By Sandra Van Dong-DeLaRonde, Founder, and Alana Rigby, Co-Founder, KO Yoga
KO Yoga was designed to be different.
Taking a yoga class in 2024 can be scary. Will I be able to keep up with the instructions? Do I feel like I ‘fit’ in the yoga studio? I don’t look like a ‘typical’ yoga student – is this practice even for me?
Then there’s the cost. For many, $20-30 for a drop in class simply isn’t viable. Not with kids to feed, rent to pay, and all the other pressures wrought by late stage capitalism.
The result? Yoga is hard to access. There are emotional, physical, and financial walls between you and a yoga class.
We built KO Yoga to tear down these walls.
What is KO Yoga?
KO Yoga is a nonprofit bringing movement to the masses.
In June 2024, we incorporated this nonprofit to disrupt the current model of accessing yoga. We want to offer free, inclusive, and wholesome yoga classes that focus on all of yoga’s traditional limbs, not just on the physical movement.
We want you to be able to participate in a yoga class regardless of your financial situation or existing level of familiarity with yoga poses and teachings.
To do this, we rent class spaces and pay our teachers a decent wage through corporate partnerships. Our partners, local businesses, care about their communities and demonstrate it by funding our programs.
Inclusion is also a guiding principle in how we teach our classes. Using language that makes everyone feel welcome, offering many posture variations during classes, and incorporating props to ensure that students can comfortably access movements – these are priorities for all of our teachers.
Work with a corporation who wants to sponsor a community yoga program? Are you a student looking to access classes or a teacher who wants to be part of this movement? Email us [email protected] to introduce yourself and get involved!
Why do this work?
There are eight traditional limbs of yoga. Yoga poses, called asana, are the fourth of these eight limbs.
The first two limbs are the yamas and the niyamas – ethical concepts that ask us to live mindfully in the world. To practise ahimsa, or nonviolence, in thought and deed. To exercise satya, or truthfulness, by speaking truth to power, calling out systemic biases, and dismantling oppression. To honour yoga’s thousand-year history as an Indian practice through asteya, or nonstealing.
In India, yoga has long been linked to liberation movements. It has served as a focal point for the connection of like-minded people dedicated to making the world kinder and healthier.
We want to honour more than just the physical practice of yoga. By building accessible classes and connecting folks in our community, we want to shift the culture around yoga and to go back to its roots as a tool of liberation.
Be a part of this movement with us.