Dana Falsetti is a yoga teacher from America. She's a travelling teacher who focuses on making yoga accessible for all, on making larger bodies comfortable in the space and on talking about how we can vary poses to suit those bodies. She visited triyoga Shoreditch recently for a weekend of workshops (I told her to come back to YogaCampus sometime, the ethos would suit her!) and I've blogged about my experience of it below. Basically, I had a great, thought-provoking time.
Creating space
This was a really interesting workshop. I turned up after work and was immediately greeted by Dana, hanging out, having a cup of tea and chatting. She was extremely welcoming and immediately put everybody at ease. I ended up hanging out with her and the others for about an hour, talking about yoga, life and meeting other plus-size practitioners and teachers, which was revolutionary for me, because in most yoga spaces you simply don't see these individuals.
The workshop was unlike any I have encountered before simply because it was 99% plus size people of all shapes and sizes, which was incredible to see. It was all the people who classify themselves as fattest in class (I know this because a number of us said so), the ones who feel disenfranchised by traditional yoga classes, the ones who want to learn more and find how to make postures work for them. It was really exciting.
Dana took us through her story and then walked us through a number of options for how to adjust practice to suit larger or different bodies, from seated sun salutations to the importance of blocks and bolsters and blankets. For instance, you can do a seated sun salutation if you don't have the strength in your thighs (Tammy, one of my teachers, does this with a student with MS).
You sit cross-legged, raise your hands up to mountain, bring them to heart centre, then out to cactus, bringing your shoulder blades together. Back to heart centre, down into a forward fold, back up and hands to heart centre. Revolutionary! You can also do chaturangas without the planking, replacing it with tabletop, using blocks to support the body as it tries to manage the weight placement, and you can put blocks behind you when twisting to keep you straight instead of crouching to reach the floor.
I hadn't realised how young Dana is, she's just 24. I wish I had had the understanding of the world she does at her age (I'm 32) but you could see people of all ages there, learning and listening and really getting what she was saying. We need more people like her to remind us that it's okay to do whatever you like at whatever size, that we are not aliens.
I decided not to attend Saturday's workshops, which were about breaking down sun salutations and also on a restorative practice, as I thought I'd be completely exhausted, and instead did a moon practice with Sarah, which was lovely and chill, if rather more challenging at the start than any of us had expected, and then in the afternoon a vinyasa flow with Tammy. Unfortunately I think I dehydrated spectacularly without realising it and ended up with a properly stinky headache which scuppered evening plans - I ended up going home and curling up, hoping to feel better by Sunday.
Building blocks for inversions
On the Sunday I rested a little and then came a bit late to the workshop on building into inversions. I still wasn't feeling great but I at least knew that historically, head stand and even shoulder stand are not in my personal practice. It was so interesting to me as a plus size person and an aspiring yoga teacher, because I only ever see the people at my class do it, and I wanted to understand if there ways I could improve my own personal practice, what the differences are for different bodies.
I personally only do headstand prep against the wall using blocks and a brick, due to my head not wanting to hit the ground without it. Dana showed a way of preparing to get into headstand that I'm going to try out with my blocks and brick, where you can take the legs wider, and just slowly work on getting them up. She also gave us some fantastic tips about building strength in your wrists - painful exercises, but nothing dangerous, just getting bits moving that you're not used to.
I saw people go up for the first time, people improve their practice, people feel more confident. And in that workshop, it was a real mix of body types, which is actually what I'd really prefer to see in classes going forward.
Making practice inclusive: a workshop for teachers
The second workshop of the day was for teachers, about making their classes inclusive. And it was so interesting to see the disparity between the room of plus size people on Friday and the teacher workshop, where there were a handful of plus size people, the majority of the rest your classical yoga body - lithe, slender, white. Donna Noble, who runs Curvesome Yoga, was also there, as were a few plus size yoga teachers, but it was clear to me how far we have to go to make sure all bodies are represented in yoga.
The questions are were somewhat as expected - how do I use language to make my classes seem welcoming to all without being patronising, what modifications can I use for larger bodies, etc. All good questions - Dana ran through the options for larger bodies, much of which was similar to Friday's talk, and talked about language, about not saying 'just' do this, about when to assist and when to back off.
Sometimes it felt as if, without meaning to, these 'privileged bodies' saw us as other, simply because of our weight. One teacher was worried about teaching an individual of around the same size as me, because of putting pressure on the wrists. I tried to say to her, I am an ashtangi, stop worrying and just do it! But I get that she wanted to find ways to make it work outside of just not being afraid of doing it, too, and I appreciated her being in the room.
Another teacher talked about how she teaches a traditional form of ashtanga yoga, and how she tries to honour the lineage by not using props, and asked how to accommodate people in her class. I did speak up when the teacher asked about this and said 'I am an ashtangi, please give me props, give me support!' And I meant it, because to me, it makes sense to supply your student with everything that they need to succeed. I guess my teachers offering them to whole classes from the offset means it's just seemed like the norm for me throughout, and now I'm more confident in my practice I'm cool to just get up and grab what I need, and take whats' offered.
To me, it's one thing if you don't have props in the workplace room you come to, or in your student's home, for instance, and have to modify what poses you give to students accordingly, but to work at a studio that offers the option but not to have it there for the students is a bit surprising to me. I hope I misinterpreted! I don't mean anything against this teacher, I'm sure she's excellent, I know she's highly experienced, but there's something missing there for me if you're doing mysore-style classes and you're not giving options for props - to me props mean safety and balance. Tradition is something I don't subscribe a lot to. History and philosophy, sure, but I believe in a modern, fully accessible version, I suppose.
For instance, sometimes I need a strap because my arms are simply too short to access a pose, or sometimes I need to prop up on blocks to avoid going completely lopsided in trianga mukhaikapada paschimottanasana, and sometimes I need to go up against the wall with a bolster to enable me to get into shoulder stand, because my back simply isn't flexible. Props make the ashtanga asanas accessible to me, otherwise I'd just be sitting there feeling like this style isn't for me and being that 'larger person trying ashtanga' whom you never see again (and believe me, had you seen my very first ashtanga class, you'd have thought that then).
Ashtanga and vinyasa and iyengar all come from the same root, after all. And yoga is, as we heard a lot this weekend, about so much more than the physical practice (which was, after all, practiced by Indian boys as a preparation for meditation). It is the eight limbs, the ethical conduct, the non-violence towards oneself and others, all of which could be said to interlinked with offering props to people who need it (not just because they're fat, but maybe they have an injury, or one leg shorter than the other, or short arms that can't achieve something they could with a strap!
Towards the end there was a general discussion about how ashtanga is the 'most exclusive' form of yoga, and how you don't really see larger people doing ashtanga. I was a bit agape at this. I've never been told this, or that people 'like me' don't do ashtanga (I assume because it's an energetic practice, the implication, whether they meant it or not, being that fatties don't do energetic styles - it is definitely one of the toughest forms compared to something like hatha or restorative in terms of the pace).
I came out of it, as you may have noticed, feeling quite fervent, and quite frustrated, and quite inspired to teach and bring a more inclusive form of yoga. I really hope that going forward, my size doesn't count against me (one plus size yoga teacher told me she'd been turned down by gyms, and told 'well done you' for completing classes) when I start to teach. Everyone is an individual, I don't want to replicate what anyone is doing, I want to do my own thing, but I can see that things can't continue the way they were.
It was truly a great weekend. Dana is slowly opening people's eyes to what is possible, as is Dianne Bondy, Amber Karnes, Jessamyn Stanley and so on. Now we just need the Brits to start assembling and showing what we can do, too.