Yoga has been practiced for 5,000 years, but it has taken a new form in 2020.
As COVID-19 continues to reshape how Americans live out the minutiae of their lives, yoga is going with the flow and right now that means moving online with everyone else.
Claire Ameya Bela, who has a master’s in Kinesiology and is E-RYT 500 Yoga Certified, said classes have changed substantially in these days of social distancing, quarantine and Zoom.
“As the teacher, it’s very strange because I have to set up… 10 or 15 feet away from my screen and then my students are in little square-inch boxes and I can’t see them doing the yoga so I’m flying blind.”
Additionally, Bela said, classes are interrupted by technical difficulties new to this medium of teaching, as well as the distractions that accompany distance learning in one’s personal living space.
It is not all negative, though.
“It’s like they’re welcoming you into their home,” said Bela, who wrote the curriculum Southwestern College (SWC) uses for Yoga Teacher Training and is the lead instructor. “You’re seeing them do yoga with their cat or their dog or their child. I feel that teachers are being asked to be a lot more lenient with students about just honoring whatever is.”
Despite circumstances, yoga is still proving to be an important outlet for students during what has been broadly considered a stressful year. Many yoga students are looking for connection which they have lacked this year, Bela said.
Because yoga is more holistic, Bela said she is able to step in and help bridge that gap.
“I’ve seen that students are really aware that having a yoga class right now is holding them together,” she said. “They verbally tell me, this is saving my life.”
Access to traditional yoga communities has changed with social distancing regulations. Hapa Yoga, founded in 2013 by San Diego native Tina Knight, had to close their locations during quarantine, including their Eastlake campus. Like many other businesses, they transferred to offering online classes called, “Ohana Online” through Namastream. They also offer outdoor classes throughout San Diego.
“It is more important now than ever, to come together as a family, to rebuild, to refocus, strengthen, and come back to the mat,” the website states.
Social distancing has made outdoor yoga an attractive option to many still wishing to commune with fellow yogis, or simply hoping to find alternate means of exercise in the face of gym closures and the pause on competitive sports.
Although San Diego County still requires individuals to wear a mask within six feet of each other, outdoor yoga allows participants a little breathing room and comes with the added benefit of fresh air and Vitamin-D-filled sunshine.
“We already know the power of earthing, and we’re electrical beings so just standing on the earth is very powerful,” said Bela. “I think it’s really powerful to feel the breeze on your face or the chill in the air or the sun on your back.”
Bela said that yoga may actually be a good outlet for people wrestling with COVID-19 related trauma from isolation and anxiety.
“It also gets people out of their minds and out of trauma and into their bodies and into the now moment,” said Bela of the safe space the practice of yoga can help cultivate. “Just spending more time in that space helps people with PTSD or mental health issues or just COVID loneliness or despair.”
Yoga classes are available at SWC for the spring semester at https://www.swccd.edu/classes-and-registration/.
Opportunities to find community can be found in yoga studies and through private groups like Mystic Marls’ free, donation-based outdoor yoga sessions in Mountain Hawk Park, Chula Vista – www.eventbrite.com/o/mystic-marls-30951682689.
Bela will begin her own YTT program – Ameya Bela Yoga teacher training – in March 2021 for those interested in becoming teachers.
