Ignite Your Yoga: How to Live, Practice, and Teach as an Authentic Yoga Steward - Paperback

by Susanna Barkataki (Author)

​​2026 Nautilus GOLD Award Winner: Mind, Body & Spirit

An essential guide for all yoga practitioners to delve deeply into the tradition and practice authentically with appreciation, not appropriation.

Includes practical advice for embracing yogic values--such as service, non-harm, and truthfulness--in your daily life and relationships and for the well-being of others.

Popular yoga educator and advocate Susanna Barkataki invites yoga practitioners to become stewards of the tradition--bold and effective trailblazers for embodying the roots of yoga. She gives you the knowledge, tools, and language to respectfully and responsibly hold and participate in class and more effectively embody yogic values. Each chapter is full of step-by-step instructions, stories, practical advice, practices, and contemplations and covers the following:

• The issues with modern yoga in the West today
• Best practices for yoga leadership
• Learning what equity is in yoga
• How and when to use Sanskrit

• Integrating yoga ethics into your yoga practice, relationships, and work

While mainstream yoga culture explodes, the teachings have often strayed far from yoga's traditional roots. The result is a watered-down, often inaccurate or incomplete practice that doesn't responsibly reflect the rich and powerful tradition. Ignite Your Yoga is an essential guide for all yoga practitioners to delve deeply into the tradition and practice and teach authentically with appreciation, not appropriation.

Author Biography

SUSANNA BARKATAKI is a best-selling author, viral TEDx speaker, and is currently pursuing her PhD in yoga philosophy.

She is the founder of Ignite Institute, a school for yogic leadership and social change, and Yoke Yoga, a wellness app for self-care through yoga. Ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh and trained by masters in India, Susanna bridges ancient wisdom with spiritual leadership for our time.

She holds honors degrees from UC Berkeley and Cambridge College and is a certified yoga therapist and Ayurvedic practitioner. Susanna is the author of the bestseller Embrace Yoga's Roots. Her second book is Ignite Your Yoga.