culture, including knowledge, practices, and symbols, without understanding or respecting the original culture and context (dictionary.com).
Yoga in the West often appropriates yoga by glorifying symbols and iconography of yoga and South Asian culture, in addition to presenting yoga with little acknowledgement of where it comes from. What is valuable is understanding how cultural appropriation is harmful in ways that go beyond offending people: it erases the complexity of the people whose culture is appropriated.
Discussions around cultural appropriation, racism, and structural change are complex and ever-changing. We invite dialogue and feedback as we adjust our practices and policies to be more inclusive, and work towards dismantling these structures.
email info@shantistl.com for more information