Third Root Press
Not Everyone Lives
in LuluLemon Land
Yoga That Doesn’t Fit the Profile
By Shell Fischer, YogaCity NYC, New York, NY
August 17, 2009
According to a 2006 survey, the average yoga practitioner is a 41-year-old, college-educated woman who lives in an urban area, works full-time and earns more than $70,000 a year. And she spends some of her salary paying for all things yogic—mats, props, clothing, weekend workshops, books, CDs, videos, etc.
Where does this leave people who can’t afford this luxury?
In New York, they can now go to the Third Root Community Health Center, an 1,800 square-foot cooperative in Flatbush established last August in a former daycare center. Run by seven co-owners, more than twenty volunteers, and a handful of paid yoga instructors, the center offers $10 yoga classes for a variety of different communities, including Yoga in Espanol, Yoga for Youth (Ages 11-18), Yoga for Abundant Bodies, Pre-Natal Yoga, and Yoga for the Queer and Trans communities, as well as traditional classes.
Jacoby Ballard, one of the co-founders, says part of Third Root’s mission is to make available the healing disciplines to those who either may not feel comfortable in a traditional class, or feel excluded due to finances or discrimination.
For example, he says, most yoga classes are taught in English, which is a major barrier to those whose main form of communication is Spanish. Also, he says teachers often don’t know how to accommodate different body types. “If there’s a transgender person in a class who’s binding their breasts, the teacher might not know what to do with that, or what the physical effects are long-term, whereas a queer or trans teacher would know how to accommodate them.”
The same idea applies to the center’s Yoga for Abundant Bodies, a class for plus-sized yogis taught by Amber D’Amato, who lost about 150 pounds through her own practice. “Often yoga teachers have no idea how to work with plus-sized people, or assume that they have very little strength, which is often the opposite,” Ballard says. “They’re often very strong and just have extra flesh. Amber comes from a background of working with her own body, and finding modifications of the postures for herself.”
Ballard, a community organizer, herbalist and yoga teacher, says Third Root is extremely interested in hearing from the community about what other types of classes are needed, and is already considering designing classes for veterans, people who were formerly incarcerated, and those with HIV-AIDS.
Along with yoga, the center also houses an herbal pharmacy and reading room, and offers acupuncture and massage therapy on a sliding scale, as well as nutritional consultations and weekend health workshops. Volunteers are allowed to take one free yoga class for every three hours they contribute, though Ballard stresses he doesn’t want people working at the center simply for the classes. “We want to make sure they really believe in our mission and want to help us keep our doors open and achieve a better relationship with our community.”
You can find more information about Third Root at http://thirdroot.org/.
— Shell Fischer
