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Hi, everyone.
My name is Chanel Williams.
I am one of the conference organizers.
Haven't been in this space very much, been organizing outside.
But we'd like to welcome to the stage Leslie Salmon Jones
and her husband Jeff Jones.
[applause]
They are the creators of Afro Flow Yoga.
Leslie Salmon Jones hails from Toronto,
and she is a professional dancer and yoga instructor.
Her work with Afro Flow Yoga combines dance movements
from the African diaspora with the meditative qualities
of yoga, allowing for the unique intersection
of culture and self-care.
Please welcome Leslie Salmon Jones and Jeff Jones.
[applause]
Thank you.
Thank you, Chanel.
And we are so excited to be here.
And thank you for the organizers of this incredible conference.
So just want to give you all a round of applause.
Thank you so much.
[applause]
So my husband Jeff and I, we created Afro Flow Yoga.
Let's say we designed it.
And I was thinking about that.
I was like, oh.
It's a design.
We often say it came through us.
So it was really a gift of the ancestors.
My background is in dance.
I trained at Alvin Ailey, and Alvin Ailey
was an incredible designer as well of dance.
Have people have heard of Alvin Ailey?
Yes!
[applause]
Good.
And Jeff is an incredible musician and also an engineer.
So we met 23 years ago.
I was three, and he was five.
Yeah.
It's a true story.
And we've been married for 21 years.
So we've been on this journey together.
And Jeff's background is in multiple instruments.
You can tell them a little bit about your instruments.
Are you on?
Yes.
First of all, I'm a bass. player.
The main thing about me is I'm a bass player and singer.
However, when I was age 12, my dad's bass drummer
gave me a set of bongos.
And I really got into the percussion.
But my background goes back to 18--
well, actually if you go back to 1820
with one of the enslaved Africans that was brought back,
we were able to trace that back thanks to the IRS
because people documented as cargo or bag of coffee.
Everything was taxed.
Anyway, my parents-- we grew up across the river in Allston.
And my grandfather bought the house there in 1917.
That's on one side of the family.
I'm sorry 1915.
So we've been there 102 years.
We've lived in New York and many other places,
but we've kept the house and moved back.
My great-grandmother was born in Norfolk, Virginia.
In 1863, somehow somebody brought her to Allston
when she was 11.
And this is not that same side of the family
that bought the house there.
On the other side of the family, I
come from a family of musicians.
My grandmother was an organist born in 1890,
and she was one of the classical and old *** spirituals
grew up in the United Methodist Church.
Her mother, which is the great-grandmother
she was the one that came from Norfolk, Virginia.
Sorry so many people.
Anyway, the music side goes back to different folks
that we've come-- well, Roland Hayes
was one of my grandmother's colleagues
and maybe even she was a mentor to him and Marian Anderson.
So music-- and healing music, spiritual music
has always been in the family.
And I've subbed for many bass players of many churches.
So kind of goes back to-- we've incorporated the spirituality
into Afro Flow Yoga, the music and movement.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
Thank you.
[applause]
Before I met Jeff, I actually prayed
to meet a soul mate who was rich at--
wait for it-- in the ancestry.
And that's this man here.
So we celebrate the connection of the roots system.
So this is what we do in Afro Flow Yoga briefly.
And we're going to get moving.
Don't you worry.
We're going to move the body.
So I grew up in Toronto, Canada of Jamaican ancestry.
And my mother was, and still is, a civil rights activist,
human rights activist, and grassroots politician.
So growing up, she did a lot of work
around diversity and inclusion in Toronto and urban planning.
And so this was part of the conversation at our dinner
table.
My father who had been an orphan was
one of Canada's first black chief of surgery,
and I grew up working for him in his office
and understood the health disparities.
So they planted seeds in terms of we
can actually be agents of change and changing our environment,
our internal environment and our external environment.
We can actually co-design what it is that where we're
living, inside and externally.
And then when I was living in New York,
I came to yoga through Alvin Ailey.
It was a requirement back in 1991.
So way ahead of the time.
And yoga is a tradition--
have people taken yoga, done yoga, practice yoga?
Great.
How many people knew that yoga has been in Africa
for thousands of years?
Ah!
One.
Two.
Right?
Yeah.
So on the hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt,
you've seen yoga.
So yoga is within all of us.
We see the animals practicing yoga all the time.
