
Radical Belonging in Yoga:
Deep Learning, Brave Spaces & Loving Community
Accessible Yoga Conference 2023
A Free One-Day Virtual Event
Saturday, October 14th, 2023
8:30am-3pm PT | 11:30am-6pm ET
(Online via Zoom)
(convert to your local timezone)
This year’s Accessible Yoga Conference Online will be an opportunity for healing and connection for the entire Yoga community. For the first time ever, we’re offering a completely free event and inviting anyone who is interested in Yoga and social justice to join us for inspiration, education, and transformation.
The Conference will include a powerful opening keynote speaker, yoga practices that cultivate radical belonging, and brave Community Conversations. We’re excited to offer a balance of learning and sharing that fosters true belonging.
Join us for this groundbreaking event to build a community of practice and create a sense of radical belonging that reflects the heart of the Yoga teachings.
Register Now (FREE!)Radical Belonging in Yoga:
Deep Learning, Brave Spaces & Loving Community
Accessible Yoga Conference 2023
* A Free One-Day Virtual Event *
Saturday, October 14th, 2023
8:30am-3pm PDT | 11:30am-6pm EDT
(Online via Zoom)
(convert to your local timezone)
This year’s Accessible Yoga Conference Online will be an opportunity for healing and connection for the entire Yoga community. For the first time ever, we’re offering a completely free event and inviting anyone who is interested in Yoga and social justice to join us for inspiration, education, and transformation.
The Conference will include a powerful opening keynote speaker, yoga practices that cultivate radical belonging, and brave Community Conversations. We’re excited to offer a balance of learning and sharing that fosters true belonging.
Join us for this groundbreaking event to build a community of practice and create a sense of radical belonging that reflects the heart of the Yoga teachings.
Register Now (it's FREE!)Accessible Yoga Conference Online
2023 Schedule
Saturday October 14th, 2023
(Sunday October 15th, AEDT - Sydney, Australia)
*Click each session time below to convert to your local timezone,
adding your location if it isn't already listed
Accessible Yoga Conference Online
2023 Schedule
Saturday October 14th, 2023
(Sunday October 15th, AEDT - Australia)
*Click each session time below to convert to your local timezone, adding your location if it isn't already listed
8:30am-9am PDT | 11:30am EDT | 4:30pm BST | 2:30am (Sun) AEDT
-
Opening & Welcome with Anjali Rao
9am-9:30am PDT | 12pm EDT | 5pm BST | 3am (Sun) AEDT
-
Workshop with Lama Rod Owens: The Essence and Practice of Spiritual Abolitionism
Workshop Details
“I don’t want people to be punished for the harm they cause me or others. I want people to be free from the suffering they experience and the suffering they cause others.” ~ Lama Rod Owens
Spiritual abolitionism is more than a critique of power and how social systems work to grant and deny people resources that they need to survive. Spiritual abolitionism means that our entire ecology must be liberated. The Heart Sutra is one of the tools available to us in this work of liberation.
The Heart Sutra teaches that all phenomena are just expressions of the essence — this includes the sacred duality between form and emptiness. The Heart Sutra is nothing but a contradiction. Therefore, sacred duality is a contradiction because ultimately, there is no duality as there are no phenomena.
Join Lama Rod for this series of talks about how we might abolish anything that prevents us from being in direct, honest, and compassionate relationships first with ourselves and then the communities we belong to.
9:30am-10:30am PDT | 12:30pm EDT | 5:30pm BST | 3:30am (Sun) AEDT
-
Keynote with Thenmozhi Soundararajan: From the Trauma of Caste to Collective Liberation
Keynote Details
In this intimate meditation with leading Dalit activist and author Thenmozhi Soundararajan, people committed to the practices of yoga and self-determination will explore their own relationship to caste and marginalization—stepping into their true power as healing changemakers.
Together, we will reflect on how we can cultivate wellness within the dynamics of false separation, sharing how both oppressors and the oppressed can heal from the wounds of caste and transform collective suffering.
In this much-anticipated keynote address, Thenmozhi will weave in her own personal story, combining ancestral wisdom and lessons from the groundbreaking movement for caste equity to illuminate vital truths and uplift courage and love as antidotes to the polarization of the current times.
10:45am-11:45am PDT | 1:45pm EDT | 6:45pm BST | 4:45am (Sun) AEDT
-
Accessible Chair Yoga Practice with Rodrigo: Let the Sun Shine In
Class Details
During this one-hour seated Accessible Yoga class, we are going to explore nurturing ways to move, breathe, and reconnect with ourselves according to our ability, with love & tenderness.
We are going to use the following props:
- 2 chairs (one sturdy chair for you to sit on and one for us to play with)
- 2 blocks
- A bolster/pillow
- A strap
(Variations will be also offered in case props are not available)
This seated Accessible Yoga class is gentle and suitable for beginners, and will be combined with mindfulness exercises based on gratitude, to offer you a fully embodied experience and contribute to your physical and emotional well-being.
12pm-1:15pm PDT | 3pm EDT | 8pm BST | 6am (Sun) AEDT
-
Care & Accountability Community Conversation with Tan Hubbard & Tristan Katz
Session Details
Care and Accountability are two frequently used words—and practices—in efforts towards radical belonging and inclusivity in the Yoga space and beyond.
In this community conversation, we'll discuss these practices as they intersect with the role of the Accessible Yoga Association.
As a non-profit working through education and advocacy to share the teachings and benefits of Yoga with those who have been marginalized, and to identify and remove barriers to access, build strong networks, and advocate for an accessible, equitable yoga culture, we must commit to ongoing inquiry about how we as an organization can support the larger community of yoga teachers in integrating care and accountability in their practice.
1:30pm-2:30pm PDT | 4:30pm EDT | 9:30pm BST | 7:30am (Sun) AEDT
-
Accessible Restorative Yoga Practice with Tamika Caston-Miller: Rest Deeply
Class Details
In this 1-hour Accessible Restorative Yoga practice, Tamika will guide you through a series of contemplative Restorative shapes with the intention of regulating your nervous system, and expanding your toolbox of restful, calming practices.
We recommend gathering the following props for this session:
- 3-4 blankets
- 2-3 pillows
- access to a sofa / chair / ottoman
- yoga strap
- eye pillow or small towel
- any other yoga props you have access to, like blocks (2), and a bolster
(Variations will be also offered in case props are not available)
2:30pm-3pm PDT | 5:30pm EDT | 10:30pm BST | 8:30am (Sun) AEDT
-
Closing with Jivana Heyman
This is a FREE event, designed to bring our Accessible Yoga Community together.
If you'd like to support the Accessible Yoga Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, committed to education, advocacy, and sharing the teachings and benefits of yoga with those who have been marginalized, click below to make an optional donation, or explore other ways to show your support.
Conference Presenters

