This month’s featured teacher is Melani Elango.
My passion for yoga stemmed from my teenage years practicing with my family on the weekends. While I did not take to meditation very quickly, I loved the opportunity to embrace this unique aspect of my South Asian heritage. Practicing with my family and community was an integral part of my childhood. The groundedness I felt through yoga, in challenging my mind and body into new dimensions and shapes, planted a seed which has grown with me as I've explored other methods of fitness.
Towards the end of 2020, I was re-introduced to yoga through a digital platform. As an adult returning to yoga, I was able to practice at home and customize my personal approach. This turned into a daily ritual and brought back that familiar sense of grounding and passion for yoga and meditation. In 2022, I completed a 28-day Meditation and Yoga Teacher Training at Samyama Mindfulness Center in Bali, Indonesia. This immersive experience allowed me to dive deeper into different meditation styles and become familiar with the spiritual, energetic aspects of yoga. My eyes were suddenly wide open to the depths of yoga, and I decided I needed to learn more.
After completing the 200 HR Yoga Teacher Training at JPCY as a 2024 BIPOC Fellowship scholarship recipient, I have become reacquainted with my drive and passion for sharing my practice with those around me, particularly those who may not be as familiar with yoga and the numerous benefits a consistent practice can bring to the mind, body and soul. As a proud Tamil-Canadian with Sri Lankan roots, I believe that representation is incredibly important when paying homage to the origins of the practice. I strive to bring diversity and inclusion into my practice in hopes to create a community that can share all experiences on and off the mat.
The Class:
The BIPOC Yoga Collective is an accessible, all-levels practice for those who identify as BIPOC. This monthly class intends to create a safe and familiar space to expose new and seasoned yogis to Boston’s BIPOC instructors, local community of practitioners, and a diversifying studio space. Classes will rotate between different instructors who will take care to ensure students at all levels are able to follow along and create a container that may leave them feeling stronger, empowered, or rested depending on the class design.
Purpose:
To create a shared space where Black, Indigenous, and People of Color may be in community with others who share a deep understanding of their marginalization, because of their unspoken shared experience. The intent is to create a sense of safety in one’s authenticity without the gaze of well-meaning and curious onlookers or “saviors”.
We hope to create an automatic increase of baseline trust simply by holding space for this experience, but continuing to build upon it by leveraging ongoing feedback and representation from the varied perspectives, racial groups and levels of privilege within the broader BIPOC identity group.
Our goal is to have attendees engage in the practice of yoga without the reminders of negatively racialized lived experiences within their racial identities, and create solidarity among us.
Why BIPOC benefit from their own spaces:
Although those who don’t experience racialization or colorism may not see it, systemic oppression and overt/unconscious biases often create division, disadvantaging those not part of dominant groups within various settings. Most Western yoga studios are owned and attended by cis, white, thin, able-bodied people who make up a dominant group. Affinity groups create a boundary for those who have or could experience ‘othering’, microaggressions, or just feel out of place, the space to feel sheltered from that real or perceived threat
How to determine if participation is for you:
You might ask yourself:
Do I authentically share this identity or background, including lived experience?
Have I felt unwelcome, unsafe, or unseen in a space similar to the one this affinity space is being held?
Is my presence adding to that shared sense of safety among those sharing this identity? Could my presence break that sense of safety?
What to expect:
Rotating instructors
Visiting instructors
Mixed-levels
Back to basics
Events
Quarterly workshops
Price: $10
When: Monthly on Saturdays at 2pm