Labor Day weekend saw the 10-year anniversary of DFW Free Day of Yoga. Above, Friday’s kick-off festival at the Latino Cultural Center in downtown Dallas. Photos by Christian Leigh Kramer.

Sept. 7, 2016

Labor Day weekend saw the 10-year anniversary of DFW Free Day of Yoga, an event begun in Dallas that has spread to communities all over North Texas, hosting more than 9,000 people since its start. The free “day” is now three days. Friday’s kick-off festival at the Latino Cultural Center in downtown Dallas gave a broad sampling of offerings to come at area studios – North American interpretations of the ancient yoga traditions that originated mainly in India beginning about 1,600 years ago. Mini-sessions for all levels from beginners up, in several yoga styles, included a generous dash of ingenious activities you might never have thought of as yoga: with partners, in dance-like motion, wearing walking shoes, from resting to acrobatic.

The six-hour event wound down with Indian-khirtan-plus-rap music from Fort Worth’s Bhakti House Band, a massive outdoor yoga session of all attendees, chill beats by DJ Taz Rashid and Los Angeles “mindful rapper” Zaire Black.  

Over the course of the day, the question arose whether yoga practice might be a sustainability tool for humans, somewhat as clean energy is for the atmosphere and organic agriculture is for the earth. Thoughtful participants had their ideas about this.

The Kickoff Festival atmosphere was party-like, without the drinking, except for countless water bottles, on a 90-degree day in and outdoors on the Latino Cultural Center plaza and nearby. Besides mini-classes, a score or more practitioners in massage, integrative practices combining yoga with counseling, and Ayurvedic medicine filled a courtyard, along with an indoor bazaar of artisans and home-based purveyors of cotton clothing, essential oils, books and items for yoga and meditation.    

The yoga experiences ranged widely.

Vedic Thai Yoga was a chance to team up with a partner and take turns in stretching or resting positions, being lifted, swayed, stretched and pressed by thumbs or elbows at tension spots. As instructors David Tietje and Leah Misty, partners in Thai Love Yoga, describe on their website, the practice in its homeland is “utilized medicinally as a…cherished indulgence to remedy the prominent social ailments such as emotional stress and physical inertia…inspire the soul and tranquilize the body.” Laughter, smiles and sighs among the crowd of 60 seemed to confirm that.

Presenters of AcroYoga from The Yoga Movement studio announced “We take the practice of yoga seriously… but sometimes it’s fun to just play and challenge yourself in another way.”  This class was a call to relive the childhood joy of playing “airplane.”  

Vinyasa Flow Yoga led by Jason Parks of Second Side Yoga had the room moving continuously from pose to pose in a relaxed but intense-looking workout. Asked about his T-shirt slogan, “I love my second side,” Parks laughed, “I work one side of my body, and then I should love the second side just as much!” The underlying idea: the “mere physical practice” of yoga, as well as our everyday lives, have deeper aspects worthy of attention.  

Taking yoga outside the yoga center was the theme of a new book as well as the last session of the day, Urban Art Yoga Exploration.  The book was Meditative Fitness: The Art and Practice of the Workout by Dallas author Clark Hamilton Depue.   

“It’s about how you can bring yoga into your whole day,” said Depue, a serious athlete in younger years.  

The book offers insights to “Integrate meditation into your fitness routine,” and into recovery from trauma or other afflictions. 

Urban Art Yoga Exploration, led by Natalie Cummings, added the appeal of nearby Deep Ellum street art to the usual Hiking Yoga workout she leads on the Katy Trail. Hiking Yoga is described by Eric Kipp, its San Francisco founder, as “the social outdoor experience…a layered workout combining the cardio of hiking with the power of yoga.” Cummings’ hike broke the walk with upright push-ups against a wall covered with fantastic murals, “tree pose” while admiring downtown skyscrapers and stretch positions alongside the famous “guitar man” metal sculpture near Deep Ellum Station.  

Asked her opinion of the power of yoga to make people’s lives more sustainable, licensed professional counselor Tzivia Stein-Barrett of BodyMind Integration Therapy, volunteering at FDOY, had clearly given it thought.  

“When we practice yoga, we are not just exercising – although science is now identifying that all exercise affects different parts of our brain – we are focusing, using patterned breathing that oxygenates the blood and engages the autonomic nervous system to calm and soothe…the system.”

How is that helpful in the world?  

“We have to assume that people want something different [from] what they are doing,” she said. “When our ‘monkey minds’ are stressed, we think things through, talk, look and worry. We try to ‘figure things out.’ Mindfulness practices of being present, observing and accepting, [allow us to] stop for a moment. Physical release of the stress, through yoga, lets our body and mind unite in the present…Then we can sustain ourselves with a number of options that come from our ‘higher self,’ from ‘inner knowing’ and/or spontaneity.”

So, yoga can give a grounded, acceptant, intuitive point of view that opens new options.  Sounds like help to live sustainably.

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