Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Healing
Yoga teacher Harpinder Kaur Mann shows American yoga practitioners a path to reclaim yoga from appropriation and recenter the practice where it belongs.

In the West, the practice of yoga comes to us stripped of cultural context. Colonized and appropriated by capitalism, whiteness, fitness culture, and body shaming, yoga in America today is associated with expensive classes, trendy athleisure products, Corepower, Lululemon, and thin, conventionally beautiful white women. But yoga is not merely a one-hour fitness class aimed at stretching and flexibility. Yoga is a spiritual practice from the Indian subcontinent with the ultimate goal of liberation and self-realization.

In Liberating Yoga, yoga teacher Harpinder Kaur Mann draws from her own perspective as a Sikh-Punjabi woman who was alienated by the way yoga is practiced in the United States, but found her way toward reclaiming the spiritual practice for herself. Mann demonstrates that moving away from appropriated forms of yoga and back to yoga's roots is the only true path to healing—both for yoga practitioners who desire to engage responsibly in the practice with cultural appreciation and, especially, for marginalized yogis who wish to reconnect with ancestral spiritual practices and reclaim their full identity.

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Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Healing
Yoga teacher Harpinder Kaur Mann shows American yoga practitioners a path to reclaim yoga from appropriation and recenter the practice where it belongs.

In the West, the practice of yoga comes to us stripped of cultural context. Colonized and appropriated by capitalism, whiteness, fitness culture, and body shaming, yoga in America today is associated with expensive classes, trendy athleisure products, Corepower, Lululemon, and thin, conventionally beautiful white women. But yoga is not merely a one-hour fitness class aimed at stretching and flexibility. Yoga is a spiritual practice from the Indian subcontinent with the ultimate goal of liberation and self-realization.

In Liberating Yoga, yoga teacher Harpinder Kaur Mann draws from her own perspective as a Sikh-Punjabi woman who was alienated by the way yoga is practiced in the United States, but found her way toward reclaiming the spiritual practice for herself. Mann demonstrates that moving away from appropriated forms of yoga and back to yoga's roots is the only true path to healing—both for yoga practitioners who desire to engage responsibly in the practice with cultural appreciation and, especially, for marginalized yogis who wish to reconnect with ancestral spiritual practices and reclaim their full identity.

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Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Healing

Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Healing

by Harpinder Kaur Mann
Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Healing

Liberating Yoga: From Appropriation to Healing

by Harpinder Kaur Mann

Hardcover

$25.99 
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Overview

Yoga teacher Harpinder Kaur Mann shows American yoga practitioners a path to reclaim yoga from appropriation and recenter the practice where it belongs.

In the West, the practice of yoga comes to us stripped of cultural context. Colonized and appropriated by capitalism, whiteness, fitness culture, and body shaming, yoga in America today is associated with expensive classes, trendy athleisure products, Corepower, Lululemon, and thin, conventionally beautiful white women. But yoga is not merely a one-hour fitness class aimed at stretching and flexibility. Yoga is a spiritual practice from the Indian subcontinent with the ultimate goal of liberation and self-realization.

In Liberating Yoga, yoga teacher Harpinder Kaur Mann draws from her own perspective as a Sikh-Punjabi woman who was alienated by the way yoga is practiced in the United States, but found her way toward reclaiming the spiritual practice for herself. Mann demonstrates that moving away from appropriated forms of yoga and back to yoga's roots is the only true path to healing—both for yoga practitioners who desire to engage responsibly in the practice with cultural appreciation and, especially, for marginalized yogis who wish to reconnect with ancestral spiritual practices and reclaim their full identity.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781506495026
Publisher: 1517 Media
Publication date: 06/03/2025
Pages: 200
Product dimensions: 5.75(w) x 8.75(h) x (d)

About the Author

Harpinder Kaur Mann, RYT-500 (she/her), is a yoga teacher and mindfulness educator living on Tongva Land (Los Angeles). Her lineage in Sikhism and ancestral roots in Punjab, India, guide her to teach yoga authentically as a spiritual practice. She founded the Womxn of Color Summit and is known for her work in decolonizing yoga.

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