Meet Karin

Once upon a time, I fell off of the bar where I was dancing for my tips. Face first. Onto a yoga mat. It was a confusing experience. But I never left the mat.

I went to teacher training without any intention of being a teacher. But immediately afterwards I was asked to teach, and again I’ve never stopped. I never stopped studying and looking for the best teachers and training I could find, and I never stopped trying to bridge the gap between dominant culture and intentional healing, critical thinking and personal change.

I taught in typical, commercial yoga studios. But I also lugged an Ikea bag full of yoga mats around to youth crisis centers and domestic violence shelters. I didn’t have any clear plan or organization. But it felt like an important thing to do. It bridged my worlds and identities.

When sexual abuse revelations were made in the yoga school I was associated with, I refused to be silent. I refused to hide that abuse from the students and clients of the studio. I was fired.

Which was probably the best thing that could have happened to me.

I officially founded a non-profit and opened up my own space. I ran that studio for five years. I began hosting teacher trainings. But I found, after five years, that the yoga industry had changed. I myself had changed. I couldn’t sustain my own health or the principles I was trying to share in the studio-based model any longer. I couldn’t push back against the fitness style classes rent demanded or the fitness instructor model of teacher trainings and maintain my inner sense of integrity. I closed the studio, got married, went back to a rogue state in my teaching.

Again, what felt like a personal loss was an opportunity. It was a liberation. These days I foster community and engaged practice that challenge the racist, shame based wellness industry, entirely online.

I have an uncomfortable relationship with the yoga and wellness industries. Sometimes I make those industries uncomfortable. I’m incorrigibly asking for better answers, higher ethical standards, transparency and integrity. I firmly believe that there is a truth to Yoga, but I generally think we are sold a lie. The lie invokes an endless self-help and self-improvement projects while sticking your head in the sand to wider, deeply problematic, realities.

Newsletter! Probably the best way to find me.

Values

• there is a difference between a certified yoga teacher/therapist and a qualified teacher. I value my lineage without upholding patriarchy.

• I stand as firmly in social justice and critical thought as I do the yoga world. At the heart they are the same thing; only in spiritual bypassing do they conflict.

• a yoga teacher must have impeccable boundaries, a higher ethical standard than casual social relationships. This communicates respect for those taught and fosters agency, rather than abuse of power.

• Generally speaking, the yoga industry values sales. That means it does not value your wellbeing or those of the planet.

• the journey of unpacking your own shit is a long one. Bring resources. Don’t go alone.

• divesting ourselves of the dominant narrative is a life long practice. It invokes transparency, community, and vulnerability. It also centers economic justice and takes on oppression without shyness.

• We can make the world a better place. I believe in things as yet unseen.

• People aren’t broken, and yoga doesn’t fix them.