I am an immigrant from India who moved to the US at a very young age. While I was exposed to yoga in my childhood on TV or through older relatives, I didn’t become a yoga practitioner until I was in my late 20s, early 30s and not in India. Unlike popular misconception in the US, not everyone growing up in India practices yoga. Living in Seattle, as a young professional, I noticed that yoga was quite the trend and saw people with yoga mats all around me. A majority of the people carrying those mats looked nothing like me - aka most were white. Maybe it is a factor of where I live, I thought initially, and then over time I noticed that there were plenty of people of color in my neighborhood but not that many with yoga mats.

I decided to give it a shot and attended a few classes at two studios near me and the experiences were vastly different. One was a hot yoga studio, which felt amazing in the winter, and had a lovely teacher but I was maybe one of two or three students of color in a class of 30. It was also hard to follow at times because even the level 1 class seemed to cater to experienced practitioners and I had a hard time understanding the names of the poses spoken in an American accent. The other studio, which was more expensive, had idols of Indian gods as we entered, stuff for sale up front and center, and the beginner friendly class was anything but that. Also, I was the only person of color in that very expensive class. These few experiences put me off and I never really continued my yoga practice.

All this to say that I started teaching yoga for two main reasons - representation and accessibility.

• Representation matters. I realized as I was going through the Yoga training with Aham Yoga Studio, that I need to be out there as a South Asian woman teaching yoga so that others like me can see that yoga in the US is for them too, and don’t feel out of place.

• Yoga isn’t just for the skinny and fit. I teach yoga basics - a level 1 beginner friendly session - and I want to show that yoga is not only about asana, and specifically not just about the complex poses. Yoga can be gentle, for all body types, use props, and practicing the basics without ever doing a headstand or handstand is okay.

I have a lot to learn in my teaching journey and in my learning journey, and I hope that you can travel alongside me for part of that journey.