I wrote this article last year, and, I still support most of what I said. Except right now Im feeling a little more fired up. And, Im feeling like taking a little more responsibility for the possibility that posting a photograph of myself practicing yoga could be triggering to someone else. My intentions Im sure are pretty pure--as I write in the attached article, I have spent years fighting my body through various eating disorders, and as I arrive now in a place of my life where I want to celebrate what I have diligently learned to experience through dedicated practice, and, still celebrating where I fall short. (For the record, after about 18 years of asana practice I still take my mat to the wall for headstand, because, well, I feel safer there.) But heres this weird twist. The culture that celebrates the thin white female yoga body has made me doubt my own body in multiple ways. Yes, I dont practice inversions in the middle of the room and my foot is nowhere near my head in backbends, but, I recognize that I am, indeed, a thin white woman and my body type fits the bill for your quintessential yoga teacher. Right now, that doesnt feel good. I feel like I wish I looked different, because I dont want to be contributing to the culture of thin white women dominating the yoga scene. So thats messed up to me. Because here I am in the body that I have, wishing I looked different, so that I could seem more real in my point that I really do believe that yoga isnt about what you look like. I want to be believed that I celebrate all bodies, and Im doing that in a thin white body. Im not looking for reassurance or a reminder that its okay for me to love my body. I do know that, deep down. I am writing this rather as an expression of what I see as a problematic and complicated situation. Yes, celebrate our bodies. Can we do this without shaming others? Is that our responsibility? When is the line crossed? I am watching this conversation flare up all over social media in the yoga world, and it seems to be so very much the same conversation I had in recovery from anorexia, where we young women parsed out our reactions to magazine models. One thing Im grateful for: my practice. And Im heading in to teach in an hour and Im pretty sure I know what my job is and where to direct my passion. #boom elephantjournal/2013/10/falling-short-photographing-it-peach-friedman-dumars/
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 20:17:52 +0000
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