Anjali Rao
(she/her)
Join Anjali for our Conference
Opening & Welcome at 8:30am Pacific

Lama Rod Owens
(he/him)
Join Lama Rod for a
Workshop at 9am Pacific

Thenmozhi Soundararajan
(she/her)
Join Thenmozhi for our
Conference Keynote at 9:30am Pacific
More about Anjali
Anjali Rao (she/her) is a yoga educator, an activist deeply interested in sharing the ancient wisdom of yoga in service to the challenges of the times. She brings an intersectional lens in integrating yoga philosophy and history, with storytelling, imagery and poetry.
She is an Indian American immigrant, a cancer survivor, a faculty member of YTTs and offers a course on Yoga and Activism in Accessible Yoga Training School. She believes that a dedicated practice of yoga in all it’s expansiveness can alchemize and heal the world by creating ripples of change within and around us.
She is an aspiring writer, and President of the Board of Accessible Yoga. She is a lifelong student of Classical Dance, loves chocolate, books, old trees, the ocean and napping with her rescue pup, Hershey.
More about Lama Rod
Lama Rod Owens (he/him) is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with over 11 years of experience and a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. A leading voice featured by various national and international news outlets.
Author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care.
Lama Rod’s mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself. He activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s natural, engaging, and inclusive. Learn more at lamarod.com.
More about Thenmozhi
Thenmozhi Soundararajan (she/her) is a Dalit American artist, community organizer, technologist, and theorist. Currently, Thenmozhi is the Executive Director of Equality Labs, which she co-founded. Equality Labs is the largest Dalit civil rights organization working to empower caste-oppressed people in the US and globally. Through her work at Equality Labs, Thenmozhi has mobilized South Asian Americans towards dismantling eons-long systems of oppression, with the goal of ending caste apartheid, gender-based violence, white supremacy, and religious intolerance. Thenmozhi previously co-founded Third World Majority, an international media training organization and collective that supported people from disenfranchised groups in telling their own stories, in their own way.
Her intersectional, cross-pollinating work—research, education, art, activism, and digital security—helps to create a more generous, global, expansive, and inclusive definition of South Asian identity, along with safe spaces from which to honor the stories of these communities. Thenmozhi’s work has been recognized by the U.S. Congress, The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, The Producers Guild of America Diversity Program, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Sorbonne, Source Magazine, Utne Reader, The National Center for the Humanities, The National Science Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is a frequent contributor on issues related to South Asia, caste, gender, and racial Equity, as well interfaith issues and peace building, and has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Guardian, ABC, and NBC news. She was also an inaugural fellow of the Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist, Atlantic Foundation for Racial Equity, and is a current fellow at Stanford Center for South Asian Studies. You can order her new book The Trauma of Caste from North Atlantic Books to learn more.

