Kit Caelsto
Kit (they/them) is a 500 HR registered yoga teacher and late-diagnosed autistic individual. Additionally they have other conditions which make them multiply neurodivergent. The Autistic Yoga Teacher is their blog about being autistic and also a yoga practitioner. Articles offered here are aimed at those who practice yoga, as well as those who teach it. Classes will be offered specifically to help yoga teachers make their classes more inclusive through the Chicken Yogi Academy.
Kit’s focus is on accessible and safe yoga and meditation practices designed for the bodies and minds of neurodivergent individuals. Yoga is for everyone. Yoga is liberation, and this liberation can be paired with autistic joy and help individuals discover their own autistic liberation.
I’m not a yoga teacher, but I’m autistic. What will I find here?
Welcome! This subsite isn’t just for yoga teachers. If you’re autistic, I hope you find information here to help you too. My passion is on making yoga accessible, so we’ll talk about what that looks like for autistic individuals (keeping in mind, of course, that we’re all different). I’ll also be discussing the benefits of yoga for perioperception, mind-body connection, and even how yoga helps us access and name our feelings. No, yoga isn’t a “cure” for autism. You’re not sick, so there’s no need of a cure! Instead, it’s simply something that helps autistic people live in a world crafted for neurotypical individuals. And maybe, the liberation of yoga will move you toward autistic liberation as well.
What will yoga teachers find here?
Most of the work on yoga for autism is focused on autistic children. However, many of us discovered our autism (or other neurodivergences) as adults. After living our lives masked, not even knowing the truth about our own brains, the liberation yoga brings resonates especially powerful for us. It helps us to understand our own minds, get in touch with our bodies, and free us from thought patterns centering around the fact that we’re somehow broken or wrong. There’s a good chance that as a yoga teacher, you have neurodivergent individuals in your classes and neither you, nor possibly they, even know. While autism is becoming more accepted and identifying and being aware of autistic traits is more common, for many of your students, especially millenials or older, it was far too easy when we were children for instructors to say “but they can do X” or make other excuses. When you make your classes more accessible to neurodivergent individuals, you make them more accessible for everyone.
Therefore, the focus will be in deconstructing language that’s often used, especially in women’s only wellness spaces, as well as cuing and environmental issues which arise during a yoga class for neurodivergent individuals. There will also be some discussion of overlapping conditions and ways in which you can make your classes accessible for multiply neurodivergent and/or those who are neurodivergent and chronically ill.
