Black and brown yogis hope to bring 'healing powers' of yoga to diverse communities in need

Richara Logan remembers how her life spiraled at the end of 2018, following a Christmas Eve tragedy.

It was around 4 a.m. when her mom called. Logan was already awake, anticipating the news that came next. Her 78-year-old grandmother died, ending a long bout with chronic lung disease.

Logan struggled to see how life could go on, she said, as tears, anxiety and depression consumed her months after.

“I didn’t know how to heal myself,” Logan, 25, said. “I was like, ‘yeah, nothing matters.’”

She retreated to her yoga mat, under the advice of a therapist. She found solace in practicing yoga.

Inhaling, exhaling and elongating, Logan said she regained her self-worth.

Logan, a Black woman, wanted more control over what she described as the healing powers of yoga, something she felt others that looked like her could benefit from but were missing. She wanted to help them too.

She received her yoga teacher training certification in 2020 and in May opened a studio on North Rural Street called Tiny Tapas.

Logan's journey follows a larger movement in Indianapolis where recently, yoga studios have strengthened efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.

Black and brown yogis across the city sayyoga studios have historically been uninviting spaces, where microaggressions, racism, body image issues and high costs have discouraged many. They’re hoping to remove these barriers.

“Yes, it’s physical, but yoga also taps into your mind and spirit, which also need to be nourished," Logan said. "And I feel like people of color are – by means out of their control – we’re often just surviving, and we don’t always get to tend to those pieces.”

Unwelcoming experiences in yoga

Between 2002 and 2017, Black and Hispanic populations practicing yoga grew from less than 3% each to 9.3% and 8% respectively, according to a national health report. Meanwhile, white populations consistently practiced yoga at nearly double the rates, going from 5.8% in 2002 to 17.1% in 2017.

Warnell Henderson, a 69-year-old Black woman, received her yoga teacher training certification last year. She had been practicing for decades but “got hooked” in 2011, she said, while seeking comfort after her best friend died of cancer.

She was initially met with unpleasant encounters.

“I walk in there, and it’s like a fly in buttermilk,” Henderson said. “It’s so disheartening because people look at you like, ‘Why are you here?’”

Once she was even asked that question, Henderson said, minutes after walking into a yoga studio. She then shyly crept into the back corner where she said she was ignored the rest of class.

Kristina Johnson-Yates, a Black woman, over six feet tall, and married to another woman, also had undesirable experiences based on race.

“People would ask to touch my hair,” Johnson-Yates said, “or ask if the occasional other Black person that came in was my friend or wanted to sit next to me.”

Instances like these have kept Black and brown people out of most yoga studios, Johnson-Yates, 35, said, but things have started to change.

Yoga studios looking to improve diversity

In 2019, after Johnson-Yates received her yoga teacher training certification, she began leading equity in yoga workshops across Indianapolis. Through her organization, Kristina Johnson Wellness, she teaches topics on gender, disability and race, and helps studios assess how their spaces may be unwelcoming or inaccessible. She then guides them toward improvement.

Invoke Studio, which opened in Indianapolis in 2005, is one of Johnson-Yates’ repeat clients.

Founder of Invoke Studio, Amy Peddycord, said after the racially charged events of 2020, they ramped up efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. This meant hiring Johnson-Yates and offering what Peddycord called community, equity and service scholarships targeted toward diverse applicants. The scholarships are valued over $3,000 and cover the entire cost of a yoga teacher training certification.

Hot Room, a hot yoga studio with five locations across Indianapolis and Chicago, started offering similar scholarships in 2020. They also launched a non-profit called Breathe Foundation to raise money toward their goal of awarding 10 scholarships annually to people of color.

Hye Jin Kalgaonkar, CEO and founder of Hot Room, said she’s motivated by feelings of alienation she once had, years ago, when walking into Indianapolis yoga studios.

“I was surrounded by these gazelles,” Kalgaonkar said, “these tall, skinny, beautiful white women.”

This imagery overwhelmingly dominates the yoga industry, Kalgaonkar said, leaving others, like herself, feeling like an outcast.

In February, Hot Room hosted its first One Breath class, a donation-only yoga session offered four times a month specifically for people of color.

“It’s not only about skin color,” Kalgaonkar said. “It’s about people who’ve had an experience that yoga is not for them.”

Yogis of color driving change

The American Osteopathic Association lists a variety of benefits of yoga, including increased flexibility, weight reduction, and improved cardio and circulatory health.

In communities of color, where Black Americans are 30% more likely to die from heart disease and 40% more likely to have high blood pressure than white Americans, according to data from the Office of Minority Health, those benefits are potentially lifesaving.

Preciss Stone, a local Black yoga instructor who created the idea of Hot Room’s One Breath class, wants to see more people of color doing yoga. She believes Black communities disproportionately deal with trauma, which can turn into chronic stress and add to high blood pressure.

Yoga, she said, teaches people something other forms of exercise don’t: how to breathe.

It’s a vital lesson for Black communities, Stone said, where so many people hold their breaths in distress, too often living in low-income areas, high in crime.

De’shon McClain, 34, lived in one of those neighborhoods.

McClain said he used to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol to deal with the trauma of losing two younger brothers to gun violence in his early 20s. Now he has a healthier routine.

He wakes up to a glass of water with a twist of lime, spends a few minutes in child’s pose, meditates, then eats some fruit for breakfast before he starts his day teaching yoga.

He’s found stretching and meditating more comforting than smoking and drinking, both of which he said he hasn’t done in over a year.

“I don’t feel like (yoga) is promoted enough to Black people,” McClain said. “You don’t see signs and posters and stuff saying, ‘Hey, come into our community and do yoga with us.’”

He’s been practicing on and off since 2019, but in 2022 McClain received his yoga teacher training certification.

“I want to change my community from the inside out," McClain said. "That’s the reason why I’m doing it.”

Contact IndyStar reporter Brandon Drenon at 317-517-3340 or BDrenon@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonDrenon.

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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Yoga studios seek more diversity as they step up inclusivity efforts