Diversity on the Mat
Aug 31, 2020 09:31AM ● By Meredith Montgomery
Local Yoga Teachers Leading the Way
More than 5,000 years ago, most yoga teachers and students were dark skinned males, but today, the word yoga evokes images of thin white women. According to data from the 2017 National Health Interview Study, white adults are nearly twice as likely as black adults to have practiced yoga in the last 12 months. As the local yoga scene mirrors these national trends, four African American teachers are trying to bring more diversity to their classes.
BECOMING YOGA TEACHERS
Jacqueline Johnson | photo by Ambreia Artistry
When LaSarah Deshauteurs showed up for the first weekend of her yoga teacher training four years ago at Soul Shine Yoga, in Fairhope, she wondered if she had made the right decision. “It was nothing like what I expected,” she says of the hot power,
Baptiste-style training. Previously, her yoga experience consisted of stretches that were taught as a part of her fitness training program and she was unfamiliar with sequencing and pose names.
She was also the only person of color enrolled in the training. “I had some fears about that. It was the first time I had really been around a different demographic in that way; I really got to know them and got insight into their lives,” says Deshauteurs, who grew up in the Mississippi Delta where the school system was segregated. “It used to be hard for me to move through social barriers because of the way I was treated in the Delta. I thought about excluding myself but I stuck with the teacher training, which was a lot more than a physical practice; it was work that I needed that I didn’t know I needed—mentally and emotionally.” As she got to know her fellow teachers in training on a deeper level she began to wonder why she ever feared being the only black student in the first place.
LaToya Bass-Barnes also questioned how she would be received as a black yoga teacher, when she was one of the only people of color in her teacher training. “Prior to my training, I felt a little uncomfortable and didn't always receive the most warm welcome at some studios. But then I’d step on my mat and they would see I’m a serious practitioner—a practitioner of color. It wasn’t something they were used to seeing,” she explains.
Bass-Barnes first discovered yoga on her kids’ Nintendo Wii Fit. “I started doing it for fun with the children but when they’d go to school I’d practice more. I was gaining flexibility and strength; I was calmer and more patient with my four kids and more focused with work. I had a lot of anxiety and yoga helped—I was hooked from there,” she says.
After completing her teacher certification, Bass-Barnes opened The Soular Yogi in Gulfport because she wanted to provide a studio space where everyone feels comfortable, especially people
of color and other underrepresented minorities.
With 23 years of experience, Jacqueline Johnson is used to being the only African American in most of her yoga classes. She started searching for yoga after hearing Madonna say it was her cure-all and the reason she no longer ran 10 miles a day to stay in shape. Johnson’s physical therapist had also recommended yoga as a remedy for the sciatica she suffered from after her first pregnancy. “I fell in love with the practice and meditation. I have ADD and it helps me calm down and be mindful and less anxious. It reminds me to slow down and that it’s okay if I don’t do 10,000 things a day,” says Johnson, who has been teaching in Mobile since 2001 and currently teaches at Above and Beyond Yoga Center.
Nikki Grayson | photo by Ambreia Artistry
Nikki Grayson first stumbled upon yoga while living in Brooklyn 19 years ago. “I was in a depressed state from a failed relationship and childhood trauma rearing into my life as an adult,” she recalls. “I was walking to the subway and there was a vendor table with a book titled Yoga for Depression. I thought ‘What the heck, let’s give this a try.’” She bought the book and a mat and her life was forever changed as she learned pranayama breathing and yin yoga. “My mat has caught thousands of tear drops as I allow my emotions to flow with each breath and movement for the release and healing of stored pain,” says Grayson. She became a certified teacher in 2013 and now uses chair yoga and the power of breath to teach others in the Mobile area how to reduce stress in their own lives.
INCREASING DIVERSITY
There are parts of the country where yoga classes are filled with people of color, but along the Gulf Coast, and even in Mobile where half the population identifies as African American, teachers report that most of their students are Caucasian.
“Many people of color think this is a practice for flexible, skinny white women and that is a huge misconception. I’d love for more teachers of color to be present to break that myth. Yoga is for everyone—black, white, yellow; children, men and women; different body shapes and levels,” says Grayson, who once was locked out of a class in a predominantly white neighborhood. “I had to yell through the door that I was there for yoga.”
