I’ll Meet You at the Door: Accessible Yoga

At the yoga center where I sometimes teach in New York City, a woman called wanting to register for a four-week introduction to yoga course. She asked to speak to the manager. She wanted to know if it would be okay for her to come to the course because she was blind, and she had a dog. The manager said, “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t it be okay?” The woman said, “Well, I called many yoga centers and I was told no, that I couldn’t attend.” The manager said, “Just come. I’ll meet you at the door and make sure everything goes smoothly.” The woman completed the course, and all went well. She has continued coming to classes, and she told other blind people about the yoga center and so, those other people came. In fact, the yoga teacher friend who relayed this story to me, also told me that she had recently been teaching a class and at the end, she was shocked to realize that a dog had been in the room the entire time. She hadn’t even noticed.

What does it mean to make yoga accessible? Can it really be as easy as saying yes?

Of course, there are reasons for the “no”: Insurance. What if she gets hurt? What if I don’t know how to teach her? What if something happens with the dog? Maybe the other students will complain?  What if…what if…. The mind can come up with a myriad of reasons not to do something. Maybe the reasons are justified. Maybe they are simply fear. I don’t know. I do know about the feeling when you hear no. No, you can’t come in. No, this is not for you. No, you don’t belong. Somehow, I think most of us know about that feeling in some context. For me, that feeling prompts questions: Who is yoga for? Who belongs in a yoga class? Who can be comfortable attending, and who is excluded? What is the purpose of your own yoga teaching?

In September 2015, I attended the first ever Accessible Yoga Conference in Santa Barbara, California. The conference was born out of an idea to come together and share knowledge and experience around teaching yoga to people who didn’t usually have access to yoga. It had wonderful speakers, like Matthew Sanford of Mind Body Solutions; panels, like What a Yogi Looks Like: Yoga, Body Image and Diversity; and classes and workshops about how to teach to specific communities and how to welcome difference in your class.

Two things struck me about this conference. One, I noticed again and again. It was the inspiration of the attendees. The joy of joining all types of people with all types of bodies, just being together without barriers. Practicing yoga, all of us, together. It wasn’t a problem. It was a relief. As the keynote speaker, Matthew Sanford noted, “this is humanity disguised as a yoga conference.”  

The other thing was that the conference itself engaged those questions of purpose and access. As Jivana Heyman, founder of Accessible Yoga says, “if you have a body and a mind, you can do yoga.” He doesn’t say, “if you have this or that kind of body and this particular kind of mind.” The question arises, then, how do we open beyond our own conditioning and limited beliefs? For me, I was eager to discuss and grapple with these questions among people who were also thinking about and working with these issues. I left energized, inspired, and motivated, which was the true gift of this conference.

Accessible Yoga has tapped into a longing for community and a wish to share the offerings of yoga. From that first conference, the attendees and presenters have continued sharing their resources, stories, and ideas. It sparked a global network which has grown to over 450 Accessible Yoga Ambassadors and 21 Facebook groups in 10 languages. In addition to numerous Accessible Yoga Trainings around the world (over 20 in 2018), this year there will be two conferences: one in Toronto, June 22-24 and the other in Germany, October 19-21.

Sometimes in our zeal to be good yoga teachers, to be helpful, we sometimes forget that our students are people. They are not problems that have to be managed. We don’t have to have all the answers. We can ask questions. We can work things out together. Sometimes we can just be together. Maybe the best thing that we can do is to open ourselves, our heart to this humanity. And say, yes. Yes, there is a place for you here. There is a space open. Come. I’ll meet you at the door.

For information about Accessible Yoga, please visit:   http://www.accessibleyoga.org