"As a Black woman, kemetic yoga instinctively lives in my mind and on my mat, and ultimately it led me on a mission to better understand the meaning behind the poses I'd been twisting into for the past decade"

Do black people do yoga?

A fellow African American colleague asked me this question when I shared my excitement about getting certified as a yoga instructor. My response:

Not only do we do yoga, it started in Africa!

Take a tour online, in-person, or in books of the yoga postures carved into the walls of temples in ancient Egypt and you will see the ‘receipts’ in the hieroglyphics. Although it is a barely known fact that yoga began in Africa, the people of Kemet in ancient Egypt created teachings and spiritual practices that evolved into Hindu yoga practices. Furthermore, in his book Egyptian Yoga: Postures of the Gods and Goddesses, The Ancient Egyptian system of physical postures for health meditation and spiritual enlightenment, Muata Ashby showcases the physical postures practiced thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt that we call yoga today.

"So, yes, black people do yoga. It runs deep in our ancestral blood."

The Egyptian system of kemetic yoga combines meditation, deep breathing, and physical movements to emphasize breathing, self-development, healing of mind-body-spirit, and self-discovery. Kemetic yoga was leveraged as a way to connect with the ancestors through the “energy body,” and to borrow a phrase  from Cairo West Magazine: "In the same way that we have a physical body that operates in a specific manner; we also have an energetic body that operates on the circulation of life force."

It was not originally in my plan to become a yoga teacher

As a Black woman, kemetic yoga instinctively lives in my mind and on my mat, and ultimately it led me on a mission to better understand the meaning behind the poses I'd been twisting into for the past decade. So, as a birthday gift to myself, I entered into yoga teacher training led by my favorite instructor. While learning the principles and guidelines of yoga, I discovered so much more about myself and it literally shaped who I was becoming inside and out. I grew as an individual and gained a yoga family. Surprisingly, it also brought me closer to my actual family.

In Washington, D.C. where I grew up, my uncle Larry taught yoga to youth for the Department of Parks and Recreation. He shared this information with me about 30 years later and 100 hours into my own 200 hour yoga teacher training program. Oh the joy I felt! In that moment on our video call this common interest connected the two of us despite the fact that he was currently across the ocean living in Europe. This helped my connection with yoga make even more sense. Uncle Larry awakened me to the fact that curiosity was not the only force driving the desire to deepen my yoga journey. He enlightened me that yoga and meditation had been practiced in my family long before I could even walk. For this little known Black history fact in our family, I am both personally and professionally proud.

So, yes, black people do yoga. It runs deep in our ancestral blood. And along with being my personal passion, it is a birthright that breathes within my genes as a Stone living in America. And as a yoga teacher, I instill in my students that yoga is about far more than twisting your body into shapes on a mat to get a toned body. While that can happen, it’s really about the alignment of mind, body, and everlasting breath.