The challenges of teaching a class with these linguistic and cultural challenges are obvious, but Demet has some smart strategies to manage it. We go into Cat-Cow pose and miaow; we moo our way back again. She wants us to notice the placement of her feet or hands and she drums with them on her mat so we can\u2019t help but look. As we roll up from Uttanasana she sings out \u2018sloooooow\u2019 in a particular pitch that repeats throughout the class.<\/span><\/p>And despite the challenges there are some things that seem easier here. We start the class, for example, in a deep squat. We hold the pose for an entire music track \u2013 perhaps three minutes. Demet directs us to sway from side to side, to clap, to chant. Like a drone below the singing there is lactic acid screaming along my thighs; my hip flexors are jangling. This is not a beginners\u2019 yoga pose \u2013 it\u2019s the sort that my London yoga teacher would build up to over a class or a series of classes, and apologise to us before she suggested it. But the Middle Eastern and African women around the room here look as comfortable as if they were at home on a couch.<\/p>
With similar cultural awareness, in Triangle pose, Demet has us circling our upper hand in the air as if we\u2019re twirling a handkerchief in Oriental dance, and the women make enthusiastically celebratory gestures, channeling memories of partying back home.<\/p>
But her most powerful cultural messages come at the end. We\u2019re brought into a circle, holding hands, and she gestures at our arms \u2013 the brown and beige and tan and cream.<\/p>
\u2018We might look different,\u2019 she gestures. \u2018But we are not different in our hearts. We are one!\u2019 She repeats it \u2013 WE ARE ONE! – and we chant along, and she starts jumping once per syllable, and we all join in, our voices getting louder; and to my intense awkwardness I discover I have tears in my eyes.<\/p>
The other women seem similarly moved. Afterwards I speak to some of them. Amal is an 18 year-old from Somalia and she says the first time she heard of yoga was at the We Are One centre.<\/p>
\u2018Now, when I\u2019m tired I go to yoga and I\u2019m happy. When I\u2019m sad I go to yoga and I\u2019m happy,\u2019 she says simply. \u2018Yoga gives me power and it gives me energy. Before, when I woke up in the camp I felt tired.\u2019<\/p>
Tayebe and Mariam are from Afghanistan. They\u2019ve practiced yoga in a class with one of the centre\u2019s other teachers, Kelly. Tayebe says she does it because \u2018after yoga I get on better with my sons\u2019 – she has boys aged nine and four. \u2018I don\u2019t get angry.\u2019<\/p>
Mariam says \u2018We have a lot of problems in the camp, and here we can forget them. After yoga we feel free and happy.\u2019 \u2018Problems\u2019 sounds like a euphemism to me, remembering that this is the camp whose infestations of rats and snakes were recently reported in the New York Times.<\/p>
The next time I settle down to my yoga practice back home in England; the next time I worry about having the right leggings to wear or whether I can keep my balance in Dancer, I\u2019m going to remember Amal and Demet, Mariam, Tayebe and Kelly, and their wisdom about what yoga is really about: Its power and its energy; the freedom and the happiness it offers; the Sanskrit word suggesting the \u2018yoking\u2019 that connects us all together; the celebration of all that we have in common in our hearts. That We Are One!<\/p>
If you would like to help support the centre, visit glocalroots.org<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t