Rodrigo Souza
(he/him)
Join Rodrigo for an Accessible
Chair Yoga Practice at 10:45am Pacific

Tan Hubbard
(they/she)
Join Tan, along with Tristan, for a Community Conversation at 12pm Pacific

Tristan Katz
(they/he)
Join Tristan, along with Tan, for a Community Conversation at 12pm Pacific
More about Rodrigo
Rodrigo Souza (he/him) is an RYT 200 Adaptive & Accessible Yoga teacher with experience in teaching yoga to folks who have gone through Trauma & Disability.
Rodrigo suffered a spinal cord injury (T3 complete) in 2014 after a fall accident. He has been studying and practicing Mindfulness and Adaptive Yoga to help him deal with muscle spasticity, chronic nerve pain, anxiety, and many other secondary symptoms conditions that the injury has brought him.
Through direct personal experience with traumatic injury, and chronic pain, and discovering the need to take charge of his recovery to optimize long-term wellbeing, Rodrigo decided to become a Yoga teacher and teach from his own experience, creating Allihopa Accessible & Adaptive Virtual Yoga Studio. He also runs a non-profit organization called AllihopaBrasil to make yoga more accessible to marginalized groups in Brazil and also teaches newly injured folks in an active rehabilitation non-profit in Sweden.
Rodrigo received his Adaptive yoga certification training under Matthew Sanford, the leading pioneer and “Jedi” of the Adaptive Yoga World. He is focused on creating a supportive community for those who have experienced trauma & disability through Adaptive yoga.
More about Tan
Tanisha, or Tan (they/she) is a caregiver, movement instructor, facilitator and aspiring activist. While the physical practice of yoga is what drew them to the mat, it was the calling of something deeper that led to the decision to complete a YTT. The introduction of the 8-limbed path during training was the starting point of their curiosity of the intersection of yoga and social justice. Forever a student of the practice, Tan is always eagerly seeking out spaces where crucial conversations around accessible wellness and movement are being held. This includes completing workshops and trainings for Yoga For 12-Step Recovery, Accessible Yoga, and Skill in Action.
In the summer of 2021, they wrote their first published blog post for Accessible Yoga Blog on caregiving and how it relates to Yoga as a practice. They believe in empowering others to disrupt the narratives and stories that uplift perfectionism and hyper-productivity. In movement classes, expect practices that encourage individual healing, as self love and care is a part of collective liberation.
More about Tristan
Tristan Katz (they/he) is a writer, educator, digital strategist, and equity-inclusion facilitator. They offer training and consulting on gender equity, trans inclusion, queer competency, and justice-focused marketing practices. Tristan’s intention is to share this work with an anti-oppression and intersectional lens.
Tristan is honored to have worked with and supported organizations and clients such as Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Accessible Yoga School, HubSpot, Stanford University’s YogaX program, Northwest Harvest, LoveYourBrain, Breathe for Change, Williston Northampton School, and so many more.
He was named one of Yoga Journal’s 2021 Game Changers and awarded the Reclamation Ventures grant in Spring 2021 to expand his offerings and dedicate time to writing their first book.

