BENDING TOWARDS JUSTICE

Expanding Skills in Yoga communities

Jacoby Ballard

Jacoby Ballard, E-RYT 500, is a white working-class queer transperson who has been teaching yoga and engaged in social justice work for 15 years. He is the co-founder of Third Root Community Health Center, a worker-owned cooperative holistic health center in Brooklyn that opened in 2008. He administers and conducts diversity trainings for yoga teachers around the country facilitated by a pair skilled yoga teachers and social justice facilitators, for which he was named a “GameChanger” by Seane Corn and Yoga Journal in 2015. Jacoby is Faculty with Off the Mat, Into the World and the Institute for Compassionate Leadership, and on the Advisory Board of the Yoga Service Council, working within the dynamic interstices of justice and mindfulness. He has received training by Kashi Atlanta, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, the Lineage Project, Off the Mat, Into the World, Yoga for 12-Step Recovery, Street Yoga, Insight Meditation Society, and the Challenging Male Supremacy Project. Currently, primary inquiries in Jacoby's healing justice work is around balancing self care and community care. www.jacobyballard.com