ABOUT

About2020-10-20T11:10:14+00:00

Lila East End Yoga opened on June 4, 2010, at 251 Congress Street.  For a decade this intimate space hosted daily classes, workshops, teacher trainings, ceremonies, gatherings, and celebrations.  Together, as individuals, we entered, and together we created a community.  The studio ran beautifully because of the many hands and hearts that helped fill the walls – from changing lightbulbs to kicking up into handstands, to offering flowers, chocolates, stones, feathers, the studio was held by us all.  

In April 2019, the studio expanded to a second location within the gorgeous walls and company of The Good Medicine Collective.  There we offered weekly classes, workshops, and a teacher training.   

In March 2020, we as a world culture faced unprecedented times with the arrival of Covid-19.  The studio doors closed.  We quickly created new ways to reach out to our community through online classes, outdoor classes, zoom calls, and weekly messages to hold weave us through the challenging times.  

June 2020 the studio doors at 251 Congress Street closed permanently.  It was a time of illumination, socially, politically, culturally, environmentally, it became clear that Lila East End Yoga, in the way that it existed pre-quarantine, was a thing of the past.  The spread of Covid-19 and its international order to go back to our homes and hold tight to that which nurtures and restores us revealed another way of being.  At that turning point, Lila began hosting classes online.    

Lila continues to host online classes, as well as events, pop-up classes, workshops, private sessions, and trainings at Lila West within Good Medicine Collective at 231 York Street.   

Diversifying the Studio:
It is not beyond me that our community is not serving everyone and everybody.  My wish for this community, and rippling beyond, is that together, we can wake up, together we can lean into the pain, the hurt, the suffering to learn, to grow, and to change.  It isn’t going to be clean, perhaps very messy and imperfect.  But, there is a willingness and desire from me as a studio owner and from the teachers that help hold space at Lila to wake up and learn from and with BIPOC.  Together we discussed the following ways in which we will begin the process.  The list will grow, evolve, and we will all learn and grow in the process.

  • Lila commits to support education – may we learn.  The teachers will begin to hold conversations, both facilitated and informally held, that begin to discuss race and creating safe space at the studio.  Teachers also commit to doing their own work, understanding their own internalized biases and understanding the ways in which their own bodies hold years of living within a colonized and oppressive society.
  • Lila commits to welcome diversity among both teacher and student bodies.  The path to do this is not really clear, admittedly this is a growth process.  We are interested in developing relationships and learning and listening.  
  • Lila commits to partnering and exploring ways to create offerings that are more accessible within our community at large.
  • Lila welcomes your feedback, ideas, and insights.  Please share your voice.

I, we, and the Lila community together, will open ourselves to hear the stories from the marginalized voices in our communities and band together to learn, grow, and support more equity in this world.

As Lila recognizes a decade of holding space as a yoga studio, may we raise awareness, raise our collective vibration, and hear each other.  This is how we celebrate.

Black Lives Matter. 

With so much humility and love,

Genell (and the team of Lila teachers)

We are rooted in these beliefs:

  • We all come to this space whole & enough
  • We are all students; we are all teachers… may we all be teachable
  • We are all connected by the breath; the breath is our life force
  • Yoga is for everybody
  • The practice of yoga is healing medicine for ourselves and our communities
  • Yoga helps us remember our innate connection and relation to all things
  • We value the fullness of life’s experiences; the lila of life, seeing the joy, play, and heart in all things.

Eco-friendly Roots:

We are committed to supporting a yoga community where the practice of yoga is intentional both on and off our mats. We care about your health, the health of future generations, and the health of our planet. Our walls are covered with no-emission paint, our cleaning products are non-toxic, our paper materials are made of recycled materials, and all our props are purchased from Manduka, whose green mission and eco-conscious products align with Lila’s intention to support a healthy, sustainable community.

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