Expand Ashe Yoga Collective!
Disrupting ableism, fatphobia, racism, and sameness in the yoga industry with equitable and accessible yoga.
Project Description
We are Ashé Yoga Collective, a woman/queer/Black-owned virtual yoga studio and yoga school that focuses on rest and resilience practices in service to community repair. Our mission is build equitable and accessible yoga, caste & racial equity, and a sense of belonging through intentional community.
All classes, events, trainings, and workshops are inclusive, intersectional, intergenerational experiences that invite all into expansion of awareness and holistic wellness. Ashé Yoga Collective reaches into the community virtually with our specializations in the subtle side of yoga — trauma-informed yoga, yoga therapeutics, Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Yoga Nidra.
Through embracing student agency and body diversity to build ashé, the West African concept of the energy that transforms, students that are historically erased or minimized in the wellness industry are able to see themselves through authentic movement and meditation practices.
Tamika Caston-Miller founded Ashe Yoga to focus on the subtler practices of yoga that are so very needed, especially for those whose intersectional identities leave them at the crosshairs of marginalization and largely left to figure things out for themselves in yoga communities. The wellness world is incredibly white, cis and heteronormative, body and age exclusive, and ableist. Ashé Yoga Collective aims to shift that by holding a mirror to the population that has been in the wellness world, but is not seen in social media, trade publications, or studio management. Our vision is not to segregate BIPOC and LGBTQ communities, but rather, to acknowledge that healing happens alone AND in community, and that QTBIPOC people have intersectional identities that they don’t want to have to abandon to occupy any space.
Ashé Yoga Collective currently offers 10 virtual zoom-styled classes a week, pop up lunar rest workshops, and donation-based on demand classes. Your support of this campaign will immediately impact our ability to pay teachers more, upgrade our software, expand offerings, and invest in marketing. You will also be helping us reach the people who have not been seen reflected in the industry, yet are looking for liberation practices for true care of self.
We know that there are many virtual fitness studios out there that offer yoga. Our big audacious vision is to directly compete with the large, venture captialist backed yoga studios that have extraordinary reach of messaging that reinforces systemic harm across marginalized groups while culling the intellectual property from those same groups in an effort to make their studios appear to be diverse. We envision inviting community leaders to guest teach on our platform, and to provide a space for new teachers to find their students without having to make large investments to start. This will make our virtual studio a true collective of incredible teachers that dedicated to personal and collective liberation.
Levels of support start at the donation level of your choice and go up to the amount of your choosing. There is no such thing as a tiny donation. However you support us, we deeply appreciate you in helping us continue to exist in our corner of the wellness industry.
Updates
The Campaign FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions:
- How will you use the funds?
- We intend to pay our teachers a fair wage and offer them pay when they need to take vacations and breaks. Teachers often make $25/class while they have invested thousands of dollars in teacher training and continuing education. That is not okay. We want teachers to live happy, healthy lives, get paid a wage that's reflective of their education and experience as teachers, and be able to take time for themselves when they need it.
- We are upgrading our software to produce quality on demand content. Currently we record everything in zoom, and it cannot meet the expectations or needs of students, especially if they have any visual impairments. New software will enable us to record in HD.
- We would like to pay our admin staff who have been working for free for 2 years. Traditionally marginalized people run the admin side of the business and are donating their time. We need support to support them.
- How much push will this give the business? This will give us operating funds for a minimum of 6 months and will allow us to expand our marketing, classes offerings, and guest appearances.
- How is Ashe Yoga Collective different?
- We are minority-owned and operated.
- We specialize in Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Yoga Nidra, highly sought after styles of yoga; we have no direct competitors. Large, venture capitalist-backed virtual studios focus on competitive styles of yoga that perpetuate systemic harm and reinforce diet culture narratives. They use SEO to determine their offerings as most are not owned by yoga teachers, but by investors. Yoga teachers make the decisions at Ashe Yoga Collective and we are not interested in VC dollars.
- Even though we are a virtual studio, we still use two-way video to see our students. We believe that this is the path to continue to create community.
Unlimited annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective, which includes workshops, on demand classes, and discounted trainings, social media shout out, hand written thank you, and limited edition Ashe Yoga "disruptor" tee.
Hand-written thank you and anything else that feels right.
Social Media shout out and 5 class pass.
Social media shout out, 10 class pass, and hand-written thank you.
Live class annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective for you or someone you love, social media shout out, hand written thank you note.
Unlimited annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective, which includes workshops, on demand classes, and discounted trainings, social media shout out, hand written thank you, limited edition Ashe Yoga "disruptor" tee, and gratitude mention on our website and marketing.
Unlimited annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective, which includes workshops, on demand classes, and discounted trainings, social media shout out, hand written thank you, limited edition Ashe Yoga "disruptor" tee, and gratitude mention on our website and marketing, plus additional co-created merchandise.
Rewards
Unlimited annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective, which includes workshops, on demand classes, and discounted trainings, social media shout out, hand written thank you, and limited edition Ashe Yoga "disruptor" tee.
Hand-written thank you and anything else that feels right.
Social Media shout out and 5 class pass.
Social media shout out, 10 class pass, and hand-written thank you.
Live class annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective for you or someone you love, social media shout out, hand written thank you note.
Unlimited annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective, which includes workshops, on demand classes, and discounted trainings, social media shout out, hand written thank you, limited edition Ashe Yoga "disruptor" tee, and gratitude mention on our website and marketing.
Unlimited annual membership to Ashe Yoga Collective, which includes workshops, on demand classes, and discounted trainings, social media shout out, hand written thank you, limited edition Ashe Yoga "disruptor" tee, and gratitude mention on our website and marketing, plus additional co-created merchandise.