"Not All Yoga" Is "Not All Men"

"Not All Yoga!" "I'm not lineage-based." "I never studied with a guru."

I keep hearing this. And every time, I think...this is "Not All Men!"

In this episode, I break down how all modern Western yoga (whether you were ever in a lineage or not) was built through exploitation/survivors. 

-The cultural legitimacy. 

-The lack of regulation. 

-The wellness industrial complex. 

-The devotional residue. 

And what it means that everyone teaching today inherited that structure.

This isn't just about yoga. It's about how structural complicity works everywhere, and whether we're willing to acknowledge what we inherited.

**In the episode I say 'Ancient wisdom,' in quotes because what's being transmitted in most yoga teacher trainings has very little to do with actual wisdom traditions and a lot to do with branding.

About Magnolia Zuniga:

Magnolia Zuniga is a former Certified Ashtanga yoga teacher and one of only 20 women worldwide who were certified by the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) before publicly walking away from the lineage. After abuse allegations against Pattabhi Jois became public, she stopped teaching Ashtanga sequences and lost her certification—choosing survivor solidarity over professional advancement.

She now teaches at ABQ Yoga Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico, focusing on decolonizing yoga practice, recognizing cult dynamics in spiritual communities, and building accountability in yoga spaces. She speaks publicly about institutional abuse, guru culture, and what yoga becomes when you remove the harmful power structures.

