In many yoga classes, you will hear instructors tell you to get into mountain pose in English and into tadasana in Sanskrit. But in Yizza Galdamez’s yoga classes in Hartford’s city parks, you may hear a third language as she tells her students to get into “la postura de la montaña.”
Galdamez is the managing director and a bilingual instructor with Yoga in Our City. Its city parks program offers free yoga classes throughout the summer in Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. Galdamez teaches primarily in the capital city.
“I grew up in Hartford, so it’s important for me to be here,” Galdamez said. “Once I noticed that [yoga] was helping me in a way that I didn’t know it would, I wanted to share that.”
Galdamez didn’t know anything about yoga growing up. She said she discovered it over a decade ago, when someone invited her to a yoga class.
“I was going through a hard time,” Galdamez said. “I started because I was looking for something to help me through my healing process. Initially, I was looking for a way to move my body. Once I continued to practice, I really noticed how it was helping me in other ways. It was helping me to slow down, to notice that I was constantly staying busy on purpose.”
Five years later, she started yoga instructor training and has been teaching ever since. She wanted to offer space for people in the Hartford community to find healing through yoga in the same way she did, and that included people who spoke Spanish like her.
“My parents were immigrants. [They] didn’t speak English,” Galdamez said. “I was the interpreter translator growing up since I was, I think, like nine. Knowing and actually living through those barriers makes [the importance] even greater for me to share [yoga] in English and Spanish.”
Galdamez said more often than not, yoga is not often something Latino families know about or engage with.
“Not only was it difficult for me to find and get to know what this practice is, but I feel like it would be even harder for someone in the community that doesn't speak English,” Galdamez said. “So bringing it into communities like this, where you can just come on a mat, on your blanket, on a towel, and know that the classes are bilingual, that there's a space here for us too, and that we also belong here, that these practices are for us, that they're healing and that they're teaching us something as well, is very important.”
Inviting more accessibility to the mat
Yoga in Our City started in 2012 with a free weekly yoga class in Hartford. It has since expanded to city parks in Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury with the help of the health insurance company ConnectiCare.
“The objective is to make yoga accessible for everyone, regardless of your age [and] whether you’ve been practicing or not,” said Kim Kann, the associate vice president of growth and community engagement at ConnectiCare. “This [can be] your first class, or you [can be] a seasoned veteran of the practice.”
Kann said the classes are designed to allow families to come together, so even children and grandparents can participate.
To make classes reach an even broader audience, Kann said there came a need to have bilingual instructors.
“Initially, the classes were only offered in English,” Kann said, “but we really wanted to make sure that this was accessible and get people involved who may not have ever been or ever really thought about it.”
Not all classes are offered in Spanish, because it is instructor-dependent. Spanish classes are currently available in Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. They are highlighted in bright green on the class schedule. With Galdamez, she will ask if anyone needs Spanish translation at the start of her classes and offer it when there is a need.
The welcoming environment helps promote another key component of the program, Kann said, which is community building.
“That's part of the benefit of doing this free programming in parks across the state, is to give people an opportunity to be together and practice yoga in a group setting with other people that they could get to know,” Kann said. “We've had people develop friendships. People see some of the same people time and time again at class, and it's been a really great experience for people.”
A positive practice
Teresa Rivera typically goes to city park yoga classes in her hometown of Waterbury, but she started going to the classes offered in Hartford after work. On a recent Monday, she went to a class offered at Bushnell Park with a coworker.
“The vibe is pretty laid back, non-judgmental, open, free [and] just a good feeling.” Rivera looked over at her co-worker and said with a chuckle, “I said to her, it feels good, right?”
Those good feelings are needed in Connecticut’s cities, Rivera said.
“Sometimes you don't hear positive things about the city of Hartford in general, and even, like in my hometown, in Waterbury, sometimes you don't often hear positive things,” Rivera said, “but then when you're there, you feel it's a positive community.”
Rivera said she learned yoga from her mom, though it caused some tension in her Puerto Rican household.
“I lived in kind of a weird household,” Rivera said. “My parents were hippies… My mom was very spiritual, so she always did yoga. Even though my grandmother was Catholic, and it was like ‘no no, no.’ [But] I incorporated a little bit of everything from my parents.”
Rivera encourages others, especially those who are shy about starting yoga, to join her in the city parks to do yoga.
“Come, come, come,” Rivera said. “I’ve been doing yoga for a long time. This is pretty easy. Like, not that it's easy, but if you're worried about your [skill] level, it's a really good way to start.”
Learn more
This year’s summer season of Yoga in Our City runs through October 12.
The schedule is available for all the free yoga classes offered at parks in Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. Classes highlighted in bright green can be offered in Spanish.
Instructors will have a Yoga in Our City flag banner set up, so they can be easily found at the park.
Participants are asked to submit a waiver form before joining a class.
