An Insight into Yoga with Rachel Samuels

Growing up in a city as a racial minority in both my personal and professional life I have been, and often I still am, the only black person and/or visual minority person in most spaces that I encounter.  So, I write this blog from my lived experience and perspective as a black woman navigating my way through a city that is not as cosmopolitan as places such as London or Birmingham. Therefore, there are fewer options to practice with a diverse range of yoga teachers. I share my experience of starting my yoga journey and offer some thoughts on the potential barriers that may prevent black people participating in yoga.

My Yoga Journey

 In my early 20s, my understanding of yoga at the time was a practice for flexibility which to me equated to slow!  It didn’t fit into the high impact activities I enjoyed participating at the time, such as netball, street jazz dance and kickboxing.  Although I felt as though I needed a balance of gentle low impact activities, I only gave yoga a cursory thought as I believed it would be too slow for me.  I didn’t know anyone who practiced yoga at the time, so there was no one to discuss it with and answer my questions.  I did do a little research and found there were so many different styles, studios, teachers, pricing that I found it all a bit overwhelming, so didn’t take it any further at the time.

Fast-forward 20+ years, following abdominal surgery, I wanted to get back to high impact sports as soon as reasonably possible so wanted to ensure that I was in the best shape possible. Further to some research, I found that yoga would be a good way to strengthen my core which had weakened through surgery. I managed to get a recommendation of a yoga studio from a friend of a friend, that couldn’t remember the name of the studio that he had attended.  However, they vaguely knew where it was and roughly described the location. It turns out, they didn’t mean the studio that I found but another one a few streets away!

Fortunately, it was the right studio for me!  The place where I started my first class and continue my yoga journey.  From my first email, my first class to my last class, I felt welcomed and supported from kind, compassionate and supportive teachers.  I started in a small beginners’ class, before moving onto a larger beginners/improvers class. I felt safe and found the way the classes were structured, the cues, language, and props used enabled me to fully participate throughout the class from day 1!

Unexpectedly, I found yoga a great space to just be, to rest/pause, reconnect with my body and practicing self-care.  As I continued my yoga journey, I felt that it was a wonderful healing practice that I wanted to share. Particularly one that I wanted to share with others that may not realise how important self-care and healing is. So, when I decided to embark on my teaching journey, I thought I would be the change I wanted to see! A different race, shape, age and colour to the norm. To be the representation that I didn’t see, in the hope more black people and people that do not fit the traditional yoga insta image will be encouraged to give yoga a try and receive the healing benefits of the practice.

Why there can be a Hesitance around Practicing Yoga

The reasons black people do not practice yoga are both simple and complex! However, a few Black people do practice - some in studios, some in community settings and some at home. I think people feel safer practising at home as it can be done without fear of racism or being judged for their size, shape or ability.  Perhaps they may attend a class one day when they feel more confident or are ‘able to touch their toes’ and feel their body is similar to those that we see practicing on videos, social media and magazine covers. The more people see different races, shapes and sizes practicing, the more likely they may want to explore their curiosity and one day find themselves in a class.

Representation matters – yoga is not or was not part of the black narrative. Due to the lack of representation, it’s seen as something only white people do (whether real or imagined), therefore it is not seen as open to black people.  The more black folks see people like themselves practicing and teaching, the more likely they are to participate and explore the practice further. Examples of this working effectively can be seen in sports such as tennis with the Williams sisters and formula one with Lewis Hamilton. Representation outside of the sporting world would be Obama becoming the US president!

Thoughts on Yoga’s Image

Yoga has an image and marketing problem. I think traditionally yoga’s image in the West consists of mainly slim white women in pics contorting their bodies into seemingly impossible shapes. This perpetuates the myth of an ideal body image and beauty standard. People feel this is completely unobtainable, with all the value-laden baggage tied into this concept/idea, so never give yoga a try.  There are so many different ways to do a posture that everyone can find one that is suitable for their body with the support of their teacher. It would be good to see more variety of options on social media and in magazines. I acknowledge there is a movement towards this as I am seeing more teachers posting such images.  As teachers, we know that asana is only one element of yoga and perhaps we need to think more laterally how we can express the different elements through the various forms of media available to us.

Tips that May Help Encourage More Black People to Participate & Take Up a Regular Yoga Practice:

1.     Be kind, compassionate and welcoming! Create a safe space where you are able to do these things and ensure this underpins all your communications through email or face to face from enquiry stage, pre class, during and after.

 2.     Teach classes that provide a good balance of ease and challenge so all students can feel included and able to participate as much or as little as they want to.

3.     Learn how to use props, provide adjustments and different options for postures to support your students to participate throughout your class so they can feel a sense of achievement not exclusion.

4.     Use encouraging, accessible and inclusive language as well as positive affirmations.

5.     Reach out to different communities (via charities or directly) and build relationships, provide support to their projects and offer yoga taster sessions, yoga gatherings at events like festivals, fairs etc so people can experience a sample of what yoga is like.

6.     Offer classes on a sliding scale, or concessions to ensure people with different levels of income can afford to participate.

7.     Ask how someone would like to be identified, in the unlikely event that you will be addressing someone by their race. We are all individuals and do not identify with all the labels imposed on us.

8.     Be kind, compassionate and welcoming! I know it is also no. 1 on the list but it’s so important that I’ve listed it twice!

How you treat your students and how you make them feel, will determine whether they return.  

So just be kind, compassionate and welcoming and you cannot go too far wrong! I’ll end with one of my favourite quotes -

-       “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,

but people will never forget how you made them feel.”       

     - Maya Angelou