Tag: sliding-scale yoga

Yoga online or why I don’t do outdoor yoga classes

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Yoga online during Corona

Over the past six months, due to the Corona pandemic, I’ve been holding my yoga classes live online. At the beginning of the full lockdown this was necessary to continue providing yoga benefits to this community centered around a queer and trans prioritized space.

Problems with online formats

The first issue is access to a good and stable internet connection. I am able to offer a good connection from my own space, but not all of my participants have that access.

The other main issue is that it is more difficult to read participants’ needs. I see a screen filled with boxes of others’ screens. They are cropped or in shadow because of limited lighting and distorted because of internet bandwidth issues. Unable to make eye-contact, small body language cues are lost in digital translation. While practicing yoga we often move from standing to sitting or lying on the ground. Most webcams have a narrow field of view, so I’m not able to see everything a participant is doing. This makes it more difficult to offer suggestions or feedback to assist participants in achieving more out of a pose or breathing exercise, or to help prevent injury.

To counter some of these issues and to help people manage through the pandemic, I’ve changed my lessons a little bit. They are now less physically intensive and focused more on breathing exercises, meditation and movement that helps to reduce anxiety. The heat wave in Berlin over the past few weeks has also encouraged it!

Returning to indoor spaces

As September nears and schools, fitness centres and yoga studios open back up, the question of whether to return arises. I’ve sent out a survey to participants of my queer yoga class to get their feedback on that question. Even though cases in Berlin are low compared to other cities, some people don’t feel safe enough to practice indoors. As a recent blog of ours outlines, there are local guidelines for practicing yoga indoors to help reduce the risk. But with so many unknowns about the Coronavirus, I also feel uncertain about going back to our lovely backyard Kreuzberg yoga garden space just yet.

Why not outdoor yoga?

A number of people have suggested that I offer outdoor yoga. That would address some of the concerns about practicing indoors without the complications of online platforms. I’ve done some outdoor yoga practice in the past and will likely do some more one-off events in the future. But I don’t want to offer a regular yoga class outside. Here’s why:

  1. I endeavour to create a safer space for queer and trans* people to practice yoga. In a public park, there is a high likelihood of being disrupted by onlookers with a patriarchal heteronormative body-shaming gaze. I have experienced this first hand on many occasions and it’s not calming. I would not want my participants to have to deal with that while also trying to practice yoga. I’m not sure I can keep them safe.
  2. A space that’s secluded enough to avoid disruptions may be far away from our Kreuzberg yoga studio.
  3. The weather is not predictable enough to ensure a regular practice at the same time and at the same place. Regularity helps to maintain a sustainable yoga practice. It also reduces the amount of communication and confusion about where and when the class may be taking place. And as the autumn rolls in, the weather is getting colder!
  4. Being around trees and plants is lovely, I get that! But green grass causes a lot of problems – allergies being one of them. And the roots and stones of the ground make it uneven. I myself have experienced injuries practicing on uneven ground and wouldn’t wish that upon my participants.

Benefits of yoga live online

Another amazing thing that’s happened over the past 6 months is that a number of people have joined my classes who are not local to Berlin. If I offered my classes offline only, they would not be able to attend anymore! This new development is something I’d like to continue to be able to offer the international English-speaking queer yoga community. When I eventually do return to offline classes, I will definitely continue online yoga classes. If you are reading this blog maybe you’d like to check them out? Please fill in my survey with the date and time that would work for you!

At English Yoga Berlin we offer small classes for more personalised practice and private yoga sessions. Juli‘s yoga classes in English are a slow Vinyasa yoga / Svastha yoga mix. Contact us here to learn more or check our class schedule.

Sliding-scale Queer Yoga

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Introducing a new payment guide for the ongoing community class on
Sundays at 4pm at our English Yoga Berlin studio!

Queer Yoga Berlin

Sliding-Scale Berlin Yoga guide

What is Sliding-scale Queer Yoga?

If you’d like to be part of our Berlin queers and friends yoga community on Sunday afternoons, and;
* the regular prices would make it difficult for you to cover your basic needs, use this reduced rate guide.
* you’ve got some extra, you are welcome to pay it forward to others.
* if even paying the lowest price is not possible, please talk to us about other options.

If you’ve been following us over the past few years, you may remember that in 2013 we started a community class. We offered this at a sliding-scale price where participants could pay what they could afford, in order to make a yoga class accessible to those with less financial resources. All of us yoga teachers of the collective would take turns leading the class. When the class ended because of low attendance, Juli wanted to keep the class going, so the Sunday 4pm yoga class was converted to a community class with sliding-scale payment.

sign on the door

English Yoga Berlin is a safe space

As the years went on, Juli also wanted to try to provide a yoga class for the queer community to practice yoga in a safe and non-judgmental atmosphere. So a collaboration between two queer yoga teachers began on Wednesday mornings. Since these classes also came to their end, and the Sunday yoga is already a space for solidarity with marginalized folks, it will now, in the spirit of alliedness, be a space for Queer Yoga and friends. This doesn’t mean that if you’re not queer, you are not welcome! It just means, that it’s asked of you that once you enter this space, to take into consideration your position in the world, recognize what your privileges are, make space for people more marginalized than you, and avoid assumptions and judgment.

 

Why “Queer” Yoga?

In western contemporary society, yoga classes can often feel excluding to those of us who are not middle-class, white, thin, flexible and cis-gendered. A common misconception is that if you don’t look like the person on the cover of a Yoga Journal, then you are probably doing yoga so that you can work towards that ‘ideal.’ For those of us who don’t, it can be discouraging to even attend a yoga class, knowing that we might be seen that way by others in the room.

When the room is filled with stereotypical “yoga-bodies” and unawareness of heterosexual and cis-sexual privilege, it can make some queer and trans* people feel uncomfortable and unable to focus on their own practice. And often the language used in mainstream yoga classes can be very hetero- and cis-sexist. As queer yoga teachers, we can take the first step in making the space (and the practice) more queer and trans* friendly.

At English Yoga Berlin we offer small classes for more personalised practice and private yoga lessons. Juli‘s yoga classes in English are a slow Vinyasa Flow yoga / Svastha yoga mix. Contact us here to learn more and book a private session, or check our classes schedule to participate in a group class at our Kreuzberg yoga studio.