SF Bay BIPOC Yoga Conference 2026
About this Event
This event is dedicated to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who want to connect, practice yoga, support BIPOC businesses, and cultivate wellness together. Experience empowering yoga sessions, workshops, and discussions led by BIPOC instructors. Whether you're seasoned or new to the practice, there's something for everyone at this conference. Don't miss this opportunity to nurture your mind, body, and spirit in a safe and inclusive space. Join us at the SF Bay BIPOC Yoga Conference!
The link to register for workshops and trainings is available
Check out our website for last year's event and what we're about: https://www.baybipocyogacon.com
Saturday
🕑: 09:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Anjali Rao - Workshop: Storytelling As A Liberatory Praxis
Host: Anjali Rao
Info: Storytelling was one of the integral methods for sharing esoteric and abstract concepts in ways that were relatable to ordinary people living ordinary lives. Liberatory teachings of yoga were conveyed through storytelling. Stories, in addition to being informative and laden with insight into the human experience, are chronicles of the times that shed light on the sociopolitical interplay of gender, caste, and religion. Drawing from themes from her first book, Yoga As Embodied Resistance, Anjali Rao leads us into an exploration of extraordinary stories of women, from myth and history who defied societal norms of caste, gender and class. We will discuss how storytelling can be integrated in our practice, teaching and community.
🕑: 10:45 AM - 11:00 AM
Book Signing: Yoga As Embodied Resistance
Host: Anjali Rao
Info: Get your copy of Yoga As Embodied Resistance signed by Anjali! There'll be books available for purchase.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Pranayama Immersion : Cultivating Oneness
Host: Meera Dhawan
Info: Explore the fourth limb of Yoga, Pranayama, in dept with Meera Dhawan. This immersive pranayama practice explores the breath as a bridge between body, mind, soul, and community. Together, we'll experience Pranayama techniques while reflecting on the ways breath connects us to ourselves, eachother, ancestors, and the world around us. This session offers both guided practice and teaching to invite participants to slow down, cultivate presence, and remember the shared humanity carried in every breath.
🕑: 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Bloom Into Balance: Neurodivergent-Affirming Yoga Flow for self-exp
Host: Kat Lee
Info: Join Kat Lee of Mindful Bloom Studio for a gentle, neurodiversity-affirming yoga experience designed to cultivate regulation, creativity, and connection. Through mindful movement, breathwork, and a heart- and hip-opening flow, participants will explore how the body stores stress and emotions while creating space for greater ease, self-expression, and freedom.
The workshop also introduces Likhita Japa, a meditative writing practice in which participants repeatedly write a chosen mantra or intention to support focus and inner reflection. By engaging the mind, body, and breath together, this practice offers another accessible pathway to grounding and presence.
This class is designed with accessibility and inclusion in mind, offering options throughout so every participant can honor their unique body and nervous system. Teachers, practitioners, and anyone curious about creating more compassionate, neurodiversity-affirming spaces will leave with practical tools they can integrate into bot
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Teacher Training: Exploring Ease - Intro to Restorative Yoga (part 1)
Host: Samara Reynolds
Info: This training is a short experiential introduction to Restorative yoga. It begins with a practice to contextualize the lecture. We'll touch on the history of Restorative yoga, societal attitude towards rest, access to rest, racism in wellness, consent and autonomy,the nervous system. Folks will learn how and why props are set up a certain way, anatomical principles, and how to give their students a great Savasana that meets them where they are. Discussions about rest will touch on anti-blackness,classism, ableism, fatphobia, racism, and xenophobia in order to support BIPOC as we navigate a world not yet built with us in mind. Sliding scale: $65-125 2 scholarships available!
🕑: 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
De-Addiction: Returning to Balance (Ayurveda)
Host: Amita Basra
Info: When we hear "addiction", most of us picture substances such as alcohol, nicotine, or drugs. However, addiction is actually any pattern we've become dependent on to feel okay, even when that pattern pulls us further from balance. A habit doesn't need a needle or a bottle to be an addiction-- it just needs to be something we reach for automatically, something the body and mind have learned to crave regardless of whether it serves us.
This talk explores addiction through that wider lens: as any habituated response that creates vikriti (imbalance) in the body and mind. Will look at how our daily routines (dinacharya) either reinforce that imbalance or gently correct it. Small, repeated choices compound over time into either dis-ease or swastha (true health).
Rather than treating the addiction as a battle of willpower against a single habit, we'll talk about it as a practice of awareness. We'll rebuild a rhythm of living that naturally supports balance instead of working against it.
🕑: 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Authentic Visibility: Building Your Voice, Story & Community as a Yoga Teacher
Host: Kristy Whitlock
Info: Participants will learn how to identify their unique voice, share their personal story with intention, create content that reflects their values, and develop a more sustainable relationship with being visible online and within their communities.
