The Ashtanga community is at a pivotal moment. Power imbalances have caused real harm, and that’s not abstract β names attached, students hurt, decades of “we didn’t know” that turned out to be lies.
Past controversies around senior teachers exposed the pattern. Those at the top often claimed ignorance when in fact they’d known and managed the optics. That’s not a failure of awareness. It’s a leadership failure, and the cost was paid by students.
This won’t fix itself. It needs leadership willing to acknowledge what happened and to make structural changes β not statements, structures. Reporting paths. Independent ethics committees. Real consequences. Practices, not posts.
“Leadership has sucked, and it’s time for a new generation to step up and take some flack into account.”
The line lands because it’s blunt. The community needs people willing to do the unglamorous work β handle complaints, stand up to teachers they used to study with, push for transparency in lineage politics. The people doing this work mostly aren’t on Instagram. They’re in shalas and back rooms, having conversations that get them excluded from the inner circles they used to belong to.
Restoring trust isn’t a vibe shift. It’s a long process of behaving differently in cases where the old way would’ve been to look away. The next generation of teachers will be measured by what they do with that responsibility β not by what they post about it.
From Video: Addressing Misconduct in Ashtanga Yoga on michaeljoelhall.com