When we were babies, we were stretching and moving.
So when I was in New York City, I was working in Harlem--
doing a lot of work in Harlem and in Brooklyn
with childhood obesity, the health disparities,
as Courtney so beautifully laid out.
Thank you, Courtney, for that.
We have a lot of issues going on in our communities
due to colonization and oppression.
Jeff and I, after three of our parents passed away,
we went to West Africa.
We went to Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
And we visited the slave castles,
which are really dungeons.
And we did that because we wanted to connect the root
system of where we come from.
And when we were in the slave castles--
if you're not familiar with these dungeons,
it's a real journey to--
it's like a answering the prayers of your ancestors--
because if anyone's forced from their home,
you're going to want to go back home.
And so we were answering the prayers.
This is in 2007.
And there, we learned the design and the methodologies
of slavery and dehumanization.
People had PhD's in this.
How do we break people down, strong people down,
who come from strong spiritual backgrounds, family units.
And one of the ways through conquering and dividing, right?
Conquering and dividing through taking away
food that will strengthen you.
In the slave castles, there's a place
called the Door of No Return.
So psychologically, this is where the mental illness
starts coming in, psychologically thinking
that you'll never return.
And so kind of thinking about the work
that I was doing in the 90's and then seeing the root.
And then understanding that yoga in Africa
has been for thousands of years, and there's
beautiful ancient knowledge that we've been disconnected from.
So this ancient knowledge that we've been disconnected from
is like the awakening through our bodies.
And I'm talking for everyone, all humans really.
Through our bodies is a way to tap
into that deep cellular wisdom, the DNA.
So we're connected through nature.
We can all relate to the wind and the ocean, the water.
We're 80% water.
We go back into the Earth.
We're Earth.
We're fire with the sun.
And right now, the waters are dying.
There's only 1% of the water on the planet that is drinkable.
So the reason that I'm going into all of this
is because we have a great opportunity
right now to flip the script and to design communities
and to take care of ourselves to set up for future generations.
Thinking about the design of a lot of African villages
and indigenous villages, many have been designed
in the form of a circle.
And the circle creates community.
It connects people to their hearts.
It's a continual circle.
So we have the elders included, the children included.
We can story tell and share.
We can problem solve in a circle.
So we actually teach all of our Afro Flow classes in a circle.
So thinking about bringing back circle,
the grid system is designed to make
us feel separate and also fearful
of what's behind the walls.
So just planting a little bit of ideas
around inclusion, self-care, and the connection
to the environment.
I actually had a little bit of an epiphany the other day,
and the epiphany was that I've been talking
a lot about colonization and the effect of colonization
in the body.
In our communities, there's collective trauma.
We've been doing a lot of work here with Reverend Liz Walker's
church at Roxbury Presbyterian Church, Trauma Healing Program
because we have collective trauma.
We have trauma we've inherited from legacies of oppression,
and we also have good stories.
So thinking about how we can flip the script
from being victims to victorious by tapping
into that deep wisdom.
And lastly, before we get moving, I want to just--
the other epiphany I had was about this notion
of colonization and the first thing to be colonized
was really the Earth, the conquering and dividing
of the Earth.
We own the Earth.
You know, I want a piece of it, right?
And then we conquer and divide the water.
And we conquer the water in the taps
and the animals and the women and the people of color.
It's a little somewhat of an illness
creating mental illness.
So I just think about self-care and the ideas
through meditation, through yoga,
through going deep into practice of calming
the nervous system for example.
These are ways that we can kind of begin to practice self love
and then love and healing for the community.
So what I like to do is I'd like to get us moving a little
and begin to embody some of these things
that I'm talking about.
So I invite you to uncross your legs,
to put your cell phones down, to take your shoes off.
You can come down here.
You can and just allow yourself--
I'm going to take my sweater off.
You can get yourself cozy.
We're going to do a little bit of movement.
And then if we have a little time for some Q and A
and comments, we'll do that too.
So there's space over here.
You can come over here if you'd like.
Spread your wings.
Make space.
Yes!
Oh, you're ready.
[laughs] Wonderful.
All right.
Now, we can't all come down here.
But if anyone wants to join me on stage,
there's space on stage.
My friend, my beautiful--
yes!
[applause]
Thank you.
What's your name.
Sharon Sutton.
Sharon Sutton, thank you.