I believe this is a strong fit for the BIPOC Yoga Conference because representation matters—not only in who teaches yoga, but in who feels empowered to be seen as a leader, creator, and community builder. This workshop supports BIPOC yoga teachers in taking up space, honoring their lived experiences, and sharing their gifts in a way that feels aligned with who they are.
🕑: 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Kirtan - Baba Hanuman: A kirtan in the Bhakti tradition
Host: Alyssa Lauren Stone
Info: Kirtan is call and response. Alyssa sings a line; you sing it back. No experience, no training, and no previous Sanskrit knowledge required... only your voice.
Kirtan comes out of Bhakti, the yoga of love and devotion, carried from teacher to student across South Asia for centuries before it was ever sung in a Western studio. Alyssa learned Bhakti from Grammy-nominated artist Jai Uttal and from yoga teacher, recording artist, and author Janet Stone. The tradition holds that every letter of Sanskrit vibrates a specific energy point in the body.
Sixty minutes, one harmonium, and a room of untrained voices. If you have ever cried during a chant and couldn't say why, that is the practice working, not you losing composure.
Sunday
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Elevate Yo Soul: Movement, Affirmations & Cacao
Host: Chris Rodriguez & Rondy Isaac
Info: A soulful convergence of two of the Bay's most magnetic yoga teachers, coming together for one unforgettable journey inward.
This is a full-body, full-spirit reset that is part ceremony, part movement practice. Come as you are and leave lighter, louder, and more you, with a gift at the end of the session.
We open with a cacao ceremony, meditation, and pranayama to settle the nervous system and drop into presence before we move. We reflect through guided journaling prompts, inviting you to name what's ready to shift and what's ready to rise. We then move through a dynamic flow blending asana with primal movement. We close with sound therapy, letting ourselves integrate.
You will leave with a gift to carry the practice beyond the mat.
🕑: 11:30 AM - 01:30 PM
Teacher Training - Yogic Music Theory for Yoga Teachers and Sound Healers
Host: Tako Oda
Info: This training covers the science behind music (especially singing) and how it heals. The second half will be practical techniques for healthy vocal production, as well as application of harmonic theory to sound healing and playlist design.
While both Yoga and music have long histories of being appropriated, this training will make a point of looking at music from a South Asian lens - in particular the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Music and Yoga have always been closely tied to liberatory struggles, and are therefore central to the lives of
BIPOC. Tako is an Oakland-based yoga instructor and teacher trainer. As a registered YACEP, their workshop can count towards continuing education credits for YA members.Sliding scale:$45-80 NOTAFLOF
🕑: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Workshop: Meeting Life As It Is: Kleshas & Compassion
Host: Disha Gupta
Info: What if the patterns of the mind that keep us stuck aren't personal flaws, but simply part of being human?
This workshop offers an embodied introduction to the yogic concept of the kleshas - universal patterns that arise as we search for certainty, identity, and lasting happiness. Rather than seeing these patterns as something to fix, we'll explore how recognizing them can become a source of compassion, offering relief in the understanding that they are part of our shared human experience.
Through embodied grounding, yoga philosophy, guided reflection, journaling, and community dialogue, we'll connect these timeless teachings with our own lived experience. Participants will leave with a practical understanding of the kleshas, simple embodied tools for cultivating awareness, and perhaps a gentler, more compassionate way of meeting themselves and life as it is.
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Teacher Training - Exploring Ease: Intro to Restorative Yoga (part 2)
Host: Samara Reynolds
Info: This training is a short experiential introduction to Restorative yoga. It begins with a practice to contextualize the lecture. We'll touch on the history of Restorative yoga, societal attitude towards rest, access to rest, racism in wellness, consent and autonomy,the nervous system. Folks will learn how and why props are set up a certain way, anatomical principles, and how to give their students a great Savasana that meets them where they are. Discussions about rest will touch on anti-blackness,classism, ableism, fatphobia, racism, and xenophobia in order to support BIPOC as we navigate a world not yet built with us in mind. Sliding scale: $65-125, 2 scholarships available!
🕑: 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Workshop - Seasonal Ayurvedic Yoga
Host: Vida Karvandi
Info: Receive an intro to Ayurveda through the seasons. As we are transitioning from summer (pitta season) to autumn (vata season), that will be our focus. We will practice pranayama (breathwork) & yoga asanas (poses) in relation to the heat of pitta season or the coolness of vata season.
To enhance alignment and make yoga poses more accessible, we will use support from the wall and blocks. Whether you're a beginner, more advanced or a teacher, you will learn something new.
As this is a BIPoC fully centered conference, ancestral reclamation and communing are integral. Each personal ancestry will be welcomed and incorporated in whatever capacity resonates. Collectively communing and weaving our lineages through each Ayurvedic breath, movement and meditation together.
🕑: 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Sound bath!
Host: Island Time Healing
Where is it happening?
USD 7.18 to USD 55.20
