Embrace your truest self in every pose. In this episode of the podcast, Jacoby Ballard guides us through the transformative power of creating queer-affirming spaces within the yoga community. Together, we delve into the heart of inclusivity, unpacking the need for yoga teachers to lead with compassion and develop a culture that honors every individual's identity.

Jacoby Ballard

Jacoby Ballard is a social justice educator and yoga teacher on Shoshone, Ute, Paiute and Goshute land now known as Salt Lake City, Utah. He leads workshops and trainings around the country on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a yoga teacher with 24 years of experience, he leads workshops, retreats, segments in teacher trainings, teaches at conferences, and has been an artist-in-residence on dozens of college campuses. In 2008, Jacoby co-founded Third Root Community Health Center in Brooklyn, to work at the nexus of healing and social justice. Since 2006, Jacoby has taught Queer and Trans Yoga, a space for queer folks to unfurl and cultivate resilience and received Yoga Journal's Game Changer Award in 2014 and Good Karma Award in 2016. Receiving prenatal yoga training in 2021, Jacoby now offers a Queer & Trans Centered Prenatal Yoga online and LGBT inclusion workshops in prenatal yoga teacher trainings so that queer families can be anticipated and supported in their process. Jacoby has taught in schools, hospitals, non profit and business offices, a maximum security prison, a recovery center, a cancer center, LGBT centers, gyms, a veteran’s center, and yoga studios. He is the author of A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditation for Liberation, released in 2022, a critical love letter to teachings and practitioners of yoga and Buddhism, and serves on the board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. More at www.jacobyballard.net.

Connect with Jacoby

Instagram: @JacobyBallard

https://jacobyballard.net/

Resources from the Episode

A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation

The Four Faces of Love: The Brahma Viharas, https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/the-four-faces-of-love-the-brahma-viharas/

Generative Somatics

Larry Yang, "In the Moments of Non-Awakening,”

"Everything We Know About the Death of Trans Oklahoma Teen Nex Benedict"

https://www.them.us/story/nex-benedict-death-everything-we-know-nonbinary-oklahoma-teen

Revolutionary Love, Valerie Kaur

Transcript

Image descriptions: mauve background, teal and salmon accents. The far left and right image have white blocks in the middle with text. The middle image has a picture Jacoby sitting in a grassy field smiling at camera.