I live in New York City. Specifically, I live in Brooklyn, the hub of Yoga Studios, Yoga practices, Yoga vibes, Yoga obsessions and Yoga everything.
I live among the 24-hour-I-wear-only-yoga-pants mothers from Park Slope and around the I-drink-only-organic-green-juice yoga hipsters from Clinton Hill and Williamsburg. Not that there is anything wrong with that, actually everybody is welcomed to yoga one way or another. But, I am very tired of teaching yoga to the elite ONLY when there are so many other people who can’t afford it and yet would benefit immensely with it. This is why I accepted a job teaching yoga to construction workers at the Green Building in the Gowanos, the up-and-coming neighborhood in the middle of Brooklyn.
The students can barely follow my language, let alone the poses, but they try so hard and they care so much, it is such a pleasure to ensure they get the best out of the whole experience. Some of them are completely extraneous to the concept of yoga as a practice of self-knowledge through stretching, yet they trust me and do what I show them with such passion and dedication, they may as well be able to master the sequence in few months.
Yesterday I walked into the class having had a fit with life and feeling down and grumpy all over.
I walked out the class light as a feather and calm as it can be. I had to break down the poses for all of them the best I could so that each one of them could understand them better. The simplicity of it all made it a better experience for me as well since I had to come out of the regular scheme of an advance yoga class and re-learn how to teach the a,b,c of the yoga I had learned once a long time ago.
Simple minds, simple pleasures.