Teo Drake profiled by Yoga International
In December 2015, Yoga International profiled Teo Drake, using an edit excerpt from his essay "Yoga on the Margins."
Teo's story sketches the ways that 12-step spirituality, Buddhism, yoga, vinyasa flow, and the bhakti practice of chanting have informed his journey.
The gift that gender transition offered me was the possibility that it could be safe to be physically present in my own body. What yoga offered me was an actual pathway to get there.
Teo's reflections offer a rich example of how spiritual practice can help to unlock trauma and dissociation. His final thoughts in the profile point not to dramatic feats of spiritual transcendence, but rather to a gentle, but powerful day to day commitment to showing up and being present.
It’s in those moments that I’m grateful for the early lessons I received that taught me yoga was about landing physically, spiritually, and emotionally in the same place, on my mat. If all I can manage is child’s pose, that’s yoga. If bhakti chanting is where I’m at, that’s yoga. If it serves to open my heart and my mind and my spirit and allows me to be compassionate with myself and with the world around me, that’s yoga. I don’t know if I’m ever truly going to not be at war with myself on some level. But I do know that yoga never fails to help me negotiate a gentle truce.
Read the full article: Teo Drake is #Whatayogilookslike (Yoga International, December 2015)
The essay in YI is an edited excerpt from “Yoga on the Margins” featured in Yoga & Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery + Loving Your Body (ed. Klein and Guest-Jelley, 2014).