Why true inclusion means expanding our entire definition of what yoga can be

Inclusive yoga is usually presented as making postures more accessible for different bodies. Modifications, props, variations - all valuable, all important. But yoga is not just physical.

And honestly, I find it frustrating when we criticize people for taking an asana-based approach to yoga, as if that's somehow less valid or less "authentic." Asana is a great way to access yoga. It's exactly why the yogis invented it in the first place - as a way to train the mind through the body. For many people, vigorous physical practice is the bridge to everything else yoga offers.

There's a weird paradox happening: those who criticize the lack of inclusion in yoga are also focusing primarily on asana - just making the poses more accessible. But what if we defined yoga differently altogether?

"What if we defined yoga as the experience of nothing missing - that sense of wholeness, of being complete exactly as you are in this moment? Suddenly the asana becomes less important. It's just one possible doorway among many."

My position isn't anti-asana. It's this: there are many ways to be excluded from yoga, and they're not all physical. In fact, there's a massive overlap between neurodiversity and hypermobility, which means some of the most flexible people in your class might be the ones struggling most to access the practice. Inclusion is as much about the mind as it is about the body.

When we think about the whole experience of yoga - that sense of union, of connection, of coming home to yourself - we need to ask: who is not able to feel connected, and why? What is missing for them? And can we support each person to find the bridge to that whole experience, wherever they're starting from?

The Long Way Home

I know this intimately because I've lived on both sides of it.

For years, I practiced with an ADHD brain I didn't yet understand, carrying traumas I hadn't even recognized as traumas. I moved through classes feeling like I was supposed to obey the teacher, follow the instructions perfectly, achieve the shapes they demonstrated. I thought if I could just get it right, if I could just be disciplined enough, still enough, quiet enough, then I'd find whatever yoga was supposed to give me.

But that sense of wholeness everyone talked about remained elusive, always just out of reach, like trying to grasp water.

It took me a long time to realize that the problem wasn't my practice. It was that I was looking for yoga in all the wrong places - in perfection, in achievement, in someone else's idea of what my practice should look like. The shift from needing to obey teachers to finding my own empowerment was slow and sometimes painful. 

I experienced public humiliation in class, one time a male teacher pointed to my abdomen and that I was “puffing up my organs” (whatever that means) when I actually had fibroids and needed surgery. I had to unlearn the idea that the teacher had all the answers before I could discover that I'd had access to my own wisdom all along. 

This also completely transformed how I teach. I used to think my job was to give students the "correct" way to practice. I've taught for 27 years now, and somewhere along that path I realized I was perpetuating the same dynamic that had kept me disconnected from the heart of the practice for so long. The patriarchal, authoritarian approach that I had inherited. 

Now I understand that my role is to help students find their own power, their own authority over their experience. To be a guide who illuminates possibilities rather than a gatekeeper who determines who's doing it "right."

The Gap Between Movement and Experience

I've taught strong, flexible students who move through complex sequences with apparent ease, but they might be disconnected from the felt experience of their practice or the pleasure of being with their bodies or kind to their minds. 

I've taught students with ADHD who describe life as rushing past them like scenery through a train window, moving too fast to grasp, too blurred to land anywhere meaningful. I understand that feeling viscerally; that sense of always being slightly outside your own life, watching it happen rather than inhabiting it. What's missing is presence itself.

I've worked with students who arrive after years of of feeling "not enough", who step into a yoga space already filled with self- doubt or braced against judgment. Their primary need isn't more strength or flexibility. It’s acceptance, acceptance to exist exactly as they are, without needing to fix or change or improve anything. 

What the teacher offers:

The real skill of the teacher is creating a class where each person can step towards that experience of self- acceptance. Where we convey the radical heart of yoga philosophy, through words, breath, movement - that we are entirely complete, lacking nothing. That we are a part of the whole, there is nothing “wrong” with us. 

We do this by validating each person's experience, rather than prescribing what they should do or feel. We hold the space as teachers to recognise where the shift towards wholeness might take place. By recognizing that someone might find that connection through vigorous movement or gentle stillness, that their “natural” breath might be the perfect rhythm for them right now. That when meditation is just self- recrimination it might not be helpful. 

We want to find ways to include the incredible philosophy of yoga that conveys so beautifully that we are part of the whole. We are connected, we simply cannot be broken.  

Yoga is the Connection, Not the Shape

Yoga, at its heart, is about union - the experience of wholeness, of being connected to yourself and the present moment. Yoga is what happens when that sense of fragmentation dissolves, even briefly. The asana, the breath, the meditation are all vehicles, not destinations.