LaToya Bass-Barnes | photo by Ambreia Artistry
“For the longest time I thought yoga wasn’t something black people did. It’s just not what I saw,” says Bass-Barnes. “When yoga was brought here from the East, it wasn’t particularly accessible in black communities. The pictures of early American yogis with the gurus don’t look like me,” she says, also noting that segregation might have played a role since Eastern yoga was introduced to mainstream America during the 1950’s and 60’s. She feels it’s important for people in the yoga industry to include more people of color in their marketing efforts to help shift this misconception. “Historically, black people were not always welcome in predominantly white spaces so it creates a prejudgment that yoga isn’t for us. When people see more representation of people that look like them, they’re more likely to relate and try it.”
Since becoming a yoga teacher Deshauteurs has seen a shift of more people of color trying yoga because they can identify with her. In addition to teaching at Synergy Yoga and Pilates, she regularly leads a class for members of the predominantly black walking group MobPacers. “I was walking with them a couple days a week and people kept unloading stories of pain to me, so I said ‘I should offer yoga to this group’ and now we meet every other Saturday,” she says.
Johnson believes cultural differences also play a role in the lack of diversity. When she polls her friends about why they don’t try yoga, some can’t afford it, some think it conflicts with their religion, but most simply don’t see the value in it. “African Americans do not have a good track record with preventative health and wellness. Some say they won’t come because of their hair—unless it’s natural it’s not going to take the heat of a hot yoga class. But you have to decide whether you care more about outward appearance or what you’re working on in the inside,” Johnson says.
Accessibility is an issue for many as well, and Bass-Barnes emphasizes that if studio owners really value diversity, they need to make the extra effort to reach broader audiences. “Sometimes you have to meet people where they are; offering something like a donation-based class in an inner city or low-income area allows the opportunity for people to understand that this is something they may need. Yoga is all about connection and if you really want to connect with people, then you have to take the initiative to expose more people to it.”
Grayson, who is hired by businesses to teach yoga in the workplace, wants to see the benefits of yoga more prominently included in class descriptions, along with a larger focus on beginner classes. “Most of my classes have a stress-relief component and that is because stress affects so many of us,” she says. “I encounter groups who may not be into trying yoga, so I always start off with chair yoga because it’s a beautiful introduction to yoga and its benefits in a nice beginner way.”
All four teachers believe that diversity initiatives should not only address a range of skin colors and cultures but also the inclusivity of all body types. “As teachers we need to make sure our classes feel like a community that is open to all,” says Deshauteurs.
THE POWER OF YOGA
LaSarah Deshauteurs | photo by Ambreia Artistry
In these divisive and uncertain times, yoga can help us generate more peace within and a connection to others. “Yoga is a way of self-care that can be practiced anywhere—in the office at a desk, at the kitchen table—just a couple of deep, present breaths can do so much for all the trauma in the world today,” says Grayson.
When Deshauteurs first started doing yoga she was in a dark place, often excluding herself from anything that seemed unfamiliar and feeling vulnerable to insecurities. But through her practice she discovered that the majority of her struggle was an internal battle. “You have to start small— with you. And then look at how you choose to interact with others and how you will present yourself to the world, how you will show up for your family and how you will connect with a higher power. It’s a journey and one day you’ll get there—I get a little closer every day.”
That self-discovery is what Bass-Barnes thinks is most exciting about yoga. “I’ve encountered racism and bigotry, but yoga has removed blinding ignorance from my heart and mind. It’s allowed me to have a lot of compassion towards people that are so filled with hate; they truly are suffering. I stopped seeing myself and my own suffering as separate from everyone else and started seeing other people as an extension of myself,” she explains. “I don’t have to agree with them, but I do understand that everyone has pieces of themselves that need to heal.”
Johnson believes that yoga instructors need to use their classes as a platform to talk about the state of the world and to inspire positive change beyond the studio doors. As she teaches the core-building boat pose to her classes she uses it as a metaphor for managing the uncertain times that everyone is dealing with right now. “We’re all in our own boats, but all of our boats are in this same storm of a pandemic, social injustice, inequality…Through this storm we have to figure out how to survive, how to thrive. So steady your ship and stay strong with who you are. You might sway back and forth a bit, but we can all land on our feet eventually.”
