You know when a yoga class feels nothing short of transcendent. A large part of that has to do with your arrival. But a lot also depends on the teacher who guides you through your practice, whether you’re a newcomer learning the poses and principles, or someone who’s been showing up for years with the voices of your first yoga teachers still echoing in your head.
As much as yoga teachers shape your individual experience, they also have the potential to reshape the larger experience of those in the yoga community. The following yoga teachers are each extremely influential in their own way. Some experienced memorable years thanks to the publication of a book or receiving an award. Others have simply continued to contribute to their communities. And they’ve all been on our radar for a while.
It goes without saying that any list of influential yoga teachers is inherently incomplete. Anyone who supports someone else to approach themselves and life with more awareness has a great influence by default.
8 yoga teachers for change that we can all learn from
The following yoga teachers share their teaching both IRL and online. They are listed in no particular order.
1. Reggie Hubbard
A year ago he described himself as a ‘good troublemaker’ and former political activist Reggie Hubbard was recovering from a stroke and wasn’t sure if he could continue what he started as the nonprofit’s founder Active peace yoga. But in 2025, Hubbard has not only continued but expanded the organization’s mission to make yoga accessible to everyone, “regardless of race, gender, body type or level of practice.”
Learning about yoga through Active Peace Yoga takes place through in-person and online classes in yoga, meditation and breathwork, but also through workshops, lectures, teacher training and sound therapy programs on Insight timer. Hubbard also started a partnership with the Kripalu Center for Yoga, sharing techniques that support BIPOC men in understanding how to process trauma. The partnership includes classes and retreats, as well as a training program designed for yoga teachers from traditionally marginalized populations to share what they have learned with their communities. It is work that not only promotes inclusive yoga among the current generation of yoga teachers, but also creates potential for future generations.
Through it all, Hubbard has managed to maintain his sense of humor and playfulness. If you have yet to attend one of his Prince themed yoga classesthere is still time to change that.
2. Rodrigo Souza
In a recent one Instagram postyoga teacher Rodrigo Souza shared an insight and asked a question. “1 billion people in the world have disabilities…So where are they in the yoga world?”
An adaptive and accessible yoga teacher, Souza has quietly expanded the reach of yoga through years of teaching classes and teacher training, both in person at rehabilitation centers and online. And he’s increasingly challenging stereotypes, not just through his social posts, but also through his example as a yoga teacher who leads others through their practice from a wheelchair.
Souza initially explored yoga thanks to an old teacher Matthew Sanford and has recently started working with the Accessible yoga community and its founder, Jivana Heymanto provide both classes and training to thousands. Souza’s background as a former DJ and his sharp humor come through both melodically and loudly in his social posts.
3. Anjali Kamathrao
Although her Instagram bio ‘PhD student’ reads, Anjali Kamath Rao is perhaps as well known as a truth teller. In 2025, the academic and yoga teacher wrote her first book, Yoga as embodied resistance: A feminist lens on caste, gender and sacred resilience in yoga history. In it she explores challenging and lesser-known truths about yoga. To say that this should be considered essential reading in any teacher training program is an understatement.
So are they social channel and her podcast, The love for yogaare spaces of silent revolution in terms of sharing the truth. As is typical of Rao, this is not done in a different or shameful way. Instead, what she posts can be taken as a straight lesson, even if she is the one asking questions. Rather than engaging in spiritual bypassing, Rao shares insights that involve self-awareness and critical thinking in the face of reality, something that the most brilliant teachers of any subject know how to do in their own unique way.
4. Kim Richardson
In retrospect, that was almost prescient Kim Richardson started teaching yoga classes at her local public library, a place where everyone can learn equally. “My whole goal when I became a yoga teacher was I wanted to create a community-based model of yoga,” says Richardson. “Instead of expecting people to come to yoga studios, you can bring yoga to communities and meet people where they are.”
