Yoga Gangsters: Putting Yoga Into Action
By Larry Harris
Like many social entrepreneurs, Terri Cooper and Marisol Tamez – the dynamic duo behind 305 Yoga Gangsters – were called to service while busy with other plans. Neither set out to be Yoga instructors and neither had worked deep in the public sector before dedicating their lives and work to Karma Yoga – the “Yoga of Service.”
305 Yoga Gangsters teaches “conscious positive action” through free Karma Yoga classes to young people throughout the Miami area – primarily working with youth in crisis, trauma or recovery. Beginning as a one-woman operation in 2003, Yoga Gangsters now has over 135 in-house trained volunteer Yoga teachers and a global outreach fundraising campaign that reaches Haiti, Uganda, Kenya and India.
A serial entrepreneur, Terri founded Yoga Gangsters while running three other businesses. She had been a bartender for twelve years until discovering Yoga in 2003. Unhappy with her life and a long term struggle with drugs, she said she decided to “find purpose,” “feel whole” and “turn my life around.” Six months later she was teaching Karma Yoga to women who had been arrested for solicitation, through her own program housed at Grub Steak in Miami. Having discovered the life-changing potential of Yoga in her own practice, she affirms: “Now that my life is better, it’s important that I make someone else’s life better.”
Idealistic social entrepreneurs often need a partner to help focus the organization’s energy and harness its potential to grow to scale. Terri told the story of Yoga Gangsters by first mentioning that every organization needs its “Rosa Parks”- a first responder who is able to move the organization past its start up phase. Her “Rosa Parks” is Marisol Tamez.
Marisol met Terri in 2010 at a 30-day Yoga challenge in the midst of some very jaded experiences in the entertainment industry. First a dancer and later a mobile television personality, she found herself unfulfilled, reporting gossip and reinforcing the media’s images of beauty. She quit her job with no plan, but soon found herself committed to Yoga Gangsters – helping them raise $40,000 last year. Lucky to find the partner she needed, Terri hired Marisol. Yoga immediately impacted her life, raising her self-awareness and shining a light on the superficiality of her previous work. Now equipped with the team necessary to grow, Yoga Gangsters runs multiple six-week Yoga programs for young people and works with a strong community of volunteers and other Yoga studio owners from West Palm Beach to Homestead.
Marisol spoke passionately about her experience teaching yoga to homeless youth through Stand Up For Kids. The kids visited Stand Up For Kids weekly for hot meals and support resources. Marisol encouraged them to find stress relief through Yoga. While many of the teens were hesitant to try her classes at first, they soon found themselves emerged – telling Marisol that Yoga helped them “feel better.”
Similar programs around the country are also demonstrating positive results utilizing Yoga as a way to enhance young people’s physical health, manage stress and also as a form of positive peer pressure. A recent pilot study conducted at Flushing Hospital in New York measuring the effectiveness of Yoga on inner-city youth concluded that “children in the Yoga group had better postintervention Negative Behaviors scores and balance than the non-Yoga group.” The children who participated in Yoga classes said they exercised more positive reactions to negativity as a result of the sessions. In addition, “the majority of children participating in Yoga reported enhanced wellbeing, as reflected by perceived improvements in behaviors directly targeted by Yoga (e.g., strength, flexibility, balance).”
Terri described a moment from her early days teaching yoga outreach to a group of teenage girls at a youth detention center that has stayed with her and continues to inspire her commitment to the work. One of the girls was several pounds overweight and exhibited a lack of confidence in some of the yoga poses that were easy for most of the other girls. The next pose in the sequence was a headstand and she opted to take a pass. Terri walked over to her and offered to spot her through it. She looked apprehensive. “I got this,” Terri reassured her. Terri put all her focus on making sure this girl didn’t fall – that she didn’t let her down like so many before her likely had. For a few seconds the young girl was suspended on her head almost weightlessly. Terri eased her back down, but before her feet had a chance to land she jumped up and ran around the room screaming and laughing: “I did it! I did it!” In that moment Terri knew that if she could inspire an outburst of so much joy and confidence within the walls of a prison she was working with something very powerful.
Driven by the belief that “everyone deserves this,” Yoga Gangsters is working to expand their reach – recruiting more volunteer teachers, launching a scholarship program to train teen Yoga instructors and forming more partnerships with schools, Yoga studios and community organizations – recently partnering with City Year Miami, Children’s Rehab Network and Toussaint Louverture Elementary School.
Curious and quirky, I wondered and eventually asked: what’s so “gangster” about the 305 Yoga Gangsters? Not a total Yoga rookie myself, my image of Yoga is much like the picture Terri described herself: fancy, and not so diverse. But to Terri, the “gangster” in 305 Yoga Gangsters is about bridging gaps and bringing diversity to the practice. No previous Yoga experience is necessary to train or be a part of their classes. And, Terri even plays music by Lil’ Wayne and Mos Def in some sessions. Now, that’s pretty gangster!