Episode 3: Embodying Yogic Activism with Reggie Hubbard transcript

Harpinder Mann
All right, Reggie, I am so excited to be chatting with you. I'm going to dive right in. The first question I have is, what does yoga mean to you?

Reggie Hubbard
Interesting question and beautiful question, because it's a simple question that, for me, provides a complex answer. So yoga, for me, has been a philosophical and spiritual system that has allowed me to become at greater peace with myself and through that peace be able to serve other people and give them an opportunity to find greater peace, whether it be through physical practice or whether it be through meditative practice, or just the constant self-study and releasing what no longer serves, not in a cliched sense, but actually doing the emotional labor of reckoning with things that I once closely held that I now need to release. Yoga has been a salvation, a safe haven. It has been… yoga to me means peace, grace, service, love, joy, and justice.

Harpinder Mann
Mmmm. Thank you for that beautiful answer. And two things that really popped up for me is, one, yoga is accessing that peace for ourselves and not just so we hold on to it, but then being of service to others. So they also access that peace. And what I admire about you, Reggie, is your clear service, your clear activism. What brought you into this activism? And we've touched on some of this, I'm excited for this answer, but what brought you to this place of yoga being connected to activism?

Reggie Hubbard
So I've been a bit of an agitator for most of my life, if only for the—because of the color of my skin, you know what I mean. So in order to find acceptance in this society, I've had to find some level of agitation. Unfortunately for most of my life, or perhaps fortunately because it led me to this point, that agitation had a deeper impact on me than it had on the systems that I was fighting. So whether it hit through my academic excellence as a kid that no one cared about because, you know, white kids wouldn't talk to me because I was Black, Black kids wouldn't talk to me because I was smart. Or being in college and like seeing, encountering my first strikes, you know what I mean? So like, seeing dining hall workers at Yale University strike. And Yale's endowment is bigger than that of most countries. And like, so not really understanding like how they would treat employees, you know, so like that got me a little, not only agitated but aware. And most… I got into activism like explicitly when George, President George Bush started the Iraq war. I knew it was a lie. And I was living in Brazil at the time. And all my Brazilian friends are like, “What's the matter with your country?” And I'm like, “Don't you see I'm here in Brazil with you? You know what I mean? I don't want to talk about my country.” But the burden of being a philosophy major is that you have this thing called a conscience, you know what I mean? So I majored in existential philosophy. So I have not only been brooding for most of my life, but just had like a consciousness for justice. But I'm also a Libra. So Libras are balanced. And like, if we don’t see balance and fairness, we’ll move heaven and earth in order for it—you know? Because people… Libras get that, like, “Oh, they're passive.” Like, no. Like, if my skills are off balance, look out for you. You know what I mean? Because… so that has been like the root of my activism, like astrologically and through lived experience. Because of the way that activism tends to happen in the West and the United States, it becomes an addiction. And it becomes a lived experience rooted in self-destruction, not self-liberation. And so after years of 18-hour days and no sleep and all these other things, I had run my body to the ground.

And around my mid-30s or so, I had a bit of an awakening to what I was doing. So I was in like prayerful medi—I wasn't really a meditator at this point, but I did grow up in the church. So like, I was like… I've always had a connection to something outside of myself. And I heard in almost mythological and/or biblical cadence, like a voice or something say, “We didn't send you here for that.” You know what I mean? And so I'm looking around like, “What is happening?” And basically, very, very, very long story short, I went to Yale undergrad and have a Master's Degree in International Strategy from this fancy, nancy institution in Belgium. And I graduated into the Great Recession, and the only job I could get was as an itinerant teacher. I taught Civics to high school-age students. And during… so that's heartbreaking, right? I have all these connections from all my political work. Like, Obama's in office. You think because a Black man's in office you can catch a break? Not necessarily the truth, but that's another story. So I'm in this job teaching kids American Civics. And they wanted to do a campaign on wellness and well-being. And I… you know, most of these children were from the -Stans, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, like all—so the former Soviet Socialist Republics. And I was like, “Y'all don't want to have a conversation on how you oust your leader, you know what I mean? You want to talk about wellness?” And they said yes, I was outvoted, even despite my attempts to get them to talk about something else. And Harpinder, I just had a meltdown, kind of. I was just kind of like, you know, I went from like the kids used to call me Mr. Awesome, and I went from Mr. Awesome to Mr. Awful. I was totally hating on their ideas and stuff. And then I was just like, “Yo, what's the matter with you, man?” You know what I mean? Like, “Why are you reacting so viscerally to these kids' pure intention? They want to help people be better!” So I had to check myself real quick, and then dove in, you know, the Harlem Shake was super popular at that time, and they did this thing called the Veggie Shake, and so did this Veggie Shake, had like tomatoes painted on my face and stuff, and it was then where I realized, I was like, “You need to deconstruct, svadhyaya, you need to deconstruct why you had that visceral reaction to wellness.” And so 10 days later, I started a vegan cleanse where I basically cut my diet and started like shifting my diet to like raw vegan and got some New Balance shoes and started walking and just did like a total purification and got on the path, which led to me starting to practice asana a year later.

