{"id":203,"date":"2020-06-04T13:15:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T13:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/?p=203"},"modified":"2020-06-04T13:30:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T13:30:48","slug":"yoga-social-justice-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/?p=203","title":{"rendered":"Yoga, Social Justice, and You"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.4.6″ min_height=”1628px” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.6″ custom_padding=”5px|||||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.6″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.6″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_padding=”||0px|||”]<\/p>\n

Part of being a good yoga teacher is that you take a lot of other people\u2019s yoga classes, and yesterday, I took a great class with one of my favorite teachers, Ira, who\u2019s family is from Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

Ira, who\u2019s not white, asked all of her students, most of whom are white\u2014this is, after all, a yoga class of students mainly living in Manhattan\u2014to type in the Zoom chat box what we thought was the biggest issue of our time, and I wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t know, but I think it might be racism? 🤷🏻‍♂️\u201d<\/p>\n

Others wrote about disconnection from each other. Narcissism. (I suspect that one might have been directed at me\u2014it reminded me of Carly Simon\u2019s song about being \u201cso vain\u201d, that you \u201cthink this song is about you\u201d\u2026) Others wrote about talking about injustice and not doing anything about it.<\/p>\n

Ira said that she thinks the biggest issue is disconnection<\/strong><\/span>. From our own humanity. From our bodies, and from ourselves. And that as a result, we struggle to see the humanity in each other. And that\u2019s how problems like racism arise.<\/p>\n

I thought hard about it and could see the truth in it. It was a fantastic yoga class as always\u2014Ira is the yoga director at Stanton Street Yoga on the Lower East Side, and I like her combination of being fiercely devoted to everything\u2014she\u2019s deeply spiritual\u2014and also, occasionally, just bloody hilarious in class. I\u2019ve enjoyed learning so much from her about how to connect more to myself and to my body, and to other people, honestly. You should try to take one of her classes through the MindBody app, sometime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit of a miracle, really, that I turned out to have any kind of social conscience. I\u2019m not asking for a medal, or a cookie<\/a>. I just often marvel at the fact that I care about these things.<\/p>\n

I grew up in Croydon, a crap town in Southeast London, and was lucky enough to go to a private boys\u2019 school there where the majority of us ended up as lawyers and accountants. But we didn’t think that we were lucky. We weren’t grateful.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because South London is renowned for being a bit shit, many of us grew up with a chip on our shoulders. The goal was to prove yourself just as good as the archetypal toff. Or if you couldn\u2019t beat them, join them. It\u2019s remarkable how our accents have changed as we\u2019ve all grown older. Some of us have started sounding a lot less Croydon than others. And Croydon, too, has changed.<\/p>\n

I don’t remember anybody, ever, saying that it was a good idea to consider people less fortunate than we were. Maybe I blocked it out, if they did. I do remember the headmaster of our school giving us a speech about how we were “the cream of the cream”, once. It makes me shudder to think about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got a huge tattoo of the biggest office building in Croydon on my left forearm. It reminds me of where I come from, and of some of the values and the forces that created me. Winston Churchill said that kites rise highest when they\u2019re against the wind, not with it, and I like to think he was thinking about Croydon, when he said it. Although of course, he probably wasn\u2019t. I mean, nobody thinks about Croydon when they say anything. Except for me. Far too often.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For whatever reason\u2014I think it could be because I just find social conventions too funny, most of the time, to take them too seriously\u2014I\u2019ve been lucky enough to escape the boring and selfish life I could have very easily gone in for. I am a lot less inclined to seek safety and security than most of us were taught to, growing up, when the overwhelming belief was that \u201cmoney doesn\u2019t grow on trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

I actually think about other people, sometimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m lucky to have found my way into yoga. I feel a responsibility to contribute to social justice and anti-racism, and I\u2019m grateful for Ira\u2019s wisdom in class yesterday.<\/p>\n

We can all do our bit for social justice. On the mat, I think it often starts with connecting more deeply with ourselves. What drives us forward. What shapes our desires and beliefs.<\/p>\n

Why we don\u2019t feel good enough, perhaps. Why we need to take our insecurities out on others.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t end there, of course. But for me, yoga is a big part of where social justice starts.<\/p>\n

Photo by Mark Crick<\/a>\u2014I was lucky enough to be his assistant 15 years ago, and I think that you should book him for jobs in London and around the world. <\/em><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Header” _builder_version=”4.4.1″ background_color=”#f9f6f5″ background_image=”https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/yoga-pattern-01-1.png” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”||-128px|||” custom_padding=”||||false|false” global_module=”148″ saved_tabs=”all” locked=”off”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.6″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.4″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/IMG_6055.jpeg” title_text=”IMG_6055″ _builder_version=”4.4.6″ max_height_tablet=”400px” max_height_phone=”” max_height_last_edited=”on|tablet”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.6″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/zoom.us\/j\/5185316278″ url_new_window=”on” button_text=”Next free class is coming up on Tuesday at 3pm, New York time. Here’s the zoom!” _builder_version=”4.4.6″][\/et_pb_button][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.1″ text_font_size=”24px” text_line_height=”2em” header_font=”Domine||||||||” header_font_size=”70px” header_line_height=”1.3em” header_2_font=”Domine||||||||” header_2_font_size=”60px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” text_font_size_tablet=”18px” text_font_size_phone=”16px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”48px” header_font_size_phone=”38px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” header_2_font_size_tablet=”45px” header_2_font_size_phone=”35px” header_2_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” locked=”off”]<\/p>\n

Yoga…for people who hate yoga.\u00a0<\/h1>\n

Honestly, I never thought of myself as a “yoga person”, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#000000″ divider_weight=”200px” _builder_version=”4.4.1″ position_origin_a=”bottom_center” horizontal_offset=”0px” width=”1px” custom_padding=”|4px||4px|false|true” scroll_vertical_motion_enable=”on” scroll_vertical_motion=”0|80|80|100|0|0|2″ motion_trigger_start=”top” box_shadow_style=”preset7″ box_shadow_horizontal=”0px” box_shadow_vertical=”9px” box_shadow_color=”#000000″ locked=”off”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It begins on the mat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yoga-for-people-who-hate-yoga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattdavisyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}