333: Does Yoga Lineage Matter? with Kim Weeks
Many of us have learned, practiced, and taught yoga for years, but we are often unaware of our yoga lineage. What exactly is yoga lineage and why does it matter? Should we be teaching yoga without understanding the history of that lineage of yoga? How can we be more mindful of this in teaching yoga and communicating it with our yoga students? Kim Weeks shares her insights.
Kim has over 20 years of teaching, training, running businesses, and consulting in the yoga and mindfulness industry. In 2019, Kim began working closely with Dr. Sat Bir S. Khalsa, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School to create The Yoga Lineage Series for Yoga Alliance. Today, she continues that work on her podcast The Weeks Well podcast, which is about the modern practice of being your best self in your mind, breath, body, and brain.
Kim shares more about her yoga journey that led her to the work she does today, why knowing the origins of our yoga lineages is so important, and how to go about learning about our yoga lineages. She also shares her insights around the fear of discussing this topic and why it’s important to keep having these conversations.
Key Takeaways:
[2:41] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode – Kim Weeks
[6:06] Shannon shares a little about the yoga lineage she did her first yoga teacher training course in and some of her feelings around it.
[10:30] What does Kim do and who does she do it for?
[12:28] Was it scary for Kim to start her work around yoga lineages? She explains how she got started doing this work.
[20:37] Kim shares another reason why she wasn’t afraid to start sharing about yoga lineages.
“There’s a lot of aspects of modern yoga that aren’t sustainable over time because there’s some super harmful things that have gotten kind of absorbed down through the patriarchy.” ~ Kim Weeks
[22:41] Understanding yoga lineage is key to embracing the practice as a discipline sustainably over time.
[24:03] Kim shares some of her insights about the power dynamic in yoga contributing to fear around this topic.
[32:13] Shannon pops in with a shout out to Crunch’s new offering.
[37:10] Why is Kim so passionate about people knowing their yoga lineage? Why does it matter if it’s all yoga?
“Lineage matters because it’s like a map.” ~ Kim Weeks
[46:38] How can yoga teachers find out about their yoga lineage?
[50:28] It can be uncomfortable when you start researching and discover the abuses of power that may have existed in your lineage of yoga. How can yoga teachers approach these conversations?
“[What] you might be also getting at when you ask about the fear, …is the power dynamics and the abuses that have flowed through so many of these lineages.” ~ Kim Weeks
[60:04] Learn more about the yoga lineages from the series that Kim did for Yoga Alliance (paywalled), as well as from Kim’s website and podcast.
[72:11] Shannon shares her biggest takeaways from this conversation with Kim.
Links:
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Healing and leading through connection, with Shannon Crow – Weeks Well Podcast
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Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life with Yogi Bhajan Book by Pamela Saharah Dyson
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*Trigger Warning* Report on Misconduct Allegations by An Olive Branch
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The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 312: We Stand with Survivors with Rebecca Sebastian
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Boat the Bruce (Cruises in the Bruce Peninsula with Captain Colton)
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Thought as medicine in yoga, with Doug Keller – Weeks Well Podcast
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Yoga Posters (Created by Karoline and Frank Neville-Hamilton)
Gratitude to our Sponsor, OfferingTree.
Great podcast. I really enjoyed listening to the last episode. However, several of the yoga brands mentioned are not lineages. Core Power, Bikram and many others are to quote Judith Lasater are just “exercise with yoga shapes”
We really thought covid would somehow weed out all of the unauthentic inadequate trainings, online teacher trainings etc but it seems worse now. Teachers care more about their playlists than their lineages.
Kundalini is not a lineage. Please see professor and former Kundalini teacher. Phillip Deslippe’s research of the veracity of the lineage/teachings. None of us were surprised. We’ve always known this. The other phenomenon is kundalini teachers holding on to their “purchased” spiritual names despite the veracity of the teachings and all of the controversy. It also blows my mind that their entire practice of yoga is concerned with awakening he kundalini shakti and most of them (even the ones teaching for decades) still say SHAKRA instead of Chakra. It’s so lazy. We are supposed to be not only carrying on the teachings but setting the bar.
I know there’s been some inappropriate relationships with Rod Stryker and a student or 2 but if you were to take a student who had some physical or emotional issues, a kundalini teacher wouldn’t have the first idea how to help that student. A Para yoga teacher would ask the student a series of questions (how do you eat, sleep, digest, intimate relationship stress, work stress, physical limitations and so on) and they have enough knowledge to design a practice specifically for that student that helps with real transformation.
