COMMENTARY: 'Find out who you are,' Dolly Parton once said, 'and do it on purpose.' That's what serenawilliams is doing right now, writes Theresa Okokon.
I caught her first match of this year’s U.S. Open by sneaking glances over the shoulder of a Black couple sitting next to me on a Southwest flight. My newsfeed exploded with references to “the GOAT” and reflections on “Serena fighting ’til the end” after she lost graciously in Flushing last week in her final professional match. It was an electric three-set battle against Ayla Tomljanović, of Australia who — like many of us — looks up to Serena.
In Vinyasa classes, I learned how to allow myself to enter a flow-state where I could slip into a wheel pose the way we used to when stretching for dance team. In Iyengar classes I learned how to push one side of my body down while the other pushed up, getting myself into my body’s perfect tree, a pose I could hold for what seemed like hours with the properIn yoga, I learned how to be conscious of my own breathing — how to listen to it. I learned how to listen to my body.
Because eventually, the yoga wasn’t going so well for me anymore. Five years of teaching had translated into five years of demonstrating breath, but not practicing it. Jumping in and out of poses, bending over other peoples' bodies for gentle spinal twist adjustments, lugging a dozen yoga mats up three flights of stairs when the elevator at the shelter was out. For five years I earned only enough to get by and lived a never-ending hustle for the next gig.
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