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YIRSER
RA HOTEP
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WHO IS YIRSER? WHERE WERE YOU BORN? WHERE DO YOU LIVE? WHERE IN THE WORLD HAVE YOU TRAVELED TO? My name is Yirser Ra Hotep. It is a Kemetic name (ancient Egyptian). I chose this name when I was 21 years old in order to reflect who I had become after changing my entire way of living and adopting a holistic lifestyle. Yirser means to be reborn. It is a form of who is commonly called Osiris or Ausar who is the personification of resurrection in the ancient Kemetic spiritual system. Ra represents the life force and healing energy of the sun and Hotep simply means peace.
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I was born in Chicago in 1953. I was raised by a single mother with my 4 siblings. We lived for a significant portion of my childhood in public housing. During that time I witnessed the evolution of African American families as they spiraled into drug abuse and disintegration as the result of job loss and the deliberate introduction of drugs like heroin into our community. My consciousness was shaped by this experience. During my life, I have been able to travel to many places in the world starting with a trip to Jamaica, the birthplace of my father at the age of 12 in 1966. This was a life-altering experience for a boy from the projects. I have exposed to aspects of reality that others from my community were not able to experience in terms of culture and nature. To ride fly in an airplane for the first time was phenomenal. To see the ocean and dolphins as I looked down from 20,000 feet was awesome. I traveled in the Blue Mountains with my cousins, went to white sandy beaches, explored rain forests and discovered the meaning of the “Milky Way” looking up at pristine night skies. This experience again shaped my consciousness and opened my imagination up to vast possibilities. In later years I traveled throughout the Caribbean, too many countries in Africa, to Europe, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. I have explored the pyramids on two continents, meditated in ancient temples, hiked to the top of mountains, explored rain forests, swam in the Indian ocean, walked through lush valleys, explored ancient sites like Stonehenge and Adams Calendar (South Africa) and so much more.
I
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WHERE DID YOU DO YOUR TRAINING? DID YOUEVER STUDY IN INDIA OR UNDER THE TUTELAGE OF INDIAN YOGIS?
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I have never gone to India and have never trained with a Yogi from India. My expertise in Yoga comes from my only teacher, Dr. Asar Hapi a Black man from the Westside of Chicago. His only teacher was Becky Love, a Black woman from Chicago. I studied with Dr. Hapi who was a physician in the holistic health practice called Naprapathy for a little over one year. The rest of my training was from self-study using what I learned from my teacher and from the books of B.K.S. Iyengar, Swami Vishnudevananda and Swami Satchidananda. I would use the pictures in their books as reference for poses and postures but would use my own technique for doing them that I learned from Dr. Hapi which evolved in my system of Rule of Four Breathing and Geometric Progression. Dr. Hapi and I performed original research to discover the ancient Egyptian roots of Yoga and began to practice the unique poses and postures found on the walls of Kemetic temples. In those early days, our only reference was from books.
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- We have discovered evidence of the practice of yoga asanas/postures inAfrican countries... how did Kemetic Yoga come about in the United States?. When I met Dr. Hapi, we both were aware that ancient Egypt was the birthplace of world civilization because of the works of Yosef Ben Jochonnan, Cheikh Anta Diop, John Henrique Clarke, and others. We surmised that Yoga also had an African origin but did not have a clear perception of the exact dynamics of it. In 1977-78, the King Tutankhamun exhibit came to Chicago from the Cairo Museum.
Dr. Hapi decided to focus his attention on his work as a Naprapath and Chiropractor and tasked me with carrying on the work of Kemetic Yoga. I think that I surpassed all expectations.
- What obstacles or resistance did you come up against, if any, whenannouncing Kemetic Yoga to the world? One of the motivations for doing our research to formulate a Kemetic approach to Yoga was due to seeing so many Black folks seek their spiritual foundation in India and the Hindu religion. Even though I studied the Indian texts and knew them, I also studied those from Kemet and other parts of Africa and could see a difference. In Kemetic Yoga, we see unique poses and postures that are not known in India. We also see that the cosmological foundation of Kemet is the concept of Ma’at which states the nature of reality is order, harmony, balance, reciprocity, justice and that all can be understood via the seven principles of Tehuti.
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One artifact in the exhibit was a chair that had a uniquely Kemetic Yoga posture and various symbols that alluded to Chakras, Nadis and other ideas associated with Yoga. Since I was a student at working on my master's degree at Northeastern Illinois University Center for Inner City Studies where reading and writing of hieroglyphs was part of our African Centered curriculum, we were able to translate interpret the text and symbols. We were the first ones in the United States to this work in the 1970s. Over 20 years later some books appeared that spoke about “Egyptian Yoga” that superficially referenced our work.
