University of Ottawa Cancels Yoga Classes Over Cultural Appropriation Claims

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Canadian yoga teacher Jennifer Scharf, who taught at the Centre for Students With Disabilities at the University of Ottawa, was surprised when she was told her free class was removed from the schedule for the upcoming year.

The reason? The university was worried about cultural appropriation and was uncomfortable with holding a class with roots in Indian culture, CBC reports.

“I think that our centre agreed as a hole [sic], that while yoga is a really great idea, accessible and great for students, that there are cultural issues of implication involved in the practice. I have heard from a couple students and volunteers that feel uncomfortable with how we are doing yoga while we claim to be inclusive at the same time,” the Centre for Students With Disabilities told Scharf, according to The Washington Post.

Scharf said she was surprised by the change, as she didn’t think the class wasn’t taught in an offensive way. “I would never want anyone to think I was making some sort of spiritual claim other than the pure joy of being human that belongs to everyone free of religion,” she told the Washington Post. But the university maintained its position, saying that “while yoga is a really great idea, accessible and great for students, that there are cultural issues of implication involved in the practice.”

Scharf countered that stretching is is valuable to students’ mental health, and offered to teach a class framed as stretching — the university accepted, but the new class never panned out. The cancellation has stirred debate, though this isn’t the first time yoga’s adaptation outside of India has come under criticism. As Yahoo Health reported in July, new types of yoga are emerging left and right, and yoga clothes, books, and retreats have become a billion-dollar business. As more and more Americans practice yoga (24 million Americans in 2013, up from 17 million in 2008), fans have been grappling with how to preserve and respect its history.

It’s a sticky subject. But not everyone is caught up in the controversy — CBC reached out to a few Ottowans who practice Hinduism (yoga has its roots in Hinduism), one of whom had a “live and let live” attitude about the matter. “If you look at what the Western world has adapted it is just phenomenal,” Dilip Waghray, who’s been practicing yoga for 50 years, told the news outlet. “Imagine how much good they’re doing for themselves. They’ll live a long and very happy life.”

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