Pink Yoga launched in 2015 as an alternative event for gay men to attend a class exclusively for them.
Emiliano the co founder is a very good friend, a 30 something fine artist and graphic designer, a superb chef and he is definitely gay and proud! I am a black, straight, 52 year old woman, mother of three and grandmother of three lovelies. So what do we have in common? We are both artists, we are both Buddhist, we both have a love of food and we both like men! There’s more…we are both minorities, although his community, does outweigh mine in Brighton lol.
On a more serious note, we have both been bullied and suffered prejudice and discrimination, negative judgement and have often times in our lives have had to fight for equality and justice….and we still do..alas.
‘I’ve got a great idea’ he said to me excitedly one summer afternoon as the sun poured in from his back garden and bounced off the delicious cinnamon cakes he had made for us. ‘Why don’t we do a yoga class for gay men?’ He continued “We can call it ‘Pink Yoga” I started to laugh, impressed at his genius yoga genre name. ‘That is a great idea” I said sputtering the chai all over the cake, I’m classy that way.
“I’m serious!” he went on “and you could be the yoga teacher”. I frowned, quizzically and asked him, “why would a group of gay men, want to have a class with me? I’m a woman in case you hadn’t noticed and straight at that.”
He told me that he really wanted there to be an alternative way, available for gay men, to spend time together, that was healthy, spiritually inspiring, compassionate and safe. I must say, I was honoured by his request. The gender or sexual orientation of the teacher is not what is important here, just the way that they teach and the ability to create and hold safe space.
And so Pink Yoga was born, our love child, the only one that we would ever have by the way! The members of Pink Yoga have grown to nearly 100 over one year, wearevery proud of that. Yoga means union, united we stand in yoga we grow stronger in every way.
