This workshop explores the intersections of personal and cultural messages and perceptions regarding “body identity” in yoga culture. Personal identities are complex and sometimes we embody conflicting messages, aims and intentions. We are each constantly negotiating the terrain between personal views and perceptions of ourselves and our bodies and the external gaze. Though yoga often prompts us to focus within, we don’t leave the burden of external judgment entirely behind when we unroll the mat. We carry cultural stories in our bodies, and the very real privileges and oppressions that formed those stories. We’ll work with experiences of body size/shape, gender, sexuality, and via their intersections with these other issues, race, class, age and ability. We’ll focus on the language of teaching, yoga, and participation, revealing our own – and cultural – assumptions and stories through body contemplation and writing. We’ll also contextualize the role of body image via an understanding of how yoga came into western culture and the pursuit of yoga as a fitness activity.

This workshop includes minimal asana practice, personal writing (sharing is optional) and small and large group discussion. There will be at least two breaks.

To Attend
Online registration is open (click here). In the event the workshop is canceled, participants will be notified by Wednesday, the week of the workshop. Registration fees are refunded only if the workshop is canceled; no refund for partial attendance or no-show.

Questions?
Please call the Center for Religion and Spirituality at 310-338-2799 or e-mail yoga@lmu.edu.

About the Speaker
Kimberly Dark is a master facilitator who has led groups to awareness and understanding over the past twenty years. She blogs regularly for Decolonizing Yoga and Ms. Magazine, and is also a founding member of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition Leadership Team, in addition to coordinating the Yoga Program at Kalani, one of Hawaii’s largest retreat centers.