Dear OTM Community - We are writing to share with you that after 15 years of offering trainings, community building, mentoring and support, in the upcoming new year we are going to take a pause in order to regroup, slow down and see what our next evolution needs to be.
We are so proud of the work we’ve done in this time- we’ve grown and matured tremendously, expanded our faculty and trained thousands of people who have then gone out to serve their communities with care and skillfulness. We’ve made mistakes along the way, but consistently tried to learn from them and do better.
When we started back in 2006, mainstream yoga culture was not talking about social justice or politics. We were called on by folks in impacted communities to center this work if we were claiming to offer any sort of leadership training founded on yoga. We responded to this call by getting more educated and hiring experts in the field to train us and our students. Eventually we adopted an anti-oppression framework in everything that we did and committed ourselves to continue to grow and evolve the work in this vein.
Fifteen years later, we have a diverse faculty who bring their own unique skill and perspective to the work. Our plan as founders to decenter ourselves and use Off the Mat as a platform for a community of voices is being realized, and we are so honored to have such a skilled, wise and grounded faculty who have aligned with us.
At this point in our growth, however, we no longer feel that we (Hala, Seane and Suzanne) should be the gatekeepers of the organization. As three white presenting, non-disabled, cisgender women, we know that if the centering of equity and justice is to continue to grow as it needs to, we need people who are directly impacted by issues of racism, ableism, anti-LGBTQIA+ bias and all kinds of oppression to be in power. The three of us are fully committed to continuing to do the very important work of working with people in dominant culture who are unpacking their privilege and thinking about what their role in collective liberation is. In fact, many of our students (not all) look like us, and we need you in this work with us!
We are also seeing that the structures we had in place had some limitations and flaws that didn’t allow us to fully reflect some of our values organizationally, particularly around accountability and follow through. On top of that, as in many small non-profits with a lean budget and in these difficult times, we’ve all had to be incredibly flexible and able to pivot quickly. Although we are very grateful for our team, we recognize that this was not sustainable and didn’t support a work environment that was as cohesive and collaborative as we desired. These are things we wholeheartedly believe in and strive for! We hope that in whatever evolves next, the integrity, creativity and vision of everyone involved can be supported more fully.
Our intention in taking a pause is to make space for new leadership (and potentially a new leadership structure) to emerge and for guidance on where the OTM mission should go. As of Dec. 20th, we've discontinued all of our courses and programs and have had to let our team go. This has been one of the hardest parts of this decision. If any of you are looking for support for your endeavors, we can connect you with them.
In the short term, we plan on using our website and social media to uplift the work of our faculty and community and share resources for trainings and events.
We know that in order to be in integrity, we cannot rush this process. As the great activist and philosopher Bayo Akomolafe says, “The times are urgent. Let us slow down."
Deepest gratitude to our small and mighty team (Anita Akhavan, Laura Sharkey, Sarah Lipsett, and Tatyana Chinenova) who have gone above and beyond to ensure all of our programming was designed and delivered with the utmost care and attention, while always doing their best to meet community needs.
Moving forward we’ll be hosting a series of Town Halls so we want to hear from YOU!
We want to know how OTM has impacted you and what you’d like to see more of. We’d like to hear from those of you who may be interested in leadership or have ideas about our next iteration. Our intention is to spend a few months just listening. We do not want to rush to make any decisions.
Thank you for all the years of love, trust, and support. We are grateful for your commitment to this important work, and we are thrilled to see the shifts of awareness in the mainstream yoga culture. We are proud to have been able to serve the community in the ways we have.
With love and more to come,
Hala, Seane, and Suzanne