You may or may not know that Fierce Calm is the organisation that Yogipod supports through the sale of our tees and vests. But who are Fierce Calm and what do they do?
I spoke to Dr Lee Watson, the founder of Fierce Calm, to learn a bit more about exactly that.
What does yoga mean to you?
There was a time when, as far as I was concerned, yoga was something that other people did. And when I eventually gave it a go and half heartedly joined in at the gym, I’ll be honest, I thought it was just a ‘bit of a stretch’.
I could not have been more wrong.
I soon found that the sense of calm that crept in at the end of a yoga class was something that became available to me throughout the day. That low level constant chatter in my head was quieter: I was less anxious, less stressed, more positive and sleeping better. Naively, I wanted everyone to be able to feel that way. Less naively, I was also aware that not everyone had access to it in the way that I did. I wanted to leverage my privileged position in life to help make yoga available to the people who need it the most.
How did Fierce Calm as an organisation start and what inspired its creation?
Fierce Calm began as an Instagram account sharing personal testimonies from individuals sharing stories of how their lives have been transformed by yoga, helped them heal or learn to live with the various challenges life throws at us. My own yoga story is nowhere near as dramatic as many of theirs, but like many of them, I found out that the more time I spent on a yoga mat, the more it made sense, and the more sense life made off it. A space that began as individual stories blossomed into a global collective committed to making a difference. The word Yoga means ‘Union’ and we have united to be of service to others.
A year after our first Instagram post we had organised a global charity fundraiser that saw yoga teachers host classes simultaneously in over 500 locations around the world (from a barn in Hertfordshire, to a Scottish mountaintop, a French chateau, Brazilian beach, studios in Seoul and a lawn in front of the statue of liberty).
The Yoga Saved my Life stories are a key part of the Fierce Calm message, how did these come about?
Academically, my area of expertise is in narratives of identity: the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. The more time I spent amongst the yoga community, the more I became aware of the incredible stories of transformation and recovery supported by this ancient practice. I kept seeing the hashtag #yogasavedmylife. And so Fierce Calm was born, initially as a social media platform sharing the personal stories of those who wanted to share how yoga had helped them.
The stories compiled a treasure trove of humanity, of authentic lived experiences that speak of our capacity for resilience, our potential to support ourselves and ability to support others. There is an immense power in storytelling. You will see yourself reflected in some of these stories. Each one a unique opportunity to identify with a life different to our own yet allowing us to see our shared humanity in each other.
What kind of work does Fierce Calm do?
As a registered non-profit, Fierce Calm now represents a global movement of yoga practitioners from all backgrounds and abilities who want to make the healing potential of yoga accessible to all while supporting the most vulnerable in society. We provide free yoga classes in shelters and community spaces, for marginalised and vulnerable groups such as refugees, survivors of violence and people facing systemic bias.
Social justice is at the heart of our yoga and we strive to remove all barriers to access and disrupt inequity and the lack of diversity in the wellness space, offering Yoga teacher training scholarships for marginalised or minoritised ethnicity students in training delivered by teachers reflecting these identities.
How has the pandemic affected and changed the work of Fierce Calm?
During the pandemic we provided financial support to yoga teachers around the world who found themselves facing hardship. We are conscious that here in the west we’ve cherry picked parts of another culture, profiting and benefitting from a profound cultural extraction rooted in colonialism and we therefore owe a debt of gratitude to the sources of this ancient tradition and we strive to honour its roots. In the spirit of taking steps toward reparation, we have fundraised in aid of the fight against Covid in India and supported shelters there, while also providing yoga to south asian community support groups in the UK.
We were also part of the organising team behind a symposium featuring experts from across the disciplinary spectrum — including medicine, public health, and therapeutic yoga — exploring how yoga could enhance resilience and bolster healthcare systems burdened by the COVID-19 crisis. We do not claim that yoga will protect you from a virus, but yoga is an accessible practice which provides practitioners with ways to manage stress, build resilience and promote healing. As an adjunct therapy to conventional Western Medicine, yoga supports the restoration of health and wellbeing for individuals and healthcare systems suffering the impact of Long Covid, ease the mental health crisis and negative effects of social isolation, and assist healthcare workers facing burn-out.
Why do you think it is important to make the teachings of yoga accessible to as many communities as possible?
Yoga is for everybody. You don’t need to be flexible or look like the influencers on social media. The world doesn’t need more people who can put their leg behind their head or rock the most expensive leggings: it needs greater kindness, compassion, generosity and empathy. And a yoga practice that encompasses all aspects of yoga beyond the merely physical offers us all of that.
Yoga is not a cure all. It won’t save your life on its own. But it promotes our capacity to tolerate the challenges of being a human being. Yoga is not a way to bypass life’s challenges, but it does offer us tools to meet them head on, with a fierce sense of calm. And we believe that is something everybody deserves
Fierce Calm now runs the Our Mala training in the UK can you explain what that is and what it aims to do?
Our Mala is an organisation that specialises in delivering yoga classes for people seeking international protection in the UK, such as refugees and survivors of torture, trafficking and modern day slavery. They’ve been running since 2011 and Fierce Calm lead the delivery of the OURMALA studio, community and online beneficiary yoga programme for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.