When someone feels that connection, you can see it in their quality of presence. Maybe it's a student with chronic pain who suddenly notices they can breathe into discomfort rather than fight it, or someone whose mind never stops discovering a moment of genuine stillness, or a strong practitioner finally feeling their body rather than just directing it through space. That's yoga happening.

But we've somehow made yoga synonymous with the postures themselves, as if the shape of the thing is the thing itself. As if touching your toes is the same as touching something true within yourself. We've confused the method with the outcome, the form with the experience.

This Isn't About Who Gets to Practice

Let me be clear about something: inclusive yoga is not about suggesting that people who are strong, flexible, or able-bodied are somehow the problem. It's not about making anyone feel guilty for their capabilities or for finding joy in dynamic, challenging movement. 

Some students genuinely need rigorous asana practice. They need to move, to build heat, to feel their strength. That's valid. That's yoga too.

The issue has never been that "bendy people" are deliberately excluding others, that's a false narrative that misses the mark entirely. The issue is that we've created a narrow definition of what yoga looks like, and in doing so, we've obscured what yoga actually is.

When we equate yoga with a specific aesthetic, young, thin, flexible, able-bodied - we don't just exclude people who don't fit that mold. We also might trap people who do fit it into thinking that if they can perform the shapes, they've "got" yoga. And they miss the actual practice entirely, caught in the same cycle of achievement and striving that yoga is supposed to help us step out of.

Creating Space for What Each Person Needs

So how do we bridge these gaps? How do we help people find what's missing?

It starts with something simple: acknowledging your experience exactly as it is. Not trying to change it, not judging it, just recognizing what's actually happening in your body and mind right now.

Then we work with the nervous system to make it more adaptable - because that's what yoga actually does. It's not about forcing calm or achieving stillness. It's about building the capacity to regulate yourself, to move between states, to find a bit more ease. And any little bit of improvement counts. A slightly longer exhale. A moment where you notice tension or reframe a thought, before you're completely overwhelmed by it. The ability to choose rest when you need it.

For the student whose mind races, what's missing might be permission to move first. To let the body lead before demanding stillness. Understanding that a "busy mind" isn't a failure - it's just information about what your nervous system needs right now.

For the trauma survivor, what's missing might be choice. Agency. Someone saying "you know your body best" and meaning it. 

For the high-achiever, what's missing might be the revelation that there's nowhere to get to.  That noticing your habits is more valuable than any perfectly executed pose.

For the person living with chronic pain or disability, the shift might be reframing the ideas we hold about our bodies and breath.

As teachers, we hold the space with compassion. We gently challenge the assumptions "I'm doing it wrong," "I can't do this," "I'm not good enough." We create opportunities for each person to realise their wholeness - both within themselves and as part of this incredible yoga community that holds us all.

The Heart of the Practice

The felt experience of yoga - that sense of coming home to yourself, is available to everyone. But not through the same doorway. This is what I wish someone had told me decades ago when I was trying to force my neurodivergent brain into someone else's template for practice.

Some people find that connection through vigorous movement. Some through stillness, or  breathwork, or the intellectual inquiry of philosophy. 

Inclusive yoga isn't about dumbing down the practice or making everything soft and gentle and accommodating. It's about recognizing that the practice is vast - a full spectrum of possibilities. It's about being a guide who helps each student acknowledge their current experience is valid, and that their own inherent wisdom is always acting as a guide. Even if it takes us on some wild detours!

This approach transforms our practice and our teaching; and it's transformed not just how my students practice, but how they relate to themselves. When I stopped trying to be the expert with all the answers and instead became curious about each student's unique experience, something profound shifted. The practice became alive and responsive to each person, in a way it never was when I was just delivering a choreographed sequence.

 That moment of connection, of wholeness, of presence - that's what's been missing. And that's what we're really offering when we teach yoga. 

Teaching Teachers to Teach This Way

If this resonates with you as a teacher, if you've felt the limitations of the traditional approach and want to learn how to truly empower your students rather than just instruct them, I'd love to support you in that journey.

I mentor teachers through my 200-hour and 300-hour yoga teacher training programs, where we dive deeply into these principles of inclusive, empowering, trauma-sensitive teaching. We explore how to read a room, how to offer genuine choice, how to meet each student where they are rather than where you think they should be. 

I also offer online training options for those who want to study this approach wherever they are.

Teaching this way requires us to unlearn a lot of what we've been taught about being a yoga teacher. It asks us to be vulnerable, to admit we don't have all the answers, to learn alongside our students. But it's the most rewarding shift I've ever made in my teaching, and I'm passionate about supporting other teachers through it.