Thanksgiving Day Yoga Then and Now

A few years ago I owned a community studio in lower Westchester. I called it Be True dreaming lofty goals of creating heightened consciousness and spiritual awakening. Thanksgiving Day was our busiest, brimming full to our 35-person capacity—shoes and jackets spilling out onto the hallway. Four years after our closing, and now relocated to New York City, I am reminded that the mission of the studio was accomplished but not necessarily in the way I had envisioned.

Be True was a community haven for me in a way a New York City studio can never be. On Thanksgiving it was the sanctuary where families would gather away from the demands of their children’s report cards, where divorced parents could roll out their mats without needing a partner to join them, where gay parents could bring their two young boys to practice with their two dads, where savasana was a pose to release from the daily monotony of an hour-long commute and yes, it was a place where parents had permission to punctuate their time with a breath rather than a ping. There were a few tattooed arms and pierced noses, ones that were rare on other days, but not on a holiday where grown children would return home to visit their parents.

As a studio owner and teacher, I relished preparing for the enthusiasm of mat-to-mat Thanksgiving practice, setting up the space for our rock star teacher who liked to play American classics by Gershwin and West Side Story on her playlist or in the years when I lead the class and pulled from my poetry sources on love and gratitude. Be True was small and safe in a way that felt especially right on Thanksgiving.

I have a new yoga community now and it is represented at more than one studio. There are plenty of tattoos sported on strong arms in middle of the room handstands at one, septuagenarians standing on their heads for five minutes at another, and my third studio home prides itself on having up to five students assisting someone so they can fully experience a pose and get a revelation. Thanksgiving Day practices in New York City are either cancelled or led by subs while the regular teachers are traveling home to their respective families.

Be True is a fond memory now, a time when on Thanksgiving Day I was still raising young children and leading a devoted yoga community in the Village of Scarsdale. My new path has led me to a vibrant, diverse albeit at times anonymous community challenging me to re-discover, re-invent and deepen my teaching and my practice. It is another lesson in non-attachment and a reminder that the practice is mine regulated by the universe’s own charge of time and space.