Find me at www.magnoliazuniga.com and https://www.youtube.com/@MagnoliaSezSo

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

So I recently received a comment that said, not all yoga, in my social media and my Instagram. And people say, you know, I'm not lineage-based. I never studied with a guru. This doesn't apply to me. And I've heard it, you know, in different ways, but essentially they mean not all yoga. And I see this really similar to not all men, but you know, that hashtag not all men. But before I get into the yoga, I want to name something here. Um, because what I'm about to talk about is not just a yoga problem. This is, I'm talking about how structural complicity works everywhere. You know, people say that was a long time ago. I didn't take anyone's land. My family came here as immigrants, there's nothing I can do about it now. You know, it's the same deflections, same refusal to look at what we inherited, the land, the access, the infrastructure, all built through genocide and displacement. You didn't do it, but you're living on that land, you're collecting rent, etc., etc. So today I'm going to talk about yoga, but this is the same conversation, it's the same pattern, and it's the same question at the center. Are we willing to acknowledge what we inherited? So I want to start somewhere that it might not seem um related, um, but hang in there with me. Um, you know, masculinity is built from the time we're little boys and little girls is built on rejecting, more or less rejecting the feminine, you know, from the beginning. You know, don't cry, that's for girls, don't be soft, don't be weak, you know, don't throw like a girl, don't run like a girl. Everything that's coded feminine is contaminated. And it's what you must not be. And then at some point that flips, and then now you have to desire women, or now you desire women. But how do you desire what you've been trained to despise? How do you partner with someone who represents everything you were told to reject? So you don't actually get love, you get desire without respect, you get attraction and contempt, um, possession, you get men who want women, but they don't actually like women. They can't like women because liking them would mean that that women have value, that the feminine has value. And if that's true, if the feminine has value, then the whole structure of the masculine that they've built so far falls apart. That whole identity falls apart. So years ago, I heard someone say all men benefit from the actions of violent men. And that that was such a huge aha moment for me because it was something that, yes, I have inherently felt that in my bones. And this is what it means. One, male violence functions as a kind of enforcement, and once that happens, once even one man is violent towards a woman, women will then modify how they move through the world. Don't walk alone, don't reject directly, give them a fake number, don't escalate because of what might happen. The violence doesn't have to touch every woman to control every woman or to manage every woman. And the violence doesn't have to be bodily violence. It can be a violent look, it can be violent work, it can, it can violence takes many shapes and forms. And that enforcement, my second point is that that enforcement benefits all men because then women are conditioned to be smaller, more deferential, more accommodating, which means that men get more space, they get more airtime, you know, they get the benefit of the doubt. The nice guys don't do the violence, but they do collect the dividends. I always I tell my male friends that women are much nicer to them than they deserve or than women want to be. And, you know, the threat is everywhere. It's kind of like just in the background. And that's my third point is that women can't know in advance which men are dangerous. So all men carry that potential, whether they use it or not. And the nonviolent men, the good guys, they provide the cover because the their sheer existence allows the whole system to say, well, it's just a few bad apples, instead of examining how the whole thing is built on actually dominance and entitlement. And then lastly, the silence is the particip participation because men, because it takes men listen to other men. They're not going to listen to other women. So men who don't challenge those good men that don't challenge other men, who stay quiet, who keep their seat at the table, they're not neutral. They're upholding the structure. So then when someone looks at my critique or my videos or my podcasts and says, you know, not all yoga, I'm doing it right. This is the equivalent of not all men, and I mean that structurally. You know, in that, you know, the students are positioned the way that women are positioned, even less than in that students need correction, students need to be receptive, and the teacher is in that gap somewhere. The whole system of yoga depends on it. So let's talk about the infrastructure of modern Western yoga. You know, the teacher training pipelines, the studio models, the brand recognition, and I mean when people use Ashtanga or Bikram or anything, you're using that for brand recognition. And it's also very evident because there'll be Ashtanga teachers that change so much about the Ashtanga method, but then they change it so much that it's like not even Ashtanga. So why are you using the name? Why don't you just call it Hata Yoga? Because you don't get the same brand recognition. The cultural legitimacy of you know modern Western yoga, the economic engine that keeps it pumping, this was most of it was built during eras when founders were actively abusing and exploiting students. And the people who built it were thus often the same people being harmed. They showed up, they practiced, they paid, they trained, they shut up, they taught, they recruited. It was their labor, often while they were being exploited, sometimes financially assaulted and manipulated, is what constructed the system everyone now benefits from. All modern yoga was built through this several different types of exploitation. Whether the people who built it recognize that or not, this is systemic. And this is not an accusation. This shows how effective the system actually was and continues to be. So every teacher in modern Western yoga, whether you are in a lineage or not, you inherited a structure built through that exploitation. So let's talk about that exploitation. You get the cultural legitimacy. Just the fact that you can say yoga, people will assume healing, wisdom. They'll think that you have access to something that they don't. So you automatically inherited this kind of halo that was built through decades of guru worship and romanticizing Eastern culture. You didn't build it, you inherited that halo. And then there's a lack of regulation. You know, there's no licensing board, no mandatory reporting, no psychological evaluations, no real oversight. You can open a yoga studio tomorrow, train teachers, put your hands on bodies, and make claims about healing. And do all of that operating completely outside of any accountability, like accountability structures that would apply to massage therapists, physical therapists, or mental health professionals. That's because yoga has positioned itself as spiritual and not medical. And that framing was established by the same systems that protected abusers. So every studio, every teacher, every training program benefits for operating in that unregulated space. And then you get into the whole wellness industrial complex, the retreat centers, the training pipelines, the credentialing bodies, and this consumer appetite for ancient wisdom, quote unquote. All of it built during the era of unchecked guru authority. So you have this devotional uh, you know, uh like a residue, an af a an ongoing lingering residue where students differ, they don't question, they assume the teacher knows something they don't, and that is not unique to Ashtanga. That's baked into how yoga is taught and received in the West. And then you have the silence. The teachers who know the history, they've heard the stories, they keep teaching under the names, they keep their certifications current, they keep their seats at the table. That's not neutral, you're maintaining the structure. So when someone says not all yoga, when they say, I'm not lineage-based, I never studied with a guru, this doesn't apply to me. You're just teaching in a clean corner of the bigger house. You're but you're still in the house. You know, the the rising tide of yoga lifted all boats and it rose on the backs of survivors, whether they recognize it or not. Because modern yoga was built through this kind of exploitation, and everyone teaching is collecting off of that. The only question is whether you're willing to acknowledge what you inherited.