Posted on 02/04/2014 11:08:23 AM PST by nickcarraway
IT HAPPENED TO ME: THERE ARE NO BLACK PEOPLE IN MY YOGA CLASSES AND I'M SUDDENLY FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT
I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my skinny white girl body.
January is always a funny month in yoga studios: they are inevitably flooded with last year’s repentant exercise sinners who have sworn to turn over a new leaf, a new year, and a new workout regime. A lot of January patrons are atypical to the studio’s regular crowd and, for the most part, stop attending classes before February rolls around.
A few weeks ago, as I settled into an exceptionally crowded midday class, a young, fairly heavy black woman put her mat down directly behind mine. It appeared she had never set foot in a yoga studio—she was glancing around anxiously, adjusting her clothes, looking wide-eyed and nervous. Within the first few minutes of gentle warm-up stretches, I saw the fear in her eyes snowball, turning into panic and then despair. Before we made it into our first downward dog, she had crouched down on her elbows and knees, head lowered close to the ground, trapped and vulnerable. She stayed there, staring, for the rest of the class.
Because I was directly in front of her, I had no choice but to look straight at her every time my head was upside down (roughly once a minute). I’ve seen people freeze or give up in yoga classes many times, and it’s a sad thing, but as a student there’s nothing you can do about it. At that moment, though, I found it impossible to stop thinking about this woman. Even when I wasn’t positioned to stare directly at her, I knew she was still staring directly at me. Over the course of the next hour, I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body.
I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my high-waisted bike shorts, my tastefully tacky sports bra, my well-versedness in these poses that I have been in hundreds of times. My skinny white girl body. Surely this woman was noticing all of these things and judging me for them, stereotyping me, resenting me—or so I imagined.
I thought about how even though yoga comes from thousands of years of south Asian tradition, it’s been shamelessly co-opted by Western culture as a sport for skinny, rich white women. I thought about my beloved donation-based studio that I’ve visited for years, in which classes are very big and often very crowded and no one will try to put a scented eye pillow on your face during savasana. They preach the gospel of yogic egalitarianism, that their style of vinyasa is approachable for people of all ages, experience levels, socioeconomic statuses, genders, and races; that it is non-judgmental and receptive. As such, the studio is populated largely by students, artists, and broke hipsters; there is a much higher ratio of men to women than at many other studios, and you never see the freshly-highlighted, Evian-toting, Upper-West-Side yoga stereotype.
I realized with horror that despite the all-inclusivity preached by the studio, despite the purported blindness to socioeconomic status, despite the sizeable population of regular Asian students, black students were few and far between. And in the large and constantly rotating roster of instructors, I could only ever remember two being black.
I thought about how that must feel: to be a heavyset black woman entering for the first time a system that by all accounts seems unable to accommodate her body. What could I do to help her? If I were her, I thought, I would want as little attention to be drawn to my despair as possible—I would not want anyone to look at me or notice me. And so I tried to very deliberately avoid looking in her direction each time I was in downward dog, but I could feel her hostility just the same. Trying to ignore it only made it worse. I thought about what the instructor could or should have done to help her. Would a simple “Are you okay?” whisper have helped, or would it embarrass her? Should I tell her after class how awful I was at yoga for the first few months of my practicing and encourage her to stick with it, or would that come off as massively condescending? If I asked her to articulate her experience to me so I could just listen, would she be at all interested in telling me about it? Perhaps more importantly, what could the system do to make itself more accessible to a broader range of bodies? Is having more racially diverse instructors enough, or would it require a serious restructuring of studio’s ethos?
I got home from that class and promptly broke down crying. Yoga, a beloved safe space that has helped me through many dark moments in over six years of practice, suddenly felt deeply suspect. Knowing fully well that one hour of perhaps self-importantly believing myself to be the deserving target of a racially charged anger is nothing, is largely my own psychological projection, is a drop in the bucket, is the tip of the iceberg in American race relations, I was shaken by it all the same.
The question is, of course, so much bigger than yoga—it’s a question of enormous systemic failure. But just the same, I want to know—how can we practice yoga in good conscience, when mere mindfulness is not enough? How do we create a space that is accessible not just to everybody, but to every body? And while I recognize that there is an element of spectatorship to my experience in this instance, it is precisely this feeling of not being able to engage, not knowing how to engage, that mitigates the hope for change.
LOL, you CAN find yoga mats at Walmart! I bought one there, but not for yoga-—I use it for strength training.
LOLZ at my OWN WallyWorld reference. Ever see the webpage “PeopleOfWalMart?” It was created by some local (like my zipcode) HS kids (who paid for college) by initially taking cell phone photos of customers at our 3 local WalMarts...and the rest if history. DanceMoms is filmed not too far away...and they are the “classy folks” round here.
My travels take me past that strip mall most days...I’ll report back models of cars in parking lot because honestly, I’m intrigued by this little start up and WHO theyll attract.
LOL, do report back!
Oh, I’m familiar with “People of Walmart”. I always feel bad for laughing, but what can I say, lol.
That is uncanny......yesterday
I took my long haired 13 year old to a supercuts on west Charlotte behind a car wash I own
Two black cutters
I knew better...but stayed
Gay very unfriendly gay guy cut hair
Horrible job....just awful...and the guy gave me the cold black stare thing
When got back in the truck and my boy said his hands smelled of butt and why on earth did I not just walk out?
Dunno
Most folks here would have figured me to walk out for sure
Wardaddy race Nazi and all....
Same with my hunting club.
There are no blac-— wait, yeah theres one black guy. Geez I forgot he was even black. Never paid it that much attention.
But yeah, I guess he is black. He is a black man. He is not a n*****, he’s not a gangster, he’s not a ghetto homie. Just a regular guy that goes to work, pays bills, takes care of his wife and kids. He’s a darn good shot too.
I forgot all abpout him being black. I guess I’m not as in touch with my guilty white side as racist liberals are. I don’t really see a black guy when I talk to him. Now if I see two thugs walking down the street with saggy pants around there knees... well thats a different story.
OMG! Where do I go to get those 3 minutes of my life back?
Well, whatever the point of yoga is, it is lost on me. I find it yawn inducing, boring.
I’m not sure of the point of yoga either. But I do know if you wear a Mao jacket and do the Hokey Pokey real slow in a park, everyone thinks you’re doing Tai Chi.
Don’t get me started on Tai Chi. There used to be a Tai Chi class before a Spin Class I used to take. The teacher was this 60ish hippy guy. Everybody in his class was over 70. I think it’s because in order to do Tai Chi you have to be able to move really, really slow. Anyway, these people were the nastiest, most unfriendly people. I don’t think Tai Chi was working for them.
This woman strikes me as a bored housewife; husband works and pays the bills and then go figure, she has all the time in the world to get worked up about something.
Dude...you’re looking at her face????
Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode of “Sandra Fluke Does Yoga”.
Why did you walk out?
There are places to find free ones in most cities.
Good point. I’ve taken yoga classes in yuppie places like this and a free place catering to recovering addicts and everyplace in between. Some overweight people are more advanced than me, and Ive had black classmates at all levels, too. This woman is very condescending and she would probably feel sorry for me too because I’m not ideal weight, and am limited in my practice because of disabilities.
I totally believe that she is agonizing over this, though. I’ve heard this before, usually from people who aren’t that wise.
Best yoga advice ever: Keep up your practice.
And I might add, don’t make assumptions about others.
Keep up your practice.
There are 8 kinds of yoga. Hatha yoga, which Americans have fixated on, is exercise.
As a conservative, I am a minority, sometimes a persecuted one, in many settings.
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