Why Yoga in Spanish Is Such An Essential Need

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Lee este artículo en español.

Milly Feliz felt overwhelmed. It was a Wednesday evening and bachata songs mixed with laughter along the streets of her Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City. Yet Feliz’s shoulders were tight and her mind was racing after a long day of looking after toddlers and babies at the daycare she runs with her daughter. “Estaba muy estresada,” she explained. I was very stressed.

That night, Feliz decided to try yoga for the first time. On her friend’s recommendation, she walked to a local church and made her way to the basement, which had been transformed into a makeshift yoga studio complete with a transcendent purple light and flickering LED candles among the mats, blocks, and blankets.

Rosanna Rodriguez, the founder of Yogiando NYC, welcomed Feliz and other students as they settled onto mats. During the next 90 minutes, Rodriguez led the group of 25 students through breathwork, yin yoga, and yoga nidra, translating each cue into both English and Spanish. When Feliz and other new students didn’t understand what to do in a pose, Rodriguez calmly guided them through. “No juzgamos aquí,” she reminded them. We don’t judge here.

When the class ended, Feliz already knew she would be back. “Me estoy sintiendo relajada y tranquila. Sí lo refería alguien más, le diría que vengan,” she explained. I feel relaxed and calm. If someone asked, I would tell them to come.

Yogiando NYC is one of a small number of bilingual yoga initiatives in New York City. Although Spanish-language yoga classes remain sparse across the United States, teachers like Rodriguez hope that they will one day be accessible to everyone.

Yoga Journal recently interviewed dozens of Spanish-speaking yoga practitioners and teachers across the country. Time and again, students explained that being able to access yoga classes in their native language had been critical to their mental and physical health.

Why Spanish-Language Yoga Classes Are Needed

Rodriguez wanted to create a welcoming space for students who might be intimidated by the fast pace, physicality, jargon, and hefty price tag of other studios. “What about the childcare worker, or the home attendant, or the server in a Dominican restaurant?” she thought. “What about people who can’t afford the $30 class? That was my focus.”

In the United States, those who are Hispanic are more likely to experience obesity, diabetes, and hypertension than the general population in the United States, in many cases due to lack of resources and discrimination in the healthcare industry. Mental health also tends to be untreated more often in Hispanic patients due to stigma, language barriers, and lack of health insurance coverage. These are conditions yoga can help manage.

“Don’t we all have a right to wellness?” says Rodriguez, speaking for the 65 million people who identify as Hispanic in the United States. “Shouldn’t we all have access to a practice like yoga?”

Without bilingual classes, several Spanish-speaking students told Yoga Journal, they may not have felt comfortable trying yoga. Several Yogiando NYC students volunteered how Spanish language yoga had affected their lives.

Sulina Vinicio said she had experienced trouble sleeping and “nervous breakdowns” for years. She explained that medication didn’t help, but attending yoga helped bring an end to her issues. “El yoga quitó todo eso,” she said. Yoga got rid of all of that. She has been attending Spanish-language classes consistently for the better part of a decade.

Je’Jae Mizrahi used to travel an hour and a half each way to attend the bilingual yoga classes. “It was that powerful,” explained Mizrahi, who felt that the classes were welcoming to groups that could feel excluded from more mainstream yoga studios. “There are queer people here, trans people, immigrants, grandmas,” said Mizrahi.

A friend brought Jessica Garcia to yoga class for the first time. For her, as with so many students, it quickly became about more than the physical benefits. “I feel like I’m connecting to my language, to my roots, where I come from,” she said.

Cynthia Rubiera, a student at Yogiando NYC, suggested that social circles built through yoga classes can be a place to be vulnerable and feel less isolated. “A lot of our culture is to be private about our struggles,” she said. “But once you speak to like-minded people, a community starts to form.”

Keeping Spanish-Language Yoga Affordable

In an industry where monthly studio memberships can cost up to $300 a month, most Spanish-language yoga teachers interviewed by Yoga Journal prioritize free and donation-based classes. Yogiando NYC classes, for example, are free thanks to a grant through the Dominican Women’s Development Corporation.

Many bilingual yoga teachers secure grants from nonprofits, foundations, city agencies, corporations, and healthcare initiatives to make their classes affordable. Noemi Nuñez, a teacher in Colorado, leads seasonal bilingual classes at Denver Botanic Gardens. Through grants and partnerships, she occasionally provides mats, instruction round-trip transportation to class, and childcare for free.

By offering these options, Nuñez has welcomed diverse groups of students to her classes. “You have your Lululemon yoga pants folks who already have a membership to the Botanic Gardens, and then you have the folks for whom this is their first time moving in this mindful way,” she explained, adding that sometimes multiple generations from the same family attend class together.

Nuñez said new students’ reactions are unanimously the same. “This is life changing. Where was this my whole life?”

Overcoming Other Barriers to Taking Yoga in Spanish

Lourdes Silva, a Spanish-language yoga teacher in Phoenix, Arizona, advised that there are not only financial barriers to yoga but cultural barriers as well. When she first started practicing yoga, her Catholic family was horrified. “You’re going to hell. We’re praying for you,” said Silva, recalling the warnings her relatives gave her. Now, she takes time to clarify at the outset of her classes that yoga doesn’t conflict with Catholicism and other forms of Christianity.

