Friday, April 24, 2015
Gym and Yoga Studio in Brooklyn Cater to Hasidim
On the top floor of a brownstone, a dozen women were getting ready for a yoga class at the Space, a fitness studio in Crown Heights. Each woman removed her wig and replaced it with a bright scarf in one swift, fluid movement.
This could be any yoga studio in Brooklyn: understated, with large bay windows (curtained at night to discourage onlookers), brick walls and wooden floors lined with yoga mats. Except here there’s no chanting, the sun salutations are slightly modified and are not spoken of as such, and the religious iconography is absent.
“Obviously, no Buddhas,” said Sarah Chanie Benarroch-Brafman, 30, who started the Space to cater to the women in her community, many of whom belong to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic sect. Ultra-Orthodox women can’t exercise with men, so classes are for women only.
Most students live nearby, like Bassi Werde, 36, who has attended classes since the Space opened two years ago. “It feels like family,” she said after a yoga class on Sunday morning. Her children have taken gymnastics and ballet at Gymies Gym, a sister business for children, on the first floor of the brownstone, also owned by Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman. From the Space’s waiting room you can faintly hear the squeals of delight that often accompany the cartwheeling downstairs.
It started with Gymies. After testing classes with some of her nieces and nephews — she currently has 32 — Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman started Gymies nearly seven years ago. The gym filled a need she saw in the neighborhood: a place for Orthodox children to be active while respecting the laws of their religion. Among the Hasidim, school usually runs until 4 p.m., and religious studies play a prominent role, so there is not much time for athletics.
Few teachers are ultra-Orthodox themselves, so Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman supplies new instructors with a kind of sensitivity training, covering everything from pop culture — try to avoid any reference to it — to tznius, or modesty laws.
“Complementing tznius with positive body image talk,” Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman said, is crucial to counteracting a negative body image, which can be an issue among the Hasidim. “If I’m a 15-year-old girl and everybody’s telling me to cover up, I’m not hearing positive stuff about my body,” Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman said by way of example, adding, “We’re very conscious of using the right terms.”
Teachers have become adept at these adjustments. Kristin Dowdy, 23, a transplant from St. Louis, noticed the boys in her class struggling to hold their skullcaps on their heads while somersaulting. Problem easily solved, with bobby pins.
“We’ve done a lot of work on reshaping how people look at bodies and how they look at working out,” Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman said. And she now has so many students that she is looking for a bigger space. One family had eight of their nine children enrolled in classes, which cost around $19 a session.
Now many women do yoga upstairs while their children are in classes at Gymies. And a prenatal yoga class has recently been added to the schedule.
“I feel like a normal person,” Chana Milecki said after finishing her first prenatal yoga class. Mrs. Milecki, 33, was expecting her fourth child in a few weeks, which made it difficult to get to the class, but she was glad she had made the effort. “I needed this to happen,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/nyregion/gym-and-yoga-studio-in-brooklyn-cater-to-hasidim.html?_r=0
This could be any yoga studio in Brooklyn: understated, with large bay windows (curtained at night to discourage onlookers), brick walls and wooden floors lined with yoga mats. Except here there’s no chanting, the sun salutations are slightly modified and are not spoken of as such, and the religious iconography is absent.
“Obviously, no Buddhas,” said Sarah Chanie Benarroch-Brafman, 30, who started the Space to cater to the women in her community, many of whom belong to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic sect. Ultra-Orthodox women can’t exercise with men, so classes are for women only.
Most students live nearby, like Bassi Werde, 36, who has attended classes since the Space opened two years ago. “It feels like family,” she said after a yoga class on Sunday morning. Her children have taken gymnastics and ballet at Gymies Gym, a sister business for children, on the first floor of the brownstone, also owned by Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman. From the Space’s waiting room you can faintly hear the squeals of delight that often accompany the cartwheeling downstairs.
It started with Gymies. After testing classes with some of her nieces and nephews — she currently has 32 — Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman started Gymies nearly seven years ago. The gym filled a need she saw in the neighborhood: a place for Orthodox children to be active while respecting the laws of their religion. Among the Hasidim, school usually runs until 4 p.m., and religious studies play a prominent role, so there is not much time for athletics.
Few teachers are ultra-Orthodox themselves, so Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman supplies new instructors with a kind of sensitivity training, covering everything from pop culture — try to avoid any reference to it — to tznius, or modesty laws.
“Complementing tznius with positive body image talk,” Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman said, is crucial to counteracting a negative body image, which can be an issue among the Hasidim. “If I’m a 15-year-old girl and everybody’s telling me to cover up, I’m not hearing positive stuff about my body,” Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman said by way of example, adding, “We’re very conscious of using the right terms.”
Teachers have become adept at these adjustments. Kristin Dowdy, 23, a transplant from St. Louis, noticed the boys in her class struggling to hold their skullcaps on their heads while somersaulting. Problem easily solved, with bobby pins.
“We’ve done a lot of work on reshaping how people look at bodies and how they look at working out,” Mrs. Benarroch-Brafman said. And she now has so many students that she is looking for a bigger space. One family had eight of their nine children enrolled in classes, which cost around $19 a session.
Now many women do yoga upstairs while their children are in classes at Gymies. And a prenatal yoga class has recently been added to the schedule.
“I feel like a normal person,” Chana Milecki said after finishing her first prenatal yoga class. Mrs. Milecki, 33, was expecting her fourth child in a few weeks, which made it difficult to get to the class, but she was glad she had made the effort. “I needed this to happen,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/nyregion/gym-and-yoga-studio-in-brooklyn-cater-to-hasidim.html?_r=0
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