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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.
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Jan 4, 2019 02:58
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjTaprk5Bn0
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Jan 4, 2019 03:02
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White guilt: Not even once
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Jan 4, 2019 03:02
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Yoga isn't a sport.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:03
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I do eYoga
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Jan 4, 2019 03:04
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I thought this was a Chinatown thread at first
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Jan 4, 2019 03:05
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This is the kind of article that makes people turn into republicans
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Jan 4, 2019 03:06
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If you don't need to wear a helmet for safety, it's not a sport, it's a hobby. Exceptions are made for things like Boxing as you're trying to hit someone else in the face.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:07
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Also, maybe she was anxious because it was her first time ever doing the yog's. Systemic racism might not have even BEEN on that young ladies mind. It's hard to be vulnerable if you're used to being closed off- it doesn't necessarily mark societies ills.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:08
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blugu64 posted:If you don't need to wear a helmet for safety, it's not a sport, it's a hobby. Exceptions are made for things like Boxing as you're trying to hit someone else in the face. weightlifting
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Jan 4, 2019 03:09
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Devils Affricate posted:This is the kind of article that makes people turn into republicans Actually, anime is the only media statistically proven to make normal brained folks move to the right.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:10
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a Wizard Master thread
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Jan 4, 2019 03:16
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OMFG FURRY posted:weightlifting Sport. Imminent physical threat of being crushed by a big weight. Also they could crush me if I said otherwise.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:16
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So what's the deal with farting in yoga classes, do people really just let 'em rip with no shame like on tv?
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Jan 4, 2019 03:21
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having gone to yoga multiple times while both drunk and high, no one farts but if it's hot yoga you'll be assaulted with some sweaty rear end cracks that are doing downward dog in front of you for nearly an hour
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Jan 4, 2019 03:24
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I listen to cum town too OP 
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Jan 4, 2019 03:24
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blugu64 posted:Yoga isn't a sport.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:25
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Black yoga studios are a lot more fun
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Jan 4, 2019 03:26
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lol at you projecting YOUR HOSTILITY that hard. fuckin' white chicks, man. smh
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Jan 4, 2019 03:36
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White yoga studios are all somber and poo poo. Some lame world music compilation in the background. Come down to a black studio sometime and they'll show you how to asANA iykwim
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Jan 4, 2019 03:41
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Dude maybe she was just staring at your rear end why's it gotta be some big loving thing
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Jan 4, 2019 03:42
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im vegan
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Jan 4, 2019 03:43
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Previa_fun posted:I listen to cum town too OP
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Jan 4, 2019 03:44
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i did empathize with the difficulty in offering help to someone without offending or presuming.
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Jan 4, 2019 03:53
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Yoga isn't even exercise, it's stretching
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Jan 4, 2019 03:56
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Look out Boo-Boo I'm gonna downward dog my way into that pic-a-nic basket!
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Jan 4, 2019 04:00
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v inspiring. with enough consciousness raising i'm sure all relevant human distinctions will simultaneously be fully recognized and be fully annihilated. which isn't a horrible unending paradox at all.
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Jan 4, 2019 04:10
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lol the chinese don't care about white vs black unless u a muslim unghir then u hosed ahah
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Jan 4, 2019 04:19
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If you spend another whole session ignoring her she’ll probably sign up for a lifetime membership on the spot.
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Jan 4, 2019 04:25
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I am dedicated to ensuring our yoga studios look like America. This particular area of inequality has actually been a concern of mine for some time, and I have dedicated the bulk of my family's philanthropic fund for the advancement of coloured people to solving it. The Black Yoga Institute I founded and chair is dedicated to researching and advocating strategies for encouraging African American yoga participation. I took personal responsibility for selecting only the very best policy experts available through my social network and I am proud to say that our Washington headquarters are filled with people whose talent and character I can personally vouch for. We've been making fantastic progress so far. Granted, there were some initial setbacks (few Ivy League schools offer an ebonics program so translation has been an issue), but I am confident that we will soon have a bipartisan platform of solutions to the yoga race gap.
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Jan 4, 2019 04:25
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I like the black butts, but anyways all butts are equal
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Jan 4, 2019 04:44
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Lime Tonics posted:I like the black butts, Yeah man, I'm with you there. I can't even unwrap a Hershey's bar without getting aroused.
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Jan 4, 2019 05:43
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Jan 4, 2019 06:03
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Isn’t yoga just like English calisthenics from the 1800s and has nothing to do with India other than it being adopted there during English occupation and integrated with local traditions
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Jan 4, 2019 06:03
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yah probably but who cares? it works for stretching out my posterior chain.
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Jan 4, 2019 06:05
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feelix posted:Yoga isn't even exercise, it's stretching A lot of lifters who literally do not stretch can stand to do it. I know dudes who are as strong as me or stronger but get sprains and pains constantly because they don't stretch like monstrous morons. They think five minutes on the treadmill is enough and then they can work up to 485lb sets on squat with no issue. Thank gently caress my wrestling coach stressed the importance of stretching and would make us do the most hideous painful extended stretches.
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Jan 4, 2019 06:07
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Cyberpunkey Monkey posted:yah probably but who cares? it works for stretching out my posterior chain. Oh it’s great I do it a few times a month if I sleep on my neck wrong or something but I just found that amusing
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Jan 4, 2019 06:07
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JebanyPedal posted:A lot of lifters who literally do not stretch can stand to do it. I know dudes who are as strong as me or stronger but get sprains and pains constantly because they don't stretch like monstrous morons. They think five minutes on the treadmill is enough and then they can work up to 485lb sets on squat with no issue. You're wrong and coaches don't know poo poo. Even if you're one of the small amount of people who should be doing static stretching, you sure as gently caress don't need to be doing it for an hour and for every joint in your body.
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Jan 4, 2019 06:11
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"stretching is generally a good thing to do" is like "food pyramid" level of outdated health and fitness knowledge
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Jan 4, 2019 06:13
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feelix posted:"stretching is generally a good thing to do" is like "food pyramid" level of outdated health and fitness knowledge
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Jan 4, 2019 06:15
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