RW Alves
- social justice educator
- trauma-informed yoga trainer
- somatic experiencing practitioner
- certified yoga therapist
- yoga teacher trainer
RW Alves, C-IAYT, SEP, E-RYT 500 (she/her and they/them), is a social justice educator, certified yoga therapist, yoga teacher trainer, and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner based in Seattle, Washington. Her work in the world and in yoga is informed by her experience as a fat white queer femme with a lifelong involvement in social justice and activism.
She works at the intersections of social justice and spiritual practice by developing curriculum, training and mentoring yoga teachers and yoga therapists, creating spaces for self-care and community-care for activists, and teaching about inclusive languaging and teaching, trauma-informed yoga, nervous system resilience, accessible asana, justice, privilege, and spiritual practice.
RW serves as Faculty for Off the Mat, Into the World and the Yoga Service Conference, teaches trauma-informed yoga through a social justice lens through Collective Resilience: Trauma-Informed Yoga and Social Justice with Hala Khouri and Kyra Haglund, and is a co-founder and trainer for Bending Towards Justice, which provides anti-oppression, equity, and social justice trainings for yoga teachers, practitioners, studios, and organizations around the US. She is a contributing author to the forthcoming book from the Yoga Service Council on Best Practices in Yoga for Addiction and Recovery, and serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force for the International Association of Yoga Therapists.
She is passionate about exploring and unearthing the interconnections and interweavings between social injustice, trauma, social justice, and resilience, and she believes deeply in the power of practice to ground, sustain, align, and inspire us in our important and world-changing work.