Industry Trends

Honoring Yoga's Roots: Appreciation vs. Appropriation

As of 2025, Yoga Alliance requires cultural education. Here's what studio owners need to know about honoring yoga's origins while avoiding appropriation.

Key Takeaways

Yoga Alliance Code of Conduct now requires cultural education: As of 2025, all Yoga Alliance members must educate themselves about yoga's history and origins, making cultural competency an institutional requirement rather than optional ethics.
Representation gap persists in US studios: Modern Western yoga is predominantly represented and marketed by slim, white, upper-middle-class, cisgender, able-bodied women, while people of South Asian descent remain marginally represented despite yoga's Indian origins.
Appropriation occurs when commodification erases origins: Sacred practices reduced to fashion trends, Sanskrit misused for aesthetic value, and Hindu deities placed on leggings or yoga mats without sacred context exemplify appropriation rather than appreciation.
Colonial history shaped today's practice: Under British rule from the 1700s through mid-1900s, yoga was banned or restricted in India, breaking traditional lineages while Western gymnastics infiltrated the practice and detached it from spiritual roots.
The Honor Don't Appropriate Yoga Summit has engaged over 10,000 participants: Created by Susanna Barkataki, this initiative reflects growing institutional and practitioner commitment to teaching yoga with integrity and respect for its Vedic and Dharmic context.

Why Cultural Appropriation in Yoga Has Become Studio Policy

The conversation about cultural appropriation in yoga has moved from academic debate to binding institutional policy. The Yoga Alliance Code of Conduct, updated in 2025, now explicitly requires members to educate themselves about yoga's history and origins while seeking to responsibly adapt teachings for diverse students. For US studio operators and teachers, understanding the distinction between appreciation and appropriation is no longer optional ethics but professional obligation.

According to Yoga Journal's coverage of the Honor Don't Appropriate Yoga Summit, created by Susanna Barkataki, more than 10,000 participants have engaged with frameworks for practicing and teaching yoga with greater integrity. This reflects a shift in how major yoga publications, educators, and studio networks are approaching what was once considered fringe discourse.

The Colonial History That Shaped Modern Yoga Practice

Understanding appropriation requires understanding what was taken and how. Under British colonial rule from the 1700s through the mid-1900s, yoga was restricted or banned in India, with spiritual teachings regulated and reconstructed. Indians were forbidden from engaging in traditional yoga practices, leading to catastrophic knowledge loss and broken lineages.

During this same period, according to religious studies professor Shreena Gandhi at Michigan State University, yoga transformed from its traditional form as Western gymnastics infiltrated the practice, becoming mostly detached from its spiritual and philosophical origins. Today, yoga is often marketed by affluent Westerners to affluent Westerners, with Indians marginally represented if at all. The explosion of yoga studios, videos, apps, and apparel in the West results in Western yoga being represented predominantly by slim, white, upper-middle-class, cisgender, able-bodied women.

What Appropriation Looks Like in US Yoga Studios

When sacred practices become fashion trends, symbols of resistance become decor, or cultural expressions are monetized by outsiders while their originators remain marginalized, that constitutes appropriation. Modern yoga in the West is often stripped of its philosophical foundation and repackaged as wellness or fitness. Sanskrit is misused or reduced to aesthetic value. Images of Hindu deities are placed on leggings or yoga mats devoid of their sacred significance.

Indian-American yoga teacher Lakshmi Nair describes finding yoga studios often "image obsessed" with a "toxicity" from cultural appropriation: statues of Ganesh in the bathroom, Shiva above the radiator, and incense everywhere, yet the studios did not "seem to care about India, yoga, or even the statues they had bought." In India, deities and sacred symbols are treated with reverence, placed on pedestals and never on the ground, with altars created for them. Western yoga studios sometimes mimic this by adding Buddha idols scattered around with less intention, just to beautify the space.

Yoga fads such as goat yoga or beer yoga may be considered offensive to people who practice yoga as a spiritual practice. The Om symbol, yoga sutras, and mandalas are casually added to studio walls, but these symbols are not decor.

The Sanskrit Question: When Language Use Becomes Appropriation

Teachers should not fear using Sanskrit terms if they understand the term appropriately, know the history and meaning behind it, and are appreciating the culture it stems from. The problem lies when people are oblivious and do not care to inform themselves, just throwing words around without accounting for the weight they hold. Every teacher should learn about Sanskrit, its pronunciation, and its difficult history. Dedicating ourselves to really understanding the richness and history of Sanskrit before offering surface-level explanations can be healing.

Namaste is used more among North Indian friends than in South Indian upbringing. As yoga teachers, it isn't necessarily wrong to use namaste if you have appreciation for its origins, and you should use it if you want to, but understand that doing so will not make your class better or more authentic. It's really what you do between your namastes that matters.

The Decolonizing Yoga Movement and Representation

The decolonizing yoga movement is twofold: first, it uplifts Black and Brown yoga teachers to promote diverse representation; second, it teaches the full eight limbs of yoga, not just physical practice, to honor yoga's ancient roots. Many South Asians in the diaspora, particularly in North America, have been vocal about appropriation. For some, this work is deeply personal: a way to reclaim ancestral pride, challenge historical erasure, and affirm the depth of a tradition that has often been misrepresented.

Yoga communities often make white, cis-gendered, able-bodied women feel more welcome than persons of South Asian descent. Parts of yoga have become an exclusive fitness regiment that doesn't make Indian people comfortable joining. In modern times, it is far less common than one might expect to walk into a yoga studio in the United States or Europe and find a yoga teacher of Indian origin.

The Complexity: Yoga Has Always Evolved

Yoga scholarship holds that yoga does not have an essence as it changed continually over the centuries, and talk of purity or authenticity does not make sense. Yoga in India has declined in its traditional form and has taken on aspects of its modern Western form, implying many people in India have accepted a more Western view of yoga. Yogic treasures were not swiped like artwork from pillaged temples; they came with gurus, swamis, and yoga masters bearing gifts. Those respected emissaries showed how to adapt their teachings to the languages, values, and customs of the West, training Americans and Europeans to teach others.

This historical complexity does not erase appropriation concerns. Gandhi notes that a superficial approach constitutes cultural colonialism linked with white supremacy, capitalism, and globalization. Yoga is frequently marketed as secular, universal, and detached from any religious or cultural lineage, erasing its Vedic and Dharmic context.

What This Means for Studio Owners

Editorial analysis — not reported fact:

The 2025 Yoga Alliance Code of Conduct update means studio owners can no longer treat cultural education as optional professional development. Every teacher training program, staff meeting, and class planning session should include reflection on how you're honoring or erasing yoga's origins. Review your studio decor: are sacred symbols placed with reverence or scattered for ambiance? Audit your teacher roster: do South Asian instructors have equitable representation and leadership opportunities, or does your team photo look like the narrow demographic Gandhi described?

Consider how you use Sanskrit. If you're offering philosophy alongside asana, are you dedicating time to pronunciation, meaning, and historical context, or dropping terms for atmosphere? If your studio offers novelty formats, ask whether they honor or trivialize the practice. Most importantly, recognize that appreciation requires ongoing education, not a one-time diversity workshop. The 10,000-plus practitioners who engaged with the Honor Don't Appropriate Yoga Summit signal that students are seeking studios that approach this work seriously.

This is not about abandoning Western yoga or requiring Indian heritage to teach. It is about acknowledging power, history, and representation. It is about making choices that create space for the people whose ancestors developed this practice, rather than replicating the colonial erasure that nearly destroyed it.