Yoga Classes Were a Refuge for Women. Now a Shooting by a Misogynist Has Shattered Another Sacred Place.

By Kim Weeks, The Washington Post

05 November 18

t was really just a matter of time. As a former yoga studio owner, and now yoga teacher and wellness professional, it’s the dark thought I’ve repeatedly pushed down deep in my consciousness.

At a moment when no place is safe from gun violence, why wouldn’t someone come into my class and shoot my students and me? Our doors are open, and we are practicing postures and relaxing our breathing in a way that must enrage someone filled with hate.

I have to accept that my worst fear has been realized.

For me and the thousands like me who use yoga as a refuge, Friday night’s shooting in Tallahassee that killed two yoga students and injured four others feels like the ultimate invasion of peace. Black churchgoers, aging synagogue goers, high schoolers and their teachers, concert and movie lovers, nightclubbers, 20 children ages 6 and 7, and now, yoga students: All people in places of reflection and learning and release are targets of deranged people with easy access to weapons designed, sold and purchased to kill.

To attack these places is to exploit people at their most vulnerable. This is when they’ve allowed themselves, for an hour on the mat or a morning in the pews or an evening in a theater, to let go and feel free.

The slayings at Hot Yoga Tallahassee is as insidious as the other shootings (mass or otherwise), but it especially hurts to imagine these students, claiming time and space for their own self care, suddenly immersed in a nightmare.

It bears repeating in 2018, and in the midst of #MeToo, that yoga is nearly synonymous with women. Of the more than 20 million people who practice yoga, 85 percent are female.

Yoga rapidly became a household word in the 20th century because it is a spiritual practice that simultaneously moves the body. It awakens sensations of relaxation, steadiness and strength, and it is a satisfying alternative to gym-based workouts designed for and by men. Though it has its roots in India’s ancient philosophy called The Vedas, Western yoga is a favorite outlet and exercise for modern women. The very positive effects of yoga on the nervous, respiratory and circulatory systems are well known in the industry and are increasingly validated by science. While many practitioners take yoga to relax and de-stress, just as many associate the practice with similar feelings that they get or once received in their place of worship.

After hearing about the shooting, a friend said, “Ever since I started yoga, I always thought that, no matter what happens, I just need to get on my mat.”

These words reflect the feelings of the hundreds of students who, in my 15 years of teaching, have said that yoga is a place in their body and in their community where they feel safe. People often discover yoga, in fact, when they’re hurting or stressed. For so many practitioners, it is a way to find strength and confidence and even, happiness — practicing poses called, ironically, “Warrior,” or even, in a macabre detail, “Corpse Pose.”

This is what makes the shooting in Tallahassee so painful.

All day, I’ve been asking myself, what happens now?

One well known word in yoga is the Sanskrit word “ahimsa,” which in English is non-harming. How can you practice non-harming — how can you self-improve — when you are afraid that your corpse pose could become murderously real? Will we seriously also discuss arming yoga teachers, fashionably described as warriors of peace? Have we really gone that far?

The foundation of any successful society is that it is safe and that its children can grow and thrive. It’s been said thousands of times since the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School that if as a nation we were unable to reform gun laws to prevent such atrocities as the massacre of 26 people, including 20 6- and 7-year-olds, we have no bottom. The deaths and injuries at Hot Yoga Tallahassee are another reminder that there are apparently no bounds for a murderous gunman determined to destroy. No one and no place, no matter how sacred, feels safe.

But next week, I will go back into the classroom. Just as thousands turned to Shabbat services this weekend to restore their faith, I hope my actions will encourage people to turn to yoga, rather than away from it. I know I will teach with a higher purpose. Every time we exhale, we let go. And every time we inhale, we recommit to inner, and outer, peace.

I Am 18. I Belong to the Massacre Generation.

By Julia Savoca Gibson, The Washington Post

04 November 18

Virginia Tech, Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, Tree of Life. These are my memories.

t was last Saturday when it hit me that my entire life has been framed by violence.

I don’t remember being born on Jan. 28, 2000, and I don’t remember being a year and a half old when 9/11 happened. I don’t remember the panic of my mother as she stepped outside our house in Washington and smelled the smoke of the burning Pentagon. I don’t remember her knowing I would grow up in a changed world.

But I remember other things. I remember being 7 years old and seeing adults who were sad, angry, shocked after something terrible happened at Virginia Tech. I remember not knowing why. I remember the lockdown drills at my elementary school, the helpful signs in every classroom telling us where to hide in case of a “Code Blue,” which meant active shooter. (I remember we were told that having all the kids in one corner, a misguided protocol no longer followed, was the best means of protection.)

I remember being in seventh grade, and I remember my teacher looking up from her computer, pale, and running out of the room without a word during a quiz. I remember her walking back in, tears streaking her face, as she told us there had been a shooting in Newtown, Conn., where her grandchildren lived. I remember her telling us they were all right, and I remember thinking of my little brother in his second-grade classroom and feeling my stomach churn.

I remember walking into my high school the day after the Orlando nightclub shooting and seeing one of my gay friends sitting limply in a chair, eyes hollow. I remember sobbing. Often, I remember sobbing. I remember friends’ tears a year later, after the shooting in Las Vegas, and I remember feeling angry that I wasn’t crying. I remember Parkland the most clearly. I remember the silence. No one talked about it the morning after. No teachers mentioned it. I remember bringing it up at lunch but receiving only passing responses. I remember talking to my friend Max about how odd it was that no one said anything. I remember him gathering our friends to organize a walkout. I remember walking out, and I remember the silence of the crowd of students standing outside in the March cold. I remember the crackle of the megaphone we used as we read one name of one victim every minute. I remember those 17 minutes. I remember marching, once, then twice, and again and again.

I remember going with two friends last Friday to a Shabbat service in the spare room of a local Methodist church, sponsored by my college’s Jewish organization Hillel. I remember my friend Lucy leading the prayers, with her singing and playing guitar, and I remember my valiant attempts to sing along using the transliterations below the Hebrew in the books they’d handed out. I remember getting kosher dinner with them afterward as they explained to me how and why kosher food was a thing. I remember them describing the different kinds of Judaism they all came from.

I remember waking up on Saturday morning and seeing the news on my phone. I remember the sadness, shock, anger. I remember the haunting thought that the shooter might have gone to our service instead, or could go to the next one. I remember a stream of dripping wax burning my finger at the vigil I attended. I remember the look in my Jewish friends’ eyes.

And it was then that I remembered everything at once. I remembered all the violence looming around me, and my friends, and my entire generation. I remembered that for anyone born near the year 2000, this is all we’ve ever known.

I remember filling out my absentee ballot a few weeks ago. I remember voting, hoping that weeks, years, decades from now I’d be able to remember that we changed.