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The group does what she says, quietly, though some of the children get antsy and start to make moves that are a lot quicker and seemingly intended to get a laugh.
But when 32-year-old Daisy Flowers warns, “You ain’t getting no candy,” the hands of her 6-year-old niece and those of her young friends are suddenly back together in the prayer position.
Not surprisingly, just a few of her students are men or teenage boys.
“Guys think it’s for women (and) they say, ‘I’m not doing that,’” said Brown, an I Grow Chicago employee and yoga practitioner who stood in the street to remind passersby that the teacher and her class were not alone — a message made clear by his 6-foot-5, 250-pound frame and black T-shirt that read “Real Men Do Yoga” on the back.
Everyone here understands that getting young men and teenage boys involved is key if there is any chance of using yoga to reduce violence. But Lawson and others have hope.
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“This can help because some people riding past, slowing their cars down, maybe next time, you will have people park their cars and get out and want to do yoga,” Mables said.
Lawson thinks perhaps it already has.
Not long ago, she said, after a shooting a block away, a young man who has been taking yoga did what young men around here instinctively do: He ran to the scene.
But he soon returned to the building that houses I Grow Chicago and grabbed a hot dog from the snacks that are offered.
“He didn’t respond” to the violence, Lawson said. “He was able to think and process the situation and come back. That’s all we ask.”
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Chicago Woman Brings Peace To City’s Streets was originally published on blackdoctor.org
