Скачать или смотреть Ashtanga's Accountability Panel Is Theater: Here's Why

I was one of about twenty women certified to teach ashtanga yoga worldwide. i lived that system completely...the sequences, the hierarchy, the mythology of pattabhi jois. before that, i’d already been through two other yoga cults. So when i talk about accountability and power, I’m not speculating. I’ve lived it.

Today, ashtanga teachers held an “accountability panel.” i know some of them personally. i know the survivors they’ve ignored. i’ve watched this pattern repeat for decades, in yoga, in wellness, in every institution under pressure: create a panel. Acknowledge harm. Talk about rebuilding trust. perform listening. Then nothing structural changes. The same people stay in power. The same system continues.

It’s reform without transformation, empathy as theater.

Ashtanga is especially interesting because of its factions. There are traditionalists defending lineage purity, quiet teachers claiming neutrality, trauma-informed reformers, ex-authorized teachers still teaching the same sequences. Each group believes its version is different, evolved, ethical. But all orbit the same source of power: pattabhi jois’s brand and the authorization structure that sustains it.

Leaving authorization while still teaching ashtanga isn’t liberation. It’s rebranding. It’s staying close enough to profit while looking principled. It’s how systems survive exposure, adapt the language, keep the hierarchy.

So no, i didn’t watch the panel because i already know how it ends: authorized and “reformed” teachers discussing how to preserve the system while appearing accountable. the words change (sacred witnessing, collective healing, transformative dialogue ) but the structure doesn’t.

Real accountability would mean survivors leading, authorization ending, teachers willing to stop teaching the brand entirely. Because there’s no such thing as “ethical ashtanga.” The hierarchy is the harm.

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