Being black. Taking yoga. Not Mutually Exculsive!

Does practicing yoga force you to turn in your Black card? Why are there so few of us at yoga studios? Maybe we’re at home doing yoga by watching a free online class. Yeah right! As much as I want to believe that, I don’t think so. I’m not attempting to answer either of those questions. It feels like we’re just barely scratching the surface of this whole Yoga revolution. I think I can count on one hand the number of Black people I know who actually practice yoga regularly. And now my new yoga friend Hadji, from Strala teacher training, has increased my count by one. In general, I think I’m used to being the “token” black person in different social settings, so it really doesn’t bother me at all. It’s just something I’ve picked up on the more yoga classes I take.

I love seeing people like Russell Simmons, who believe that yoga can be life-changing. He’s been a regular yogi for years now. And everybody knows Russell Simmons, creator of Phat Farm and Baby Phat clothing and other major empires. He could easily be considered a Black Donald Trump next to Puffy of course. The man is worth millions. He can also afford to take as many yoga classes as he wants! The average cost of a yoga class is around $12 and as much as $18 in big cities like NYC or L.A. And some locations even do yoga by donation, which can also make sense because then you give what you can afford on that day. If gyms like Planet Fitness can open up and charge as little as $10 a month, then yoga has some competing to do. Some wonder why they would pay money to sit and stretch for an hour. This is definitely yoga misunderstood .

I hate to make broad generalizations about a race, but we can tend to be a bit conservative. So taking part in something like yoga isn’t the first thing to come to mind. Or maybe for black men in particular (or maybe it’s just men), it’s a fear of taking away some part of their masculinity. I mean how easy is it for a man to tell his workout partner that he can’t lift today because he’s off to yoga class? He’d get laughed out the gym. I know it sounds silly, but it takes a strong, confident man, to embrace his yoga-ness. I’m always excited to see a black yogi wherever I go take class. It’s like “Oh wow…another one, how’d you get here?.” I’d imagine it’s similar when a guy sees another guy taking class. It’s like running into someone from your hometown when you’re vacationing in Italy. You’re surprised to see each other, and you realize what brought you to your adventure was that you both wanted to experience Rome and eat good Pasta!

Being black. Taking yoga. Not mutually exclusive. I still have my black card.