Tamika Caston-Miller
(she/her)
Join Tamika for an Accessible Restorative
Yoga Practice at 1:30pm Pacific

Jivana Heyman
(he/him)
Join Jivana for our Conference Closing Address at 2:30pm Pacific
More about Tamika
Tamika Caston-Miller (she/her), E-RYT 500, is the director of Ashé Yoga, where curates yoga experiences and trainings in service of collective healing and community repair.
Having begun her yoga journey in 2001 with a home practice, she now holds advanced certifications and training in Trauma-informed Yoga, Somatics, Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Yoga Nidra.
Tamika’s journey has been informed by chronic pain and injuries, social justice for QTBIPOC communities, the battle between shame and compassion and quest for ancestral healing, and the love for the practice and philosophy of yoga.
More about Jivana
Jivana Heyman (he/him), C-IAYT, E-RYT500, is the founder and director of the Accessible Yoga Association, an international non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings. He’s the author of two books, Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body, and Yoga Revolution: Building a Practice of Courage & Compassion (Shambhala Publications).
Jivana coined the phrase, “Accessible Yoga,” over ten years ago, and it has now become the standard appellation for a large cross section of the immense yoga world.
He brought the Accessible Yoga community together for the first time in 2015 for the Accessible Yoga Conference, which has gone on to become a focal point for this movement. Jivana is also the creator of the Accessible Yoga Training and the co-founder of the online Accessible Yoga Training School with Amber Karnes, which is a platform for continued education for yoga teachers in the field of equity and accessibility. They also created the Accessible Yoga Podcast in 2020.
Over the past 25 years, Jivana has led countless yoga teacher training programs around the world, and dedicates his time to supporting yoga teachers who are working to serve communities that are under-represented in traditional yoga spaces. For more information head to www.jivanaheyman.com
Conference Presenters:

Anjali Rao
(she/her)
Join Anjali for our Conference
Opening & Welcome at 8:30am Pacific
More about Anjali
Anjali Rao (she/her) is a yoga educator, an activist deeply interested in sharing the ancient wisdom of yoga in service to the challenges of the times. She brings an intersectional lens in integrating yoga philosophy and history, with storytelling, imagery and poetry.
She is an Indian American immigrant, a cancer survivor, a faculty member of YTTs and offers a course on Yoga and Activism in Accessible Yoga Training School. She believes that a dedicated practice of yoga in all it’s expansiveness can alchemize and heal the world by creating ripples of change within and around us.
She is an aspiring writer, and President of the Board of Accessible Yoga. She is a lifelong student of Classical Dance, loves chocolate, books, old trees, the ocean and napping with her rescue pup, Hershey.

Lama Rod Owens
(he/him)
Join Lama Rod for a
Workshop at 9am Pacific
More about Lama Rod
Lama Rod Owens (he/him) is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with over 11 years of experience and a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. A leading voice featured by various national and international news outlets.
Author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care.
Lama Rod’s mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself. He activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s natural, engaging, and inclusive. Learn more at lamarod.com.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan
(she/her)
Join Thenmozhi for our
Conference Keynote at 9:30am Pacific
More about Thenmozhi
Thenmozhi Soundararajan (she/her) is a Dalit American artist, community organizer, technologist, and theorist. Currently, Thenmozhi is the Executive Director of Equality Labs, which she co-founded. Equality Labs is the largest Dalit civil rights organization working to empower caste-oppressed people in the US and globally. Through her work at Equality Labs, Thenmozhi has mobilized South Asian Americans towards dismantling eons-long systems of oppression, with the goal of ending caste apartheid, gender-based violence, white supremacy, and religious intolerance. Thenmozhi previously co-founded Third World Majority, an international media training organization and collective that supported people from disenfranchised groups in telling their own stories, in their own way.
Her intersectional, cross-pollinating work—research, education, art, activism, and digital security—helps to create a more generous, global, expansive, and inclusive definition of South Asian identity, along with safe spaces from which to honor the stories of these communities. Thenmozhi’s work has been recognized by the U.S. Congress, The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, The Producers Guild of America Diversity Program, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Sorbonne, Source Magazine, Utne Reader, The National Center for the Humanities, The National Science Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is a frequent contributor on issues related to South Asia, caste, gender, and racial Equity, as well interfaith issues and peace building, and has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Guardian, ABC, and NBC news. She was also an inaugural fellow of the Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist, Atlantic Foundation for Racial Equity, and is a current fellow at Stanford Center for South Asian Studies. You can order her new book The Trauma of Caste from North Atlantic Books to learn more.