Dr. Sharon-- I am honored to be in your presence.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Beautiful.
Anyone else want to come?
You're good.
Everyone have space.
Yes.
Yes.
Come.
Come.
Come.
All right.
Good.
And what's your name?
Denise.
Denise!
Enday.
Enday.
Jasmine.
Jasmine.
Wonderful.
Great.
So are we ready Mr. Music Maestro?
We are.
Yes.
All right.
Good.
So if you're sitting down, that's perfectly fine.
If you're standing, that's perfectly fine.
Wherever you're comfortable.
So make yourself comfortable.
And one of the first things that really helps me
is to connect with breath.
Breath is life.
The first thing we do when we're born
is [gasps] we inhale when we come out of womb.
And then the last thing we do as we leave
our bodies is [exhales] exhale.
Release.
Let go.
So breath is life.
We're constantly finding that inhalation and exhalation.
So I invite you to stand or sit wherever you're comfortable,
and you can bring your feet hip distance apart, feeling
your feet rooted on the Earth, feeling
that connection of the Earth grounded and rooted,
feeling the crown of your head, maybe even tap the head here.
Yeah.
Wake those cell brains, those beautiful cells in the brain.
And then connect it to the sun.
Imagine the golden light above you.
And then you can place your hand on your belly,
one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly,
wherever you're comfortable.
And in this moment, I invite you to close your eyes
or soften your gaze and bring the awareness to the rise
and fall of your breath.
Just notice in this moment where the breath
is entering your body and where it's exiting your body.
Notice if your heart is beating.
Notice the rise and fall of your breath, maybe in your belly
or in your chest.
Just take a moment to settle.
And here I invite you to begin to take some deep belly
breathing as you inhale.
Fill your belly like a balloon and exhale.
Take a sigh.
[sighs] Let's do that three more times.
Inhale and fill.
And exhale and empty.
And inhale and fill.
And exhale.
As you empty, relax a little more.
And one more deep energizing breath, inhale.
And exhale and let go.
[exhales] Beautiful.
And then let your hands relax down.
Take a soft bend in your knees, or if you're sitting,
just feel your knees, feel your feet.
Good.
And stay connected to that beautiful breath
and begin to roll your shoulders around.
So hearing the sound of your breath is really helpful.
Sound is powerful.
Each planet has its own vibration.
So we all have our own healing vibration.
And then reverse.
Inhale and exhale.
You might notice you carry a little tension
in your shoulders.
I know sometimes I do.
So use this just as an opportunity to let go.
[exhale] Just let go.
Beautiful.
And then inhale and lift your chin up toward the sky.
And then exhale.
Draw your chin down towards your heart.
[jeff playing music and singing]
And inhale up toward the sky.
And exhale down towards your heart.
Beautiful.
And inhale.
Chin rises.
And exhale and lower.
And inhale.
Chin rises.
And exhale.
Beautiful.
Begin to slowly circle your head around.
And relaxing the neck and shoulders,
here you might begin to notice some sounds.
Sounds like maybe Rice Krispies.
Do not be alarmed.
That's natural.
We're releasing the synovial fluid.
And reverse.
So speaking of design, begin to imagine that beautiful design
of your body, the skeletal system, the muscular system,
circulatory system, all of the beautiful systems
that are working.
Beautiful.
And lift your chin up and reach the left arm
up toward the sky and right arm down toward the Earth.
Big stretch.
Beautiful.
Inhale and exhale.
Stretch, spreading your fingers wide.
Beautiful.
Inhale.
And exhale.
Your are amazing and beautiful being.
And inhale.
And exhale.
Good.
Coming back to center, placing your hands on your hips,
and lift your heart up toward the sky
and then round your spine, that area between your shoulder
blades, stretching.
And inhale, heart rises.
And exhale.
Begin to bring energy into your spine.
Inhale and exhale.
And inhale.
Heart rises.
And exhale.
Beautiful job, everyone.
Come up through center, and we're
going to begin to circle the hips around.
Now, I have a feeling that many of you
sit at the computer a lot.
Maybe I'm just-- and I'm assuming that you don't really
do this at your computer.
But if you do, you get bonus points.
That's great.
Now, all of these things, you can
reverse it, that were doing.
These are great little things to just reset.
So if you are at the computer, you can do this.
If you're in class--
can we do this in class?
OK?