Not long after that, adopting like yogic and Buddhist meditation practices. And so went to, moved to Colorado for a dream job that became a nightmare because of white supremacist craziness. And merged—so aggressive asana practice, so sadhana, so six days a week, twice a day. I didn't know what was happening, right? And I didn't know that, like, that was not only seasoning mind but also aligning mind, body, and spirit. So I was fired via text message from that job ten months later. So, awful. Like, these white women were terrible to me. And asana practice and meditation practice had done so much for me, and it was essentially the first ten months of my practice, that they asked me for an exit interview. And shockingly, I responded with kindness. Like I was just like, “You all know good and well, we don't need no damn exit interview.” I was like, “But I want to thank you.” And they're like, “For what?” You know, because that's how white women do. “For what?” Yeah. [Laughing] I said, I'm like, “I want to thank you for how poorly you treated me because you gave me wisdom on how to deal with adversity with grace.” And at that point, that's when I was like, “This yoga thing, wow.” Like, so like, I'm in, like, this is it, right? And so my next job after that was the Bernie Sanders campaign, because, you know, you get fired, you need a job. And I undertook like, another like soul cleanse. So I didn't eat solid food. I practiced asana three times a day, basically to purge my system from that experience. And it was just so open and so prayerful. I was like, “When I break this fast, what I want to do next will manifest.” And what it was was an invitation to join the Bernie Sanders campaign, which was shocking because I had left DC to leave politics, only to be put back into it. But to make a very long story short, this is actually the gist of my manuscript that I'm creating. One of my yoga teachers was like, “Reggie, you should view this as a karmic mulligan. Right? You should view this opportunity with Bernie Sanders to use your—” He was like, “I'm not worried about your practices. Like, you're rooted. You know, like you totally have a strong sadhana and strong personal practice.” He was like, “Take that discipline to the thing that almost killed you.” And I was like, “Mmmm…. yes! I can do that.” So I merged my activist practice and my spiritual practice over the course of the Bernie Sanders campaign, and then when President Trump won and I joined MoveOn, like did even further, so deeper study, because I learned during the Bernie Sanders campaign to keep my distance, but also keep my practice. And so when Trump won, basically that same voice, I was in meditation one day in November 2016, and it was like, “Go home,” right? So I was living in Colorado, moved back to the East Coast. One, like glad that I listened, because my grandmother passed away not longer after I got back home, and like, found myself in the midst of the resistance against the president, the former president. And with sadhana and deeper studies—so I took my 200 hour, 300 hour and beyond trainings while working for MoveOn, while flipping the house, while impeaching the president, while removing him in 2020 through the election. So like, yoga showed me that the more I invest in it, magical stuff happens, right? And so like, not on that love and light bullshit, but like on this is your path. Like, so as you follow dharma and use karma, action with that. Whew! And so that's how the activism and spiritual practice merge. Very long story short, but longer story being written.

Harpinder Mann
I just want to take a moment, almost just like snaps for that, for that life path of yours and that deep listening, that listening of ancestors, spirit guides, higher power being like, “You're not meant for this.” And then being at that point, “Okay, now you're meant for this.” 

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
Like take the sadhana, this discipline, this devotion you have now and take it back, take it back for a greater cause. And listening to that. I saw this quote, I think last week that was talking about, “Just because you know the choice that you have to make doesn't make it any easier.”

Reggie Hubbard
No.

Harpinder Mann
Just because once you've decided, right, like this is a decision that I have to do, it's not all of a sudden like the paths become clear and it's blue skies. It's still going to be a challenge and going to be difficult. I think yoga provides us with that strength, that resilience to be like, “Okay, no matter what comes, I know what I can turn to. And that's gonna help me provide that strength, that faith, that surrender.”

Reggie Hubbard
Clarity. You've got a clear seeing.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah, and I'm just so grateful for people like you that are on this path and combining the two things. I saw a post yesterday from an Accessible Yoga Conference talking about, they've been seeing yoga teachers posting transphobic, homophobic content. I'm just like… to me, that just doesn't go together. Anytime we're excluding, anytime we're causing harm, but then we say we're yoga teachers, I'm like, how do those two mix at all? You're completely not taking the learning, the teachings, the wisdom. But I think that's what's happening within the yoga space and what's happening in the greater world as a whole is where we do have the -isms. We have the racism. We have white supremacy. We have capitalism. all these different structures and societal oppressions that keep people from achieving their fullness and their greatness. I know we were speaking earlier before we started recording how you were just at Kripalu, leading a powerful retreat for Black men. Do you wanna tell us a little bit more about that?

