yoga for the PEOPlE OF the global majority
BY VICTORIA RUTLEDGE
There are few things more important to me as a yoga teacher than embodiment. Finding ways to use language and movement to skillfully and effectively guide the students who gift me their presence is the lifelong work of teaching asana. In today's hyper-verbal world, how can our practice support us in shifting away from analyzing our thoughts and into noticing our felt sense? Witnessing sensation without turning away, attuning to the subtleties of our bodies without judgement, and creating greater tolerance for experiencing our embodiment as vital information, not as danger, are at the heart of my practice and teaching.
So if the focus of our practice is how we get into our bodies, what does it matter that what we call an affinity space? Why change BIPOC Yoga (BIPOC meaning Black, indigenous, and people of color) to Yoga for the People of the Global Majority? The answer comes back to embodiment.
If our intention is to use the most concise and accurate language to get people into their bodies, why not also invite them into a sense of well being, belonging, and community? The harmful language and state violence that is consistently broadcast, showing Black and brown bodies suffering and miserable is ubiquitous, especially after this year. So why not highlight that these very same communities are supported and uplifted by vast global communities who are living very human lives in tandem to our own. Efforting, expanding, learning, helping, thriving, struggling, trying their very best to maintain their dignity and autonomy in a world systemically designed without their best interests in mind?
This thought was highly inspired by Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry. Hersey is a “performance artist, writer, theater maker, activist, theologian, and daydreamer” who coined the term “Rest is Resistance." As her message has proliferated across our cultural zeitgeist, she laments that the work being taken out of her original intention: “It has always been about more than taking a full nap. My rest as a Black woman in America suffering from generational exhaustion and racial trauma always was a political refusal and social justice uprising within my body. I took to rest and naps and slowing down as a way to save my life, resist the systems telling me to do more and most importantly as a remembrance to my Ancestors who had their DreamSpace stolen from them. This is about more than naps. [...] It is about a deep unraveling from white supremacy and capitalism. These two systems are violent and evil. History tells us this and our present living shows this. Rest pushes back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as a tool for production and labor. It is a counter narrative. We know that we are not machines. We are divine.”
Rest is only resistance if we think about it within the context of working against systems of supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and global anti-Blackness. The potency of the phrase loses its meaning when it's used in a perfunctory way, without its intention (similarly she’s made comments that the term “BIPOC” itself reminds her of some kind of pox or illness which tickled me the first time I read it).
So why not be more intentional? Why not use language that is the most descriptive and inclusive? Why not use language that invites non-white people into a space rooted in our power? A belonging not rooted in the resources denied us, or the suffering we’ve had to endure, but instead on membership in a global population vastly larger than the racial caste society that the United States’ white supremacy culture has taught us to see ourselves as marginalized within.
Language is such a small part of what we do. But if we have the opportunity to represent ourselves, I want us to be represented in a way that feels generative, galvanizing, whole. I want us to remember that we are powerful, not because we’ve had to overcome, but because our lineage is full of ingenuity, laughter, grit, and faith.
Yoga for the People of the Global Majority is a celebration. It is a place for joy and rest together. A place where we get to be who we are, without expectation to produce or perform. And I am ecstatic to be in the 3rd year of hosting this class for y’all! Please join me on the 4th Wednesday of every month from 7pm-8pm at our Forest Ave location.
**addendum**
This change was conceived of and written about before ICE was dispatched more heavily in our area. It is impossible to properly describe with words the negative feelings associated with this unnecessary threat to our community safety, or put a value on the ways in which we’ve witnessed folks step up and care for one another. We are working internally to create safety plans in case of ICE presence, but understand if this space isn’t the safest for all invited.
In small and large ways, we are wishing all members of the global majority peace and joy in equal parts to the grief and worry.