All right.
OK!
You got the approval.
The doctor said yes.
Beautiful.
And then come all the way up and reach your arms.
Now here, we've had a lot going on in this country,
in the world, and the nervous system
has been a little frayed.
So we're going to start restoring the nervous system.
So imagine you're a tall tree.
So root down.
You have branches and leaves, and it's the Fall.
So what do trees do in the Fall?
Shake off the dead leaves!
So we're going to shake them off.
And we're going to do this for 30 seconds.
And you can do it as fast as you can.
Go!
Go!
Go!
Use your breath!
Go!
Shake!
Shake!
Shake!
You can shake anything.
Doesn't matter what you shake.
Just shake, shake, shake, shake.
Go.
Go.
Go.
Go.
That's it.
That's it!
OK!
All right!
You have 10 seconds.
Go!
Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two.
Now inhale.
And slowly, very slowly lower it down.
And then just place one hand on your heart,
one hand on your belly and notice how you feel.
Is your heart beating?
Are you breathing a little deeper?
Just notice.
Make a sigh.
Beautiful.
Is your cell phone ringing?
[laughs] All right.
So now, this is where it gets interesting.
We're going to just begin to move.
So Jeff is giving us a little drum.
Good.
So begin to feel your feet on the Earth.
Oh, I didn't mentioned one thing.
Whatever happens here, stays here.
OK?
No judgement.
So now just move.
Use your breath.
That's it.
Good.
So connect to the Earth.
Earth.
Earth.
Earth.
You can even say it.
You can speak.
You can dance.
You can shout.
Oh yeah!
That's it!
All right.
Now connect to the sky.
Reach!
Reach.
Reach!
Reach!
Reach!
Reach!
Beautiful!
That's it.
Feeling that light, the sky coming into your heart.
Now bring it to the heart.
Heart!
Heart!
Heart!
Oh, you got this!
You got this.
You all got this!
That's it.
Just move.
Beautiful.
Are you breathing?
All right.
Now, we're going to go heart!
Heart!
Now, what I'm going to invite you to do,
this from your heart to my heart to each other's.
It's just send someone next to you, behind you, some love.
Some love!
What a concept!
Just send them some love!
That's it.
Yes!
Connect to each other.
Beautiful.
That's it.
Nice.
And Now just for about 30 seconds, just
move in any way that feels natural to you.
Let it go.
Let it flow.
No judgement.
Use your breath.
Good.
That's it.
Now, for collective trauma, what animals do is they just shake.
So we're going to do a little group shake.
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
You ready?
Are you ready?
Shake!
Shake Shake!
Shake!
Shake!
Shake!
Just let it go.
Shake!
Shake!
Shake!
That's it!
Let it go!
Shake it up.
And then shake it down.
And then shake it to the heart.
And then stir it up like Bob Marley says.
Stir it up, little darling.
Go!
Go!
Go!
That's it!
Yes!
[laughing] Yes!
Yes!
[clapping to the beat]
And then come all the way up inhale.
Bring it to your heart and take it to the Earth.
From the Earth to the sky.
Big breath in.
And exhale through your heart back to the Earth.
Last one.
Big breath.
In.
And back to the heart.
Beautiful.
And just rest here for a moment and just imagine all
that we can co-create, all that we can design in the present
and for future generations.
Let's take that into the cells and the organs.
Beautiful.
How are we feeling?
Are we feeling good?
[applause]
Yes?
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have my new friend.
[applause] Wow.
Thank you.
So we have probably--
I just want to check.
I want to-- how are we?
(SINGING) every little thing's gonna be all right.
Don't worry about a thing.
Every little thing's gonna be all right.
Rise up this morning.
OK.
Thank you all for participating.
I just wanted to take maybe about five minutes
if anyone has a burning question around self-care, piece
of wisdom they want to share, anything, anything, anything
that you want to call into the room.
Yes.
And I think we have someone with a mic.
Yes.
Do we have someone with a mic?
I think it's going to happen for you.
But in the meantime, want to stand up.
Oh.
Here we go.
Hi, Yvonne.
Here we go.
Thanks.
Saved the day.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I'm a student, and I have kind of a busy schedule.
And I'm sure that the same can be said for a lot of people
here.
I was just wondering how would you
recommend fitting something helpful like meditation
into a pretty packed schedule.
That is a great, great question.