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Our entire cosmological, philosophical and ethical guidelines could be obtained from our own ancestral source without having to assimilate in Indian and Hindu Aryan culture which is hostile to Black people. So, of course, Kemetic Yoga is met with hostility by some Black people who cannot believe that Africa has ever produced anything. Some are not able to accept the reality of the caste system in India and the subjugation of dark-skinned Indians under their concepts of Varna (color) and Karma. So, we get resistance from those quarters. We also get resistance from the mainstream commercial Yoga community that comprises a multi-billion dollar industry. They see Kemetic Yoga as threat to their monopoly over the narrative of Yoga’s origin and antiquity. So, for example, except for a small article that appeared in the 1990s, we have been Blacklisted or whitewashed by Yoga Journal. In a major article that I was interviewed for that focused on the top Black Yogis in the world, I was edited out by the Yoga Journal editorial staff. In the 1990s when I attempted to tour the major Yoga studios of California, the bastion of Yoga in America, I was turned down with the excuse that Kemetic Yoga would “confuse” their students. Consequently, we have quietly built an underground movement that permeates the African community. We have been able to train and certify over 2000 instructors throughout the world, curate Soul Yoga Fest on 3 continents, sell many thousands of copies of our DVDs and CDs and be invited all over the world to speak and present workshops.
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- What is your biggest accomplishment with Kemetic Yoga and Yoga Skills? The program/workshops, the outcomes of the students, peer acknowledgment? I believe that YogaSkills School of Kemetic might be the largest Black-owned and operated Yoga teacher training program in the world. One of the great things about Kemetic Yoga is that those who practice it can experience a difference when compared with commercial “Indian” Yoga. Practitioners report a deeper sense of healing and connection with divinity than when doing regular up dog, down dog, warrior 1, 2, 3 routines that are duplicated in mainstream Yoga with a focus on the body rather than the etheric breath.
Even though we can recognize the liabilities inherent in social media, there is no doubt that overall it has been a tremendous vehicle to literally connect millions across the globe. I am always amazed to travel to a remote place in Africa and have a young person tell me, “you are my teacher”, “I practice with you on YouTube every day”. Even whites in places like Australia approach me and tell me that they follow me on YouTube. - - You integrate meditation into your social justice work with children, what are the most successful outcomes? One of my main jobs since the late 1970s has been to work with children and teens. I have gone into group homes, juvenile detention centers, after school programs, head start programs, public school systems, youth community organizing programs and into prisons to carry out my work. Part of this work is to help the young and vulnerable be able to develop coping skills, manage stress, acquire an ethic of valuing wellness and to perpetuate these skills into their families. By teaching Yoga and meditation to young people we create a cadre of change agents who actually influence their parents and peers to engage in more healthy behaviors.
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It is amazing for me to see my newly trained students/teachers engage with such seriousness, passion, and expertise as they build their practices. - What are your thoughts about the wonderful phenomena of black/melanin womenand men on social media promoting wellness in all it's forms, food, yoga, retreats,natural medicines, veganism, mental health programs...? We have truly entered a new realm of connectivity and transference by utilizing social media to spread consciousness about health and well being.
BLACKYOGAMAGAZINE What are the top 3 things people ask you about in Kemetic Yoga? What is Kemetic Yoga? What is the difference between Indian Yoga? Does it go against my religion? - What are some misconceptions about Kemetic Yoga? Some people don’t believe that our ancestors practiced Yoga and don’t recognize the postures, poses and Yogic symbols on the walls and in Kemetic texts. - What are some misconceptions about Hatha Yoga? People who practice Hatha Yoga see it as just stretching and something to “strengthen your core” and give you the “Yoga Butt” Hatha Yoga is also thought to be simply thousands of positions and contortions, which it is not.There are 8 limbs to Hatha Yoga and the first two govern behavior.Most of the many poses and postures that people do now are from the influence of British gymnastics and are of recent (last 150 years) origin. How do you think Yoga benefits melanin people? In addition to the obvious health benefits, Yoga is the most powerful stress management practice you can engage in. Chronic stress and internalized trauma has been with melanin people for centuries at levels unprecedented in human history. This stress and trauma have begun to be encoded in our DNA and passed on from one generation to the next. Yoga breaks that cycle by altering the stress processes on biochemical and bio-energetic levels. Yoga engages epigenetics to change us from the inside out and also creates a mind that is less susceptible to propaganda, brainwashing and media man - Who is Dr. Asar Hapi? How your collaboration with Dr. Asar Hapi founded KemeticYoga?