Consent to Touch at OWY
by Elisabeth Sowecke
“She gave me an adjustment that made me wish I had a chip!” –Brian, Co-Owner of Open Way Yoga, on the moment he realized one of the main values of consent cards lies in the student’s ability to withdraw consent mid-way through class.
INTRODUCTION
Often we come to the mat to heal from something—pain, illness or trauma that we carry in our bodies. Touch is a powerful energetic exchange, and yoga is a place where touch has the potential to soothe suffering; it should never trigger it.
It can take courage to show-up to the studio, to invest in and hang out in our bodies, to challenge ourselves to grow and heal in the company of others. It also takes courage to say “NO.” At Open Way Yoga, we know that your right to say “NO” is as important as the “YES” you say to yourself when you show up. In the modern “Good Vibes Only” culture, it can feel confusing to feel a NO inside when everything in pop-spirituality tells you to show up with a YES. Your practice and your true YESes in life should not come at the expense of your sense of wellbeing, your boundaries or your right to say an honest NO.
The #metoo movement created a huge cultural shift, and we are working to create a culture of consent within our community as it relates to teachers offering touch in class. To embrace this change, it’s important to understand what consent means and the different ways that we can grant and receive it.
IMPLICIT CONSENT
By definition, implicit consent is consent that is not expressly stated, but rather implied by a person’s actions, the facts and circumstances of a particular situation, or in some cases by a person’s silence or inaction.
“Ever since yoga was popularized in the West, the industry standard for teachers who were prepared to offer hands-on assists during class was to either assume that showing up to class was permission to touch or to ask at the beginning of class for students to raise their hands if they preferred NOT to be touched by the teacher during class. (In this case student’s inaction, not raising their hand is taken as consent.) #Metoo has rocked the yoga world as thoroughly as it has rocked most modern hierarchical structures. One of the first things that post #metoo awareness has illuminated is that this method of getting consent is problematic. Not only does it put the burden of consent on the people wanting to avoid touch, it doesn’t give students the opportunity to withdraw consent at any point once class has started. Turns out that this practice of implied consent in the yoga world put many women and men in the hands of would-be abusers. In fact, almost all of the lineages we consider traditional in the West have major leaders who were physically or sexually abusive, in some cases to many students, sometimes over decades.” –Shannon, Co-Owner of Open Way, on the history of consent in the yoga world
It may be difficult to understand how physical and sexual abuse could happen in the yoga world. Matthew Remski, who visited Open Way this past spring and is leading the way in thinking about creating safe yoga communities, speaks to the concept of Somatic Dominance in yoga teachings and how, “…the whole notion that the teacher somehow sees and understands and has authority over the student’s body comes out of this paradigm of implied consent.” (source)
Open Way Yoga is a post-lineage studio working to break down hierarchal models.
As Shannon has said, “We, at Open Way Yoga, want to do better than so many of the teachers (people we looked up to and trusted) who ultimately violated the trust of their students. We are committed to creating a safe community.”
One of the first steps toward this goal is honoring explicit consent.
EXPLICIT CONSENT
Explicit Consent (sometimes called express or direct consent) means that an individual directly and clearly states or communicates that they are consenting. Explicit consent requires active, honest communication of both your YES and your NO.
Sometimes hands-on assistance or adjustments during class can provide great insight and relief. While touch can be nice and often very much wanted, we recognize that there are also a myriad reasons to not want to be touched—ranging from experiencing PTSD symptoms, to not caring for a teacher’s style of touch, to dealing with injuries, to feeling sweaty, gassy or temporarily untouchable—and these feelings can arise at any time.
At Open Way Yoga, we provide you with the opportunity to explicitly consent to have your physical body adjusted and the means to revoke that consent at any time by providing Consent Cards—bamboo chips with “Assist” printed on one side and “No Assist” on the other—to each student during class. Much like your mat and blanket, the chip is becoming a part of the studio norm—a way to use your voice in an otherwise silent space.
CONSENT CARDS IN PRACTICE
Since we’ve been researching and implementing the use of consent cards (chips) at Open Way Yoga over the past year, Brian had the opportunity to realize their full value in a class at another studio with a teacher he had never had before. The teacher gave him an adjustment that put pressure on his body in a way that was not only uncomfortable, but made him feel as if a previous knee injury was about to be re-triggered. In that moment, a lightning bolt of insight shot through him as he found himself wishing for a consent card.
Aside from offering a way to explicitly consent to being touched at the beginning of class, one of the great gifts of the chips, as Brian discovered, is the student’s ability to withdraw consent mid-class—for any reason at all.
THE WAY FORWARD
A notable line from Matthew Remski’s book, Practice and All is Coming, highlights the importance of this post #metoo, post-lineage cultural shift: “Harm is not inflicted in a vacuum, and healing is not accomplished alone.” With the use of Consent Cards, we want to break down power structures that have caused harm and are working together to create a space that is always safe for everyone.