‘This is yoga’: A free, community-oriented space led by people of color expands possibilities on and off the mat

Featured photo: Denise McCollough says the classes are “a safe space.” (photo by Sayaka Matsuoka)

It’s like a trust fall, but with their own bodies.

Each of the people who’ve gathered in the third-story studio in the Cultural Arts Center on Saturday morning stands with their feet hip-width apart, hands clasped behind their backs. They pull their bound knuckles towards the floor, gently lifting their chests, their heads, their temples, towards the rear of the room.

“If you work past the discomfort, the resistance, you may find that it’s restful,” says instructor Tamara Jeffries from the front of the room.

With their hips forward, the group bends backwards, allowing their lower bodies to ground them to the floor, keeping them stable while their torsos arch into gentle crescents. It’s the first backbend of class.

As part of SAFE Yoga, the free weekly yoga class offered by the nonprofit You Call This Yoga, Jeffries leads the participants through a series of poses. This one, like many of the others in the class, challenges those in attendance to go right up to the edge of what their bodies can do without putting themselves in pain. It’s about listening to their bodies and what they’re capable of, finding what feels good.

“It’s about making sure we’re focused on accessibility and education for yoga as an evidence-based practice,” says Andrea Cole, the coordinator for SAFE Yoga in Greensboro. “We’re making sure community members have access to peace to decrease their suffering.”

The program began about two years ago and is free for everyone. 

In these classes, there are no high-powered instructors clad in Lululemon bouncing from one asana — or pose — to another. Instead, SAFE Yoga’s focus is about meeting individuals where they are and allowing them to experience yoga on their own terms. The acronym exemplifies their approach: safe, accessible, free-flowing energy.

“We are really about self empowerment and the idea that you are the expert of your own body,” Cole says. “I am here to love on you, but you have all rights to do whatever you want in this space. This is a container for healing and education.”

In the back of the room, Denise McCollough, who goes by Ms. Denise to friends, gently pushes her legs out in front of her and massages them as she sits on her mat. A cane, which she’s been using since her knee injury, rests next to her.

“I assumed that yoga was for very, very fit, good-looking people to get into positions,” McCollough, 66, says. “It was a little intimidating.”

But two years ago, Ms. Denise learned about SAFE Yoga from a friend and has been coming ever since.

“I found it to be a very safe place,” McCollough says. “One of the things that Andrea shared with me is to do what pleases your body; we don’t do hurt.”

Cole, who has been teaching yoga for the past several years, has a background in social work and mental health. As a Black woman, she was alarmed when she learned about the birth-mortality rates for people in her community. And when she found yoga and connected its relationship to mental health, she felt the urge to bring the practice back to those in her community.

“Just like there are food deserts, I think there are health deserts,” she says. “So we’re targeting a lower socioeconomic status, people of color and underrepresented communities.”

All of the SAFE Yoga instructors are Black women, something that is still rare in the wider yoga world. 

While the practice of yoga originated in India more than 5,000 years ago, in the US, it’s currently mostly practiced by Asian and white women, according to 2022 data by the CDC. Black and Hispanic adults were found to be among the lowest demographics to engage in the practice. A 2023 survey by Yoga Alliance found the disparity to be even more stark than what the CDC found. In its findings, close to 60 percent of practitioners in the US are white compared to Black practitioners, who made up about 10 percent. The survey also found that most studios are white-owned. And that’s led some people to feel unwelcome in many yoga spaces. 

“I’ve heard so many stories,” Cole says. “A lot of people will say they will go into these yoga spaces, and they won’t feel comfortable because there’s no one else that looks like them.”

In Saturday’s class, more than half of the participants in the room are Black. One of the individuals showed up halfway through the class toting a toddler who patiently practiced poses on a yoga mat next to her. And Cole doesn’t mind that. She wants everyone to feel welcome.

“It’s welcome to the Greensboro community,” she says. “There’s no race limitation or restriction. It’s a safe haven to come into a nonjudgemental space and experience yoga.”

The variety in classes stems from what each of the teachers likes to focus on, too. Cole likes to use sound bathing in her classes while Sation Konchellah is known for her yin-inspired gentle flows. They also offer more rigorous, fast-paced flows, too.

Petrina Boyd, 26, says her initial goal was to be able to stretch her body and pop her back. As someone who started karate when she was 6 years old, she was focused on how the practice helped her feel physically. But as time went on, she found that the classes helped her outside of the studio, too.

“I’ve learned breathing exercises and how to focus on one thing at a time,” she says. “I will do that at home now.”

She finds that practicing yoga — which also involves breathwork and meditation — has helped her find peace in the rest of her life.

“I’m more patient,” she says. 

Multiple scientific studies have shown the varied benefits of yoga include relieving stress, supporting good health habits, improving mental health and sleep. McCollough summed up how many people feel once they get into the practice.

“I feel like I can go on, like I can continue,” McCollough says.

Katy Beachy, 52, says she started coming to the classes because they are free, but soon found that the practice helps her physically and mentally. As someone who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, she says that yoga is the one thing that has helped the most.

“I used to go home from work and cry,” Beachy says about the pain. “But yoga is the only thing that’s helped.”

Now, every time she leaves the studio after a class, she feels better.

“Afterwards I’m just in a better headspace,” she says. “Before coming here, I can be exhausted and hurting and just think, I don’t want to go to class, but by the time I leave, I’m like, life is beautiful.”

In the year and half that she’s been attending the classes, Beachy has only missed a handful.

“There’s no downside to this program at all,” she says.

According to Cole, the program has been funded for another six months. Their last class of this year will take place on Dec. 21, and they’ll start back up in January. Her hope is that they can secure more funding to continue SAFE Yoga through the end of 2025.

“We do things non stereotypically,” Cole says about SAFE Yoga. “We are massaging, we are pushing on our bodies. People will say, ‘I didn’t know yoga was this.’ They’ll ask, ‘This is yoga?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yes. Yes it is.’”
Learn more about SAFE Yoga at youcallthisyoga.org or on Eventbrite. Registration for classes is encouraged.