Nicole Cardoza:I stumbled into yoga when I was in college.
Im in a very reflective and intimate space with my practice, which I havent been in previously.
Do I even know anything about myself?
A really good friend of mine was like, You should come to a yoga class with me!
and I really thought that yoga was just for thin white women.
And what I most appreciated about it was that every part of it seemed impossible to me.
yoga teacher, body positivity advocate, and writer based in Durham, North Carolina
Im still just going to try.
At the time, I didnt realize how revolutionary that would be to just try.
I didnt realize the many parts of my life in which I was not trying.
Yoga pushed the boundaries of what I thought I could do.
Ultimately, yoga is about how we connect with each other by how we connect with ourselves.
The pandemic made it so that you had to stay at home and be by yourself, period.
KM:Do you consider your yoga practice in conversation with queerness?
If so, how?
JS:I definitely think that theyre linked, but I dont consciously think about it all the time.
yoga teacher, body positivity advocate, and writer based in Durham, North Carolina
That union is the process of acceptance.
From that place, you see that what is really feared in sexuality and sensuality and eroticism is creation.
Whats being feared is generation: that which will lead to something else.
All that eroticism really holds is our ability to manifest new life.
NC: Thats really powerful.
If you could accept yourself proverbially on your mat, you create that space for yourself.
My identity is certainly not set in stone.
It develops and becomes more nuanced, beautiful, and whole as I continue to explore it.
KM:You both have spoken so much about your home practices.
Why does this setting help you feel free on your mat?
The pandemic was a test of what happens when you cant go out to the studio.
But if you have your home practice, you always have a safe place to come back to.
Its reminding you that the real home that youre seeking is not a physical place.
Its living within you.
Now, I dont mean that you shouldnt have teachers.
Kathryn led me to the teacher that lives inside of me.
The best teachers hold your hand, and then, eventually, you’re able to let go.
They may not have ever seen them in the studio when they were walking down the street.
What are your hopes for yoga in the US?
I think thats why yoga has always existed.
Yoga has survived for thousands of years, and there are going to be ups and downs.
Its currently trendy to talk about that, but less trendy to do something about it.
We need to actually assess this on a personal level and then see how the personal impacts the collective.
I think, that way, yoga could be used to heal our world in a larger sense.
NC:My first gut reaction was like, I dont care about the future of yoga.
I have lost a lot of faith in what the yoga industry has become.
Im just, quite frankly, really tired of that conversation.
How can we use the yoga practice itself as a model for how we want to live?
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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