A kundalini teacher would have to look through their 3ho manual and then Kapalabhati them to death. Difference?
Rod has a teacher and a lineage and is transmitting authentic teachings.
Why not interview Pandit Rajmani Tigunait Phd or Sandra Anderson from the Himalayan Institute and Yoga International mag? Or Manorama D’Alvia (www.sanskritstudies.org) student of Sri Bramhananda Saraswati? Or Dr Vasant Lad? Those are real unbroken lineages.
Yoga Alliance doesn’t know their ass from their asana. They’ll certify any shitty training. It’s just a shakedown. All of the board’s combined experience equals a whole lot of nothing.
Dear Shannon, I like your sharing in the intro about how some part of you would prefer to just ignore the stories of abuse in the world of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. Many teachers will recognize that feeling but, as you say, that would not be the best thing you can do as a ‘conscious’ yogi, right?
A few days ago, GuruNischan, born and raised in Bhajan’s community and I, former KY teacher, released a book Under the Yoga Mat: The Dark History of Yogi Bhajan’s Kundalini Yoga. It aims at amplifying the courageous voices of survivors who began testifying ‘en masse’ about their sufferings in early 2020. The book gathers information from various sources revealing the abuse and wrongdoings hidden for fifty years under the veil of yoga, meditation, and religion.
Besides that, it also talks about the lineage of this yoga. It was so weird to hear Kim refer to her working together with Dr. Sat Bir S. Khalsa. You probably know that besides being a professor at Harvard Medical school, he is also the research director of the Kundalini Research Institute. KRI is not yet communicating clearly about Bhajan’s lies about the origin and lineage of his yoga. No historical evidence exists for the Golden Chain you mention in the podcast as the lineage of KYatbYB. The only evidence comes from Bhajan himself.
In 2013, historian Philip Deslippe uncovered in his article ‘From Maharaj to Mahan Tantric,’ how Bhajan fooled his followers about his upbringing, yogic education and KYatbYB lineage. In Under the Yoga Mat more information related to this subject is given. The ‘right side of history’ should include the dark parts so that those are known and do not need to be repeated, right?
You mention how many KY teachers say they can separate the teacher from the teachings because their own teacher was great, and they enjoy the yoga. But what would happen if they knew the full extent of the abuse & wrongdoings that happened ‘under the yoga mat’ for decades? What if they were fully informed about the fact that these teachings helped to create an atmosphere and culture in the community that made them deaf and blind for the horrible abuse by their spiritual teacher that impacted the lives of hundreds, their sisters and brothers, children, family, neighbours, …? Following his guidance and teachings led to a situation where those who talked about the abuse, or questioned the spiritual teacher were shunned, slandered or ostracized. To a climate in which children who were neglected and abused had no one they could talk to, because they were not allowed to be ‘negative’…
I was one of the persons Kim mentions who asked questions when Pritpal Kaur presented KYatbYB at the Yoga Alliance workshop. It was in August 2021. I was devastated by the fact the Golden Chain was mentioned as the lineage of this yoga, while everyone knows by now that it was just an invention of YB, as was proven by Philip Deslippe. And there was no mentioning of the abuses that happened for decades in a community that was practicing this yoga on a daily basis.
While this yoga may have brought much benefit to many people when taught by teachers with integrity, Bhajan’s yoga was also a facilitator for his abuse. That is something I wish more people would be able to see. That is why we wrote Under the Yoga Mat. Using many different stories of survivors in many different situations and time periods, documents from the organizations, lectures from Bhajan, court cases, etcetera, we demonstrate how Bhajan’s yoga, lifestyle and religion were his tools to control the minds of his followers and a cover-up to keep up a Healthy, Happy, Holy façade to the outside world.
In fact, he did the opposite of how Kim defined yoga at the beginning of this podcast. We need to warn people that this yoga and lifestyle have the capacity to create such a cult-like situation in the hands of people who want to take advantage of others.
Shannon and Kim, may I suggest you to read Under the Yoga Mat? If after reading, you have questions or comments, do not hesitate to reach out.
Thank you both for the beautiful work you are doing,
Warmly,
Els Coenen.