The leadership team of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition has heard the concerns expressed by many of our followers regarding the partnership between lululemon and our co-Founder, Gigi Yogini and, more specifically, her scheduled class in the Twin Cities.

After hearing public and Coalition leadership team feedback, Gigi has cancelled the class.

Many members of the Coalition share the concern regarding Gigi’s Lululemon partnership. We want to clarify here that YBIC is NOT in any partnership with lululemon or any other corporate entity. We understand that such a partnership could compromise our message in a way that we are not willing to do. One of our interests is in prompting “yoga culture” including yoga-related businesses, to examine their practices and messages more carefully.  We recognize that this prompting must be done carefully, so as not to co-opt our mission, nor allow corporations to use the concepts we forward to their gain.

Last Fall, the leadership team decided to make a distinction between events that are done in the name of YBIC and events that are led by individuals within the YBIC but are not aligned with the organization. We are a coalition of yoga and body image activists and we each do our own work, as well as participating in the work of the Coalition. As such, we won’t always agree completely.  We expect that individual members learn from and evolve as a result of this dialogue across the coalition.

We also, however, understand that it can be difficult to draw such clear lines, and we are having a great deal of internal dialogue about this matter in the Coalition. We will continue to share our thoughts with you.