The Birmingham-based yoga therapist has spent the past few years doing just that. After her start at the library, Richardson organized and led yoga classes for veterans, schoolchildren, the visually impaired, those in prison and other underserved and generally overlooked populations. She has also launched a yoga and meditation class in partnership with local museums and was honored as a 2024 recipient of the International Association of Yoga Therapists’Seva Prize.
Richardson prioritizes an approach to learning that emphasizes “diversity, inclusivity, accessibility, collaboration and partnership.” She is expanding her services to fellow teachers through workshops on the Labyrinth, the grant writing process, based on everything she has learned while securing funding to support community-based yoga projects. This is are (employ).
5. Bradshaw Wish
The version of yoga you experience through social media has evolved in recent years, but is still limited to polished glimpses of perfect arm balance attempts and $200 matching sets.
Enter a yoga teacher from Chicago Bradshaw wish. His roles capture the quirky and relatable habits of students (who hasn’t clattered a water bottle on the floor in Savasana?), as well as behind-the-scenes insights into the unfiltered thoughts of a yoga teacher (yes, we’re silently willing all students to just try using your blocks in Pyramid Pose). His roles are essentially yoga versions of the improv evening, reminding us that while you should take your yoga practice seriously, perhaps you shouldn’t take yourself so seriously.
He also co-hosts the podcast The funny thing about yoga and co-founder of the CAYA Yoga School with the sweet teacher Giana Gambino. Together they tackle the serious and the silly. Consider the entire sphere as permission to be human.
Wish, who has studied with Jason Crandell, leads both online and in-person classes with an emphasis on simplicity, with the exception of his upcoming annual Mariah Carey Christmas class. Stay tuned for tickets!
6. Arundhati Baitmangalkar
There is an ongoing conversation (that’s putting it politely) among yoga teachers about the best way to juxtapose the teachings of the ancient practice with contemporary life. There aren’t many easy answers. Still a yoga teacher trainer Arundhati Baitmangalkar answers these questions with frank language and apparent ease and grace.
The longtime teacher and studio owner helps both novice and experienced teachers answer questions as diverse as why we roll on our right side after Savasana and how to interpret the Yoga Sutras in contemporary life. Her Instagram feed is nothing but insight after insight and her podcast, Let’s talk about yoga, brings honest conversations about subtle issues with a no-nonsense approach.
7. Lucia Bishop
Yoga teacher from South London Lucia Bishop takes on a completely different side of yoga’s representation in the social realm, calling out the effects of body shaming and diet culture in the yoga space.
Her unabashed appreciation for her body is breathtakingly inspiring – and a sharp rebuttal to anyone who perpetuates or falls victim to these stereotypes. Sometimes her posts are openly destructive of the exclusive atmosphere of much of yoga. Other times, Bishop finds positive and humorous ways to look at our bodies and treat ourselves with respect in yoga studios and in life.
She’s especially effective at reminding you not to compare yourself to what you see online. As her website explains: “I hope we can have a giggle in a judgment-free zone and maybe feel a little calmer and more connected.” That atmosphere certainly comes across.
8. Listen to Dickson
The typical journey for a yoga teacher goes something like enrolling in a yoga teacher training program, gathering dedicated students and followers, and helping them get through the days with greater ease and self-awareness. Maybe even lead an international retreat or two. Retired business leader turned yoga teacher Hear Dickson is no exception, but he reminds us that there is no specific timeline when it comes to achieving this.
Not long after Dickson started teaching yoga in 2020, he began attracting a disproportionate number of new yoga students, many of them boys. In his knowledgeable yet unpretentious way, Dickson keeps things attainable for beginners and experienced practitioners alike, both IRL and on his Instagram feed. There’s something exceptionally soothing about pausing your scroll when you encounter its grounding voice saying, “Hey, good morning,” followed by an accompanying thought or anywhere from 60 seconds to five minutes of meditative silence.
His approach reminds yoga teachers everywhere that it’s not about the number of followers, but how much you influence them. Because sometimes it is not just education that brings about change. It is the example.
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