(SEE ABOVE) - For those who have no awareness of Kemetic Yoga, please tell us in-depth what Kemetic Yoga is? To put it simply, Kemetic Yoga is Yoga. Like all Yoga is supposed to be, it is a system of total self-development that produces an internal transformative experience. It utilizes a philosophy and techniques that emerge out of ancient Kemet rather than India. Our philosophy is based upon the Kemetic concept of Ma’at. Ma’at is our philosophical foundation and shapes our fundamental view of the universe. Ma’at guides our thoughts and actions and informs our ethical perspective. The other philosophical foundation of Kemetic Yoga is the Seven Laws of Tehuti. These seven principles or axioms provide the foundation for the scientific, spiritual and metaphysical understanding of the nature of reality. We operationalize our philosophical perspective by engaging in internal practices i.e., meditation, breathing, movements, postures and introspective. Our practices involve performing the unique poses that we see our ancestors did on the walls of the temples, in tombs and in the sacred texts. These geometric poses, postures and flowing movement sequences are unique to ancient Kemet and are not known or practiced in India. We see the divine images of the forces of nature in the form of what are called gods and goddesses pictured in these Yogic poses. We see Ausar, Auset, Heh, Min, Ma’at, Selkhet and Sekhmet moving in sequence and flowing in these very unique and powerful poses. We also see in recorded on the temple walls, simple poses like a cobra (Wadjet), backbend, lotus, easy pose, and plow. The purpose of these poses is not to stretch or become fit, though those goals are automatically achieved, but to stimulate the flow of internal energy or life force, create altered states of consciousness and to heal on the deepest levels. Ultimately the aim of Kemetic Yoga is “Know Thyself” and “Heal Thyself” which brings us into states of self-realization (knowing your true nature and power) and self-actualization (achieving your true level of power and becoming what you were sent to this plane of existence to become). These ideas are fundamental African concepts and allow us to connect with our ancestors on a real level in terms of the merging of energy and on-going communication. Kemetic Yoga recognizes the existence and power of the ancestors to affect matters on the terrestrial plane and also acknowledges the power of the NTRU, the great divine forces of the spirit world that cause all phenomena to occur in the universe. - What are the distinct differences between Kemetic Yoga and Hatha Yoga? Theposes, the philosophy, the breathwork, etc? In Kemetic Yoga, we do our ancestral poses that are pictured on the walls of our temples, tombs, and sacred texts. These are unique to Kemet. We engage in Rule of Four Breathing and Geometric Progression. Our philosophy is the concept of Ma’at and the seven axioms of Tehuti. What were some of the key things that your research revealed about yoga in Africa? Yoga is a universal practice that transcends cultures, language, and landmasses. In Africa Yoga like practices are utilized to achieve trans in order to transcend time and space and make direct contact with the ancestors and the spirits. In Africa, we have secret societies based upon the concept of the Serpent which is “Kundalini” and the Nagas in South Asia. Members of these secret societies actually assume the energetic form of the serpent is able to achieve great physical and mental feats. - Finally, Yirser, we ask all our featured guests in our magazine a set of questions, wecall it the Yoga Bodi Reveal. These questions reveal incredible things about theperson and we have enjoyed exploring the answers from all of our featured guests,as we gain insight into the beauty and similarity in each person's journey as it relatesto all of our journeys.--Yirser Ra Hotep, Master Instructor, E-RYT, MSW www.yogaskills.com
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AFFIRM MATS & FOUNDER JASON GRAHAM Jason Graham Jason founded Affirmats in July 2011. Their mission is to spread love all around the world through the practice of yoga. With Affirmats even small struggles become BIG VICTORIES on the mat and in the world! Life gets crazy, yoga makes us happy.
Affirmats are form function and Inspiration, wrapped in pure LOVE. We believe you should be comfortable playing yoga, not just comfortable in the physical sense but in a whole-body sense. When life gets overwhelming yoga makes us happy. Yoga allows us to reach another level of awareness, which gives us tools to master the rest of our day. Your yoga mat is a place where you can connect back to you.
Stay Positive Affirmats are shipped worldwide with love to connect you to you and your practice.
Find out more about Affirmats at @affirmats on IG and Facebook.
SHARE THE LOVE By Ashley Adams
Everyone has a moment on their mat when they need a little encouragement.Well Affirmats founder actor Jason Graham thought when he created his line of yoga mats with affirmations it would be just the thing to keep you going. The mats come in a range of bright colors, that are bound to give you a boost. Yogis have to opportunity to personalize their affirmation or choose from a variety options. Affirmats have been featured in studios in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Jordan as apart of the brands mission to spread love around the world. Messages range from "Keep Going, You Can Do This!", to I am Love. Affirmations are also available on towels that are sure to inspire you through all of your workouts.
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