Should Yoga Classes Still End with "Namaste"? Here's Why We Stopped Saying It
A candid conversation from the owner of Yoga on Beacon — on language, respect, and finding words that actually feel true.
If you have taken a yoga class in the United States in the last twenty years, you have almost certainly heard it: the palms pressed together, a gentle bow, and the word "Namaste" offered at the end of class. For many students, it is as familiar as the last exhale of savasana.
At Yoga on Beacon, we do not say it anymore. And I want to tell you why — not from a place of judgment toward studios that do, but from an honest place about who we are, what we have learned, and what feels true for our community here in Beacon Hill, Seattle.
It started with a WhatsApp thread
A few months ago, the conversation started the way so many real ones do these days — in a WhatsApp group with our teaching team. We were talking about language in the studio: the words we use to open and close class, the cues we give, the rituals we hold. When the topic of "Namaste" came up, something shifted. Message after message, our teachers shared that the word did not feel right coming out of their mouths — not because it is not beautiful, but because of how it was landing.
As a Black Indian woman and studio owner, this conversation hit close to home for me. Sanskrit is part of the living cultural inheritance of my ancestors — not a brand, not an aesthetic, and not a warm way to close out a fitness class. The more I sat with it, the more I realized: the way "Namaste" is commonly used in Western yoga settings is often disconnected from its actual meaning, its context, and the people it comes from.
"The word belongs to a living tradition. Using it as a sign-off flattens something that deserves so much more."
What does "Namaste" actually mean?
"Namaste" (नमस्ते) is a Sanskrit salutation rooted in reverence. Yoga teacher, author and South Asian diversity advocate Susanna Barkataki notes that Sanskrit scholars translate it as namas meaning reverence or salutation, and te meaning "to you" — so at its core, it is a bowing, an honoring directed entirely outward.1 Barkataki also points out something striking: there is no "I" in the word at all, which she finds beautiful precisely because the ego is completely absent from the greeting.1
In practice, Barkataki writes from her own experience growing up in an Indian family that "Namaste" or "Namaskar" is used as a greeting when meeting an elder — not as a farewell at the end of a gathering.1 So even on a basic contextual level, using it to close a yoga class does not map onto how the word actually lives in the culture it comes from.
A quick note on pronunciation
In Indian families and traditions, the word is pronounced closer to "na-muh-steh" with the emphasis on the second syllable.
The version commonly heard in Western yoga studios — a drawn out "nam-ah-staaay" — reflects how the word has been reshaped through American yoga culture rather than its actual spoken form.1
The broader pattern: yoga and cultural extraction
This is not just about one word. It is part of a larger pattern that scholars and practitioners have been naming for years. When yoga was popularised in the United States across the 20th century, much of what made it a rich spiritual and philosophical tradition — its roots in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain thought, its living teachers and lineages, its relationship to caste and to colonial history — was quietly set aside. What remained were the postures, some Sanskrit names, and a handful of borrowed words and symbols that gave classes an exotic spiritual quality without the depth behind them.
Barkataki, author of Embrace Yoga's Roots, frames this clearly: the alternative to cultural appropriation is creativity and accountability, not the outright abandonment of everything borrowed, but a genuine willingness to ask why we use what we use and whether we are honoring it honestly.1 She poses questions that stayed with me long after our WhatsApp thread settled down: Are you pronouncing it correctly? Are you attached to it, and if so, why? Is there another way to carry the same intention in your own voice?1
"Yoga is a gift that has crossed oceans. The least we can do is carry it with care."
What we say instead
Our teachers landed in different places, and that feels right. There is no single replacement we have all agreed on because that was never really the point. What we share is the intention: genuine gratitude, offered honestly, in a voice that is actually our own. Barkataki compiled over sixty alternatives that yoga teachers around the world use to close class with integrity — a resource we found genuinely useful and worth sharing.1
"Thank you." Simple, genuine. No performance required.
"I see you." A real acknowledgment of presence and effort.
Silence and a bow Let the practice speak. No words needed.
"Grateful for this." Honest and grounded in your actual experience.
This is not about being the language police
I want to be clear: this is not a call to shame teachers who say "Namaste," or students who have found meaning in the ritual of it. Barkataki herself is careful to frame this as an invitation rather than a verdict — a practice of Vichāra, the yogic discipline of critical inquiry, rather than a rulebook.1 The yoga community is big enough to hold this conversation without it becoming a competition over who is doing it right.
What I do believe is that the yoga community in Seattle and beyond is in a genuine moment of reckoning. Who teaches? Who owns studios? Whose spiritual traditions are being drawn on, and how are the people those traditions belong to being honoured? These questions matter. And they are happening in studios like ours, in WhatsApp threads among teachers, one honest word at a time.
Come practice with us
At Yoga on Beacon, we are building a studio that is thoughtful, inclusive and honest — about who we are, where yoga comes from, and what it means to practice with integrity in the heart of Beacon Hill. We welcome every body, every background and every question. Especially the hard ones.
If this conversation resonates with you, or if you have thoughts to share, we would love to hear from you. Come to class, drop us a message, or just sit with it. That is what yoga is for.
References
Barkataki, S. (2019, updated 2022). Namaste: 60+ Options for Confidently Ending Your Yoga Class. susannabarkataki.com. https://www.susannabarkataki.com/post/namaste
Barkataki, S. (2020). Embrace Yoga's Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. Catalyst Press.