When I think about why I wanted to start teaching yoga, I think about my first experience with my teacher and mentor, Octavia Raheem. I had practiced yoga off and on, in studio and at home. Up until 2016 I had only seen majority white, fit ,able bodied people practicing yoga. I had never seen someone that looked like me represented in that space, until I attended my first Starshine and Clay min retreat for women of color at Sacred Chill West. It was a transformative and defining moment for me. I saw black women, all ages and body types flowing together and moving their bodies and pouring out their souls. I laughed. I cried. I marveled at something that I had never seen before in my life.
The experience opened my heart, eyes and mind and made me want to practice more, learn more, heal and feel with this practice. As I have gone and continue to go through the process of learning what it means to live a yogic lifestyle, I met so many beautiful souls along the way. They all had similar stories. "I never felt represented in this yoga world until...."
I became a teacher because I believe deeply in the power this practice can provide people to shift their whole perspective. How it can transform your thought process. How it can impact your health in the most positive of ways. I do not think that yoga should be this exclusive club that only allow you in of you can twist like a pretzel and hold a plank for 20 minutes. Yoga should be, scratch that MUST BE an inclusive practice that bends and molds to fit its practitioners and expands with their growth.
My goal is to bring yoga to those who seem to be left out of the conversation. The everyday person that might not be able to touch their toes or run a mile or even run at all, but still can be freed by this practice and all it has to offer.
I hope you'll follow me on this journey. It's going to be an amazing ride :)