So the question was, you have a real packed schedule
and how would we suggest getting meditation and movement
into a packed schedule?
Come take our class in Cambridge, number one.
[laughs] But number two, this is so important
because sometimes we feel we have
to go and do an hour and a half or two hours of something.
Right?
So there's something called energy management
where we can actually manage our energy, as opposed to our time.
So when we are stressed and we feel
like we don't have enough time, that stress creates fatigue.
So it's sometimes good just to unplug
from the computer, from whatever you're doing,
and you'll only need maybe one or two minutes just
to sit and notice the breath, notice the Earth going out
nature, taking a couple of deep breaths
can really, really change it, or just resting,
just allowing yourself to rest.
Meditation is a funny thing because there's
a dance that people get into with meditation.
Like, I'm going to sit and meditate.
And then you start arguing with yourself because you're
thinking too much.
Does anyone ever have that?
Has anyone tried that, and it's like this dialogue.
And then you're like, oh, I'm not doing it.
I'm a failure.
Whatever it is.
Well, that's not helpful, but it's something.
So one of the things--
I have a co-facilitator that I work with.
Her name Sharon Salzberg, and she
goes around the world talking about meditation.
And she teaches a really good practice,
and the practice is about beginning again.
So with meditation, if you're just sitting and just focusing
on your breath for a minute and you have 50,000 thoughts that
are going on, that's natural.
So it's the moment where you realize
you're not focusing on your breath
and you have the 50,000 thoughts.
What do you do?
Do you argue with yourself, or do you just begin again?
So it's just the beginning again and knowing
that you can incorporate-- you can take the stairs.
My dad who was a surgeon, he didn't have a lot of time
to exercise, but he would take the stairs.
And he was strong.
So there are things that you can do
that don't require going to the gym or doing all these things.
Just a little bit goes a long way.
Yes.
Good afternoon.
Hi.
My name is Sofia [inaudible].
For those moments that we are--
so I deal with affordable housing.
And I deal with a lot of individuals
who tax on my mental health in the moment in a meeting
that I do not have the time to stand up, walk away, take
the stairs, and stretch.
So are there some resources that you
can give to me that I can use in the moment
when zebra is showing their stripes and my heart is racing
and I'm trying to stay professional
but keep in mind my mental health
and bring back down all the energy.
I want to bring back good energy in my body
in this meeting at that moment.
Mm!
Sofia, that is a great question!
Sofia, that would resolve all the world's problems.
So this is where the practice of self-care
comes in because it's a practice.
It's not a perfection.
We are humans.
We are going to be in those moments,
and we're going to notice that we're getting pissed off.
So practicing outside of those moments
is great so that when you're ready, you have your tools.
You got your tool kit.
OK.
Zebra is really getting on my nerves.
You feel the heart going.
So what do you do?
All right.
My feet are on the floor.
My heart is beating.
So I've got to breathe because my body's looking for oxygen.
OK.
My mom who was a politician, she has a lot of-- in a white
dominant community--
she had a lot of daggers.
And she taught me like water off of a duck's back.
You do not have to absorb that.
We do not have to take it in.
Because when we do, that's when we get sick.
That's when we get tired.
That's when we get drained.
Knowing that we all have stuff, it's
recognizing it's someone else's stuff.
It's not yours, and sometimes it's the system
that you have no control over.
But what you do have control over,
this is the moment of how you react.
So it's being proactive, and that's
why self-care is so important to practice
outside of those moments.
It's like a martial artist.
I'm ready.
You got it in you.
I don't know if that helps Sofia.
So I'm going to get my nails done,
and at the moment when it's coming at me,
I'm going to plant my purely manicured feet on the ground--
That's it.
--and just breathe.
That's it.
Yes.
[applause]
Yes.
Beautiful.
I was going to say even if you hear, if it's in the moment,
you can hear your breath in the back of your throat going down.
Sometimes that helps calm just to listen to that.
Breath slowly when things are going on.
It's just like Calgon, take me away for just a few seconds.
If you can kind of hear it, and it kind of helps
calm things down, even making the tones
in the back of your head.
You can make those little sounds.
So sounds really help also, just to "mm", almost
like the monitors they used to give people
in some of these courses.
Are we out of time now?
We're out of time.
So thank you all.
Thank you so much.
[applause]
Thank you.
Thank you.
[applause]