Jivana Heyman

Jivana Heyman (he/him), C-IAYT, E-RYT500, is the founder and director of Accessible Yoga, an organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings and supporting yoga teachers.

He’s the author of Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body; Yoga Revolution: Building a Practice of Courage & Compassion; and The Teacher’s Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body.

Over the past 30 years of teaching yoga, Jivana has focused on welcoming all people to practice and celebrating our individuality and our differences. His work has focused on dismantling ableism in the yoga world, as well as emphasizing the intersection of yoga and social justice.

His books, classes, and trainings support yoga teachers and yoga therapists in finding ways to bring creativity and collaboration into their teaching while still respecting the ancient yoga tradition.

I am always so inspired with Jivana's teachings, his knowledge, his candor, his humor.

~ Sandy Jones

Being in a class with Jivana is always a gift with grace and kindness.

~ Annette Nielsen

I really admire Jivana’s whole approach. I was introduced to a totally new concept of yoga. His passion for what he is doing is shining bright and rubbing off!

~ Corné Lamprecht

Get to Know Jivana

Once I started teaching yoga, I immediately realized that many of my students weren't comfortable practicing on the floor. So chair yoga became a natural progression for my teaching.

I was particularly interested in serving disabled people, older people, people who had injuries, or anyone who thought that yoga wasn't for them. So chair yoga offered a possibility for radical inclusion, which echoes yoga's teachings about our interconnectedness.

My grandmother taught me yoga when I was a young child, and then I came back to it in my early twenties when I was going through a really stressful time in my life. I was a gay man living through the AIDS epidemic, and so many of my friends were sick and dying.

Yoga helped me handle my grief and anger, and I also realized I could share yoga with my community. That's what inspired me to become a yoga teacher, and believe it or not, that was thirty years ago!

Supporting people with HIV/AIDS is what got me to start teaching yoga in 1995, and then I found that other disabled people and older folks were interested in practicing with me. Accessible Yoga flowed from what my students taught me, and it's more than simply adapting asana.

Facing disability, illness, and aging, my students showed me that they were most interested in accessing the subtle practices of pranayama, meditation, guided relaxation, and spiritual teachings.

That's why I always include those practices in my classes. Accessible Yoga, as an organization, coalesced in 2007 when I started leading yoga teacher trainings for disabled people to become teachers, and to support yoga teachers in making their offerings more accessible.

A lot of people think that yoga is just about physical strength and flexibility. Believe it or not, yoga is actually a practice of calming the mind so we can experience our true self.

We use every aspect of our lives--our body, breath, mind, and actions--toward the goal of remembering our spiritual nature. With this in mind, it's helpful to remember that in yoga more subtle is more powerful, and less is more.

If you feel like the class you're taking is too intense or challenging, or if you don't feel 100% welcome and included, I would suggest finding a different class or community that feels more supportive. Yoga is a universal practice and it is truly for everyone.

I just read an amazing book called "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers. I love how she uses a futuristic story to share timeless wisdom that connects to some essential yoga teachings.

In particular, I love how it addresses questions of dharma, and what our life purpose is.

I'm definitely a morning person. In fact, I've started taking up running and I've been heading out before dawn to run on the beach every day. It's such a beautiful time of day.

There's a special quality to the early morning that the yogis even talked about. They even said more prana is available at those transitional times of day, sunrise and sunset.