Judi Checo, a bilingual yoga teacher in New York City, also adapted her classes to make students concerned about contradicting religions feel welcome. She might skip chanting “om,” for example, based on her students’ concerns.

Going to a yoga class for the first time can be intimidating for anyone. Not knowing in advance the smallest details—Where do I put my shoes? How do I pay for class? What if everyone else is ten times more flexible than me? What in the world are Cow Face arms?—can deter many new students from stepping into a studio. For those who aren’t fluent in English, the intimidation factor can multiply due to the anticipated communication struggle.

Checo takes extra care to welcome Spanish speakers, especially those who are new to yoga, and help them get settled. Through her instagram channel, Projecto Prana, she also makes yoga accessible for those who can’t leave home by teaching live classes in Spanish.

Barriers to Teaching Yoga in Spanish

While searching for Spanish language yoga classes in New York City to write this article, I had a surprisingly difficult time finding one. Several times I showed up to classes advertised as bilingual only to find out they were actually in English. Other times, the studio I arrived at was either locked or permanently closed. Sometimes I was told the studio used to offer classes in Spanish but removed them from the schedule due to lack of teachers, students, or money.

Yoga Agora is located in Queens, a borough of New York City where about one in every four households speaks Spanish at home. The studio began offering classes in Spanish in 2018 after students started inquiring about it. Nick Gomez, a yoga teacher originally from Colombia, had never taught in Spanish but, motivated by his students, decided to try.

“We are a grassroots NGO,” said Gomez. “We’re very much about building up the community and offering whatever [it] needs.” He began to teach weekly classes in Spanish attended by a mix of elderly residents, immigrants from Central and South America, and native English speakers who wanted to learn Spanish. The turnout was consistently good.

Then COVID happened. As many studios were forced to permanently close, Yoga Agora put in-person classes on hold. When they reopened, the Spanish language classes didn’t make it back on the schedule.

Other studios have struggled with turnout and profitability. When Rodriguez began Yogiando NYC in 2017, only one student showed up to her class. But thanks to a combination of grant support and determination, she kept teaching. Eventually, three students showed up regularly, then ten, and later fifteen. Now, she has about twenty regular students, many of whom have been practicing with her for years.

“Baby steps,” says Rodriguez. After years of slow but consistent growth, she added another class to her schedule. She hopes to open a studio in Washington Heights to serve the Spanish-speaking community.

Then there are other pedagogical challenges. How do you say “lunge,” for example? (Some teachers say it in English, while others lean on Sanskrit, cueing Anjaneyasana.) Do you teach only in Spanish, or in a bilingual format? Do you translate every cue into both languages or use English on one side and Spanish on the other?

Platforms like Yogis Unidos, a community for Latinx yoga teachers and students, dedicate space to discuss these questions and more. Founder Stephanie Acosta also offers teacher training scholarships and connects Latinx teachers to yoga studios through the platform. “We need to find more of us,” said Acosta. “We need to bring us together.”

Most teachers agree that if you’re considering integrating a Spanish-language class into your teaching, the most important thing is to start.

“Take the leap,” says Checo. “Dive in and give it your all. It’s been incredibly personally rewarding, whether it’s a small class or a huge class, and the people that come are really impacted.”

Looking Ahead

Despite the obstacles, the yoga en español movement continues to take hold across the country. Eventually, some students in Spanish language yoga classes go on to become bilingual teachers themselves.

Manuel Manjarrez, a maxillofacial surgeon who attended Silva’s Spanish-language yoga teacher training, knew absolutely nothing about the practice when he started. “Jamás en mi vida me he subido en una tapeta de yoga,” he said. Never in my life had I stepped onto a yoga mat.

But because the vibe in the room was kind and welcoming and everyone spoke his language, he stayed. Slowly, he came to feel as though he had found a purpose. Manjarrez is now a certified teacher. “As I worked through the training, I began to feel a responsibility to bring this message of yoga to the people,” he said.

This message—in Spanish—is being heard across the country. Since 2002, Bryant Park in New York City has been hosting a series of free yoga classes twice a week during summers. They were exclusively in English until last month, when Mariana Fernandez led its first Spanish language yoga class.

“For a long time, we’ve been a part of the tapestry of this country, and now we get to move to some of our rhythms,” said Fernandez, a bilingual yoga teacher from Tampico, Mexico, who launched Spanish content for Peloton three years ago. Practicing to a soundtrack of Ricky Martín, Maná, and Carla Morrison, she led the class through Sun Salutations, inversions, and meditation as well as the occasional Latin dance move.

Some of the 400 students who attended traveled for hours to be part of the class. Mayra Hillgardner and her daughter, Genesis Cabrera, drove an hour and a half. Studios in their neighborhood don’t offer Spanish-language classes and Fernandez is the only instructor they knew who does. They wish there were more offerings. “It’s inspiring to hear someone like Mariana teach in her native language,” said Hillgardner, a Spanish teacher. “It’s such a positive impact for the Hispanic community.”

After class, Fernandez reiterated why teaching in Spanish is so critical. “Language is such an intrinsic way to feel connected—the cues, the cadence, the different accents, the different rhythms,” she said. “Especially in a very divisive world, where the borders are what separates, yoga is one of the bridges that connects us.”