Rodrigo Souza
(he/him)
Join Rodrigo for an Accessible
Chair Yoga Practice at 10:45am Pacific
More about Rodrigo
Rodrigo Souza (he/him) is an RYT 200 Adaptive & Accessible Yoga teacher with experience in teaching yoga to folks who have gone through Trauma & Disability.
Rodrigo suffered a spinal cord injury (T3 complete) in 2014 after a fall accident. He has been studying and practicing Mindfulness and Adaptive Yoga to help him deal with muscle spasticity, chronic nerve pain, anxiety, and many other secondary symptoms conditions that the injury has brought him.
Through direct personal experience with traumatic injury, and chronic pain, and discovering the need to take charge of his recovery to optimize long-term wellbeing, Rodrigo decided to become a Yoga teacher and teach from his own experience, creating Allihopa Accessible & Adaptive Virtual Yoga Studio. He also runs a non-profit organization called AllihopaBrasil to make yoga more accessible to marginalized groups in Brazil and also teaches newly injured folks in an active rehabilitation non-profit in Sweden.
Rodrigo received his Adaptive yoga certification training under Matthew Sanford, the leading pioneer and “Jedi” of the Adaptive Yoga World. He is focused on creating a supportive community for those who have experienced trauma & disability through Adaptive yoga.

Tan Hubbard
(they/she)
Join Tan, along with Tristan, for a Community Conversation at 12pm Pacific
More about Tan
Tanisha, or Tan (they/she) is a caregiver, movement instructor, facilitator and aspiring activist. While the physical practice of yoga is what drew them to the mat, it was the calling of something deeper that led to the decision to complete a YTT. The introduction of the 8-limbed path during training was the starting point of their curiosity of the intersection of yoga and social justice. Forever a student of the practice, Tan is always eagerly seeking out spaces where crucial conversations around accessible wellness and movement are being held. This includes completing workshops and trainings for Yoga For 12-Step Recovery, Accessible Yoga, and Skill in Action.
In the summer of 2021, they wrote their first published blog post for Accessible Yoga Blog on caregiving and how it relates to Yoga as a practice. They believe in empowering others to disrupt the narratives and stories that uplift perfectionism and hyper-productivity. In movement classes, expect practices that encourage individual healing, as self love and care is a part of collective liberation.

Tristan Katz
(they/he)
Join Tristan, along with Tan, for a Community Conversation at 12pm Pacific
More about Tristan
Tristan Katz (they/he) is a writer, educator, digital strategist, and equity-inclusion facilitator. They offer training and consulting on gender equity, trans inclusion, queer competency, and justice-focused marketing practices. Tristan’s intention is to share this work with an anti-oppression and intersectional lens.
Tristan is honored to have worked with and supported organizations and clients such as Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Accessible Yoga School, HubSpot, Stanford University’s YogaX program, Northwest Harvest, LoveYourBrain, Breathe for Change, Williston Northampton School, and so many more.
He was named one of Yoga Journal’s 2021 Game Changers and awarded the Reclamation Ventures grant in Spring 2021 to expand his offerings and dedicate time to writing their first book.

Tamika Caston-Miller
(she/her)
Join Tamika for an Accessible
Yoga Practice at 1:30pm Pacific
More about Tamika
Tamika Caston-Miller (she/her), E-RYT 500, is the director of Ashé Yoga, where curates yoga experiences and trainings in service of collective healing and community repair.
Having begun her yoga journey in 2001 with a home practice, she now holds advanced certifications and training in Trauma-informed Yoga, Somatics, Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Yoga Nidra.
Tamika’s journey has been informed by chronic pain and injuries, social justice for QTBIPOC communities, the battle between shame and compassion and quest for ancestral healing, and the love for the practice and philosophy of yoga.

Jivana Heyman
(he/him)
Join Jivana for our Conference Closing Address at 2:30pm Pacific
More about Jivana
Jivana Heyman (he/him), C-IAYT, E-RYT500, is the founder and director of the Accessible Yoga Association, an international non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings. He’s the author of two books, Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body, and Yoga Revolution: Building a Practice of Courage & Compassion (Shambhala Publications).
Jivana coined the phrase, “Accessible Yoga,” over ten years ago, and it has now become the standard appellation for a large cross section of the immense yoga world.
He brought the Accessible Yoga community together for the first time in 2015 for the Accessible Yoga Conference, which has gone on to become a focal point for this movement. Jivana is also the creator of the Accessible Yoga Training and the co-founder of the online Accessible Yoga Training School with Amber Karnes, which is a platform for continued education for yoga teachers in the field of equity and accessibility. They also created the Accessible Yoga Podcast in 2020.
Over the past 25 years, Jivana has led countless yoga teacher training programs around the world, and dedicates his time to supporting yoga teachers who are working to serve communities that are under-represented in traditional yoga spaces. For more information head to www.jivanaheyman.com
With thanks to our Conference Sponsors!

International Association
of Yoga Therapists
www.iayt.org
