‘Yoga in Our City’ cultivates wellness and community across urban Connecticut

By Ali­cia Gomez
June 10, 2023
The Con­necti­cut Examiner

WATERBURY – I arrived at Chase Park in Water­bury about 10 min­utes after the yoga class start­ed Sat­ur­day and gen­tly laid my mat on the grassy field behind the atten­dees, ner­vous about dis­rupt­ing the flow or draw­ing atten­tion to myself.

From there, I could observe the oth­er atten­dees move through their pos­es. As one who usu­al­ly spends days inside read­ing, I felt unqual­i­fied to mim­ic pos­es like the “down­ward-fac­ing dog” or the “tree.”

Our instruc­tor, Kat­lyn Hagley, guid­ed us through the down­ward-fac­ing dog. We plant­ed our hands and feet on the ground and lift­ed our hips toward the sky, form­ing an invert­ed V shape with our bod­ies. With my hands and feet firm­ly plant­ed on my mat, arms extend­ed, and legs stretched as much as pos­si­ble, I felt my limbs strain. Sud­den­ly, my legs start­ed to shake with an unex­pect­ed tremor, a fear of falling or los­ing bal­ance surged through me.

But glanc­ing around, I noticed par­tic­i­pants of all ages and abil­i­ties, each going at their own pace. Some were swift­ly get­ting into posi­tion, while I noticed an old­er adult had yoga blocks to short­en the dis­tance between her and the ground. Some small chil­dren were mod­i­fy­ing the down­ward-fac­ing dog, slight­ly bend­ing their knees. When­ev­er I felt unsure about how my pose looked, Hagley remind­ed us that the most impor­tant part was not how we looked but where we felt body tension.

“Embrace the shake,” Hagley told the class.

I then start­ed focus­ing on my breath­ing. I allowed my thoughts to notice the gen­tle breeze and the sounds of birds chirping.

Hagley has taught the class for five years and is a spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher at Water­bury Pub­lic Schools. As an instruc­tor in a park set­ting, she said the class dynam­ic changes con­stant­ly. She has had to adapt to teach­ing through var­i­ous types of weath­er, noise lev­els and the observed expe­ri­ences of her students.

“I’m very for­tu­nate that I’m an edu­ca­tion­al teacher out­side of teach­ing yoga. So I’m very com­fort­able mak­ing mod­i­fi­ca­tions on the fly,” Hagley told me. “I kind of have to feel the ener­gy of the peo­ple there and work with what­ev­er is going on envi­ron­men­tal­ly. I gauge what I teach based off of what I’m see­ing and the feed­back that I’m get­ting visually.”

Hagley said she enjoys hear­ing from stu­dents who have reaped yoga’s men­tal and phys­i­cal health benefits.

“There are so many reg­u­lar stu­dents who have been attend­ing the Chase Park class­es who say when they don’t occur dur­ing the win­ter months, they real­ly miss the com­mu­ni­ty,” she said. “They miss the con­nec­tion with each oth­er and the con­nec­tion with the outdoors.”

One of these reg­u­lar stu­dents is Gzi­ma Doko, a Water­bury res­i­dent who said she has nev­er missed a class and that the prac­tice has even helped her quit smok­ing. She has invit­ed her cowork­ers to attend with her regularly.

“I prac­ticed yoga 20 years ago back in my coun­try in Mace­do­nia,” Doko said. “When I saw on social media about Yoga In Our City, I was so hap­py. It’s free, and the teach­ers are great. I love all of them.”

As I packed up my mat at the end of class, I felt a change in my con­fi­dence; that yoga is not just a mat­ter of phys­i­cal fit­ness but also about nur­tur­ing men­tal and emo­tion­al well-being, embrac­ing imper­fec­tions, and focus­ing on the present moment.

Yoga In Our City is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that hosts free yoga class­es in pub­lic parks across six dif­fer­ent cities in Con­necti­cut. It start­ed in Hart­ford in 2012 as a project of Civic Mind, a self-described “full-ser­vice social impact agency.” Since 2015, Yoga In Our City has part­nered with Con­nec­ti­Care, which has pro­vid­ed the fund­ing to expand to more cities, includ­ing Water­bury, Willi­man­tic, New Haven, Bridge­port and New London.

Since then, more than 15,000 mem­bers have tak­en part in their local and acces­si­ble yoga instruc­tion, accord­ing to the group’s website.

You can find out more about the class­es, which will be held in Hart­ford, Water­bury, Willi­man­tic, Bridge­port, New Lon­don and New Haven until Oct. 9, at their web­site.