Nikki Costello on the New Yoga Classroom

02/14/23 • 77 min

CHITHEADS with Jacob Kyle (Embodied Philosophy)

Nikki Costello is an educator with 30 years of teaching and training experience in the Yoga and Wellness industry. She works at the intersection of social justice and Yoga with a focus on facilitating new models of embodied leadership. Nikki is a Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher (Level 3-CIYT) and a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT). In 2013-2014, she was a contributing editor at Yoga Journal, writing the magazine’s “Basics Column,” and in 2016, Nikki was named one of the 100 Most Influential Teachers in America. She is the featured Iyengar Yoga teacher on GLO. Nikki holds an MA in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation from SOAS, University of London and is a PhD candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Since 2020, she has taught weekly online yoga and meditation classes at Nikki Costello | The Practice. To learn more, visit Nikki's website.
In this episode, we discuss:

Sources of exclusion in the yoga classroom.
Moving away from the performative aspect of studentship.
Courage, safety, and trust in sadhana.
Autonomy and choice in a yoga classroom.
The virtual classroom as an opportunity instead of a limitation.
Pedagogical practices that support or inhibit access, belonging, and diversity.
Rethinking how we learn and how we create community within the framework of a yoga class.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sources of exclusion in the yoga classroom.
Moving away from the performative aspect of studentship.
Courage, safety, and trust in sadhana.
Autonomy and choice in a yoga classroom.
The virtual classroom as an opportunity instead of a limitation.
Pedagogical practices that support or inhibit access, belonging, and diversity.
Rethinking how we learn and how we create community within the framework of a yoga class.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Previous Episode

Rabbi Rami Shapiro on Living the Golden Rule

Rabbi Rami Shapiro PH.D. is an award–winning author of over thirty-six books on religion and spirituality. Rami co-directs the One River Foundation (www.oneriverfoundation.org), is a Contributing Editor at Spirituality and Health magazine, and hosts the magazine’s podcast: Spirituality & Health with Rabbi Rami (spiritualityhealth.com).
In this episode, we discuss:

Interpreting the words of Jesus from the Jewish Mystical perspective.
What does Judaism without tribalism mean?
Rethinking traditions in the context of ethics.
Living the Golden Rule.
Who's a Jew in the context of Judaism without tribalism, or “one foot Judaism”.
The purpose of religion and comparing mysticism with religion.
Awakening to the divine within as all reality.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Episode

Following the Non-Dual Path of the Divine Feminine with Sally Kempton

This episode of Chitheads is a talk from Sally Kempton republished from Embodied Philosophy’s 2017 Radical Body Conference. In this episode, Sally talks about Goddess practice as a spiritual technology and provides guided practices experiencing the divine feminine through the breath, through being seen by the divine, and through a formal meditation on the goddess Lalita. About the Guest Sally Kempton is a master of meditation, yoga philosophy, and practical tantric philosophy. Her retreats and workshops are known for creating breakthroughs, born of her ability to help people turn sublime truths into lived, and life-shifting, experience. Sally spent 20 years as a swami in a Vedic order and has been studying and teaching spiritual wisdom for 40 years. She is the author of Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga and Meditation for the Love of It, a seminal book on basic meditation practice, and writes the popular Yoga Journal column, Wisdom. Learn more at sallykempton.com. In this episode, we discuss:

Goddess practice as a spiritual technology.
Sacred Feminine practice in tantric practice.
Experiencing Archetypal Goddess energies.
Fast-tracking awakening through the empowerment that Goddess gives us.
Three core practices for invoking Goddess.
The breath as a vehicle through which Goddess flows into your body.
Lalita energy as a model for the feminine, as self-empowered blissfulness, and the force behind genuine creativity.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.