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah, so you can imagine after the snippet of the story I told you about the path, I now almost surrender. It's just like, “I want to do this. Oh, it happened? Cool.” You know what I mean? So there's like a level of manifestation. Again, not on this good vibes only stuff. Like if it's your dharma and you are aligned, it will avail. You know, like that's how it's starting to work for me. So I was at Kripalu six or seven months ago as an activist in residence. So Kripalu paid for me to be at rest on campus. And it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me because most activists, especially Activists of Color, no one cares about us now. You know what I mean? So you pour your soul into trying to change the world. And if it happens, it's supposed to happen. If it doesn't happen, everyone's too depressed to thank you for your leadership, right? And so Kripalu asked me to do that. And I told them, I said, “Look, this is the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. This is—thank you.” You know what I mean? “I've been in these streets for a minute, and to be acknowledged and given a gift to relax… thank you!” And they were like, “You know, we view this as a partnership and we want to help you do anything, anything you want.” I'm like, anything? Right. And they were like, “Anything!” I was like, “I want to do a healing retreat for Black men the same week of George Floyd's remembrance to reclaim our dignity at a time when our society tried to remind us of how disposable they think we are.” And they said yes. So they also gave me total creative control and offered scholarships, right? So they offered scholarships for a lot of the brothers to attend. So institutional partner from a place that's considered a legacy-wide institution, helping me engage in the work of healing People of Color, you know…. [snaps fingers] Sign me up.

So—and as we talked about in pre-production, remembering that if I, as self-actualizing Black man, take my full energy into the space, like it not only liberates the 17, 20 people that came, even white people got joy from our joy. So the name of it was Permission and Refuge, because Black men, well, Men of Color, but Black men specifically, don't have permission to be themselves. We have to put on facades and do all these things just to navigate the world and/or numb ourselves from the pain that's foisted upon us through no other reason than the color of our skin. So permission and refuge, because… it's actually funny, I don't really do retreats, because that's part of the problem of being a philosophy major. I have a philosophical problem with the word “retreat,” you know, because, like, as someone who probably read the Bhagavad Gita too many times and also who's an activist, there is no “retreat.” You know, like, we can find refuge to resource and then reemerge, but “retreat” seems escapist to me, right, especially as it pertains to how some yoga teachers do it. Like, let's go to some far-off place that's hella tropical and forget where we live and then find peace to go back to what we were doing, as opposed to what I do or what I try and do, what I try and teach is like, can you find that peace in the storm? And if you can't, can you refuge? Look, I'm not just I'm not hating on tropical locales, love the beach, right? [Laughing] But spiritual practice to me compels you to be present and peaceful where you are and not retreat from like… if someone's causing harm and you retreat… like, if you retreat to find peace, what happens with life lifes? You're going to retreat and you can't. You know what I mean? So like can you refuge and build strength together and then from that collective strength, emerge? And so permission and refuge, simple title, powerful philosophy. But yeah, Kripalu gave us space, gave us financial support, and created conditions for men from 23 to 60, all identities. So we had a queer couple in there, we had an older brother with like a trans daughter, trans femme daughter, brother with like four kids, you know what I mean? So just all expressions of Black masculinity in delightful community. That, to me, is what the magic and power of yogic practice and the spaces that we can hold if we're open to it, right? Like I want to hold spaces—I know this is one of your questions—I want to hold spaces that are transformative and liberating. I don't want to do the same old stuff as other people. That's boring. And, like, it doesn't tap in…. So if as yoga states that we are derivative of the cosmos, why would I want to put limits on the cosmos? I'd rather create capacity to have as much of the cosmos come through me in service to healing and liberation than have some like sanitized, boring version of cosmic wisdom and guidance.

Harpinder Mann
Absolutely. One of my teachers, Prasad, a couple months ago… he was like, “We're limitless, so of course it's going to feel bad when you place limits on yourself.” And I was like… 

Reggie Hubbard
Whoa! [Laughing]

Harpinder Mann
Huge, huge! And I love how you bring that into your teachings. And I—really resonating, because I also feel some type of way when I see like yoga retreats in tropical locations… but it does feel like an escapism. It does feel like a getting away from our current problems and issues and not taking that time to really confront them, to really say, “I see it for what it is and I want to make a change.” 

Reggie Hubbard
Right. 

Harpinder Mann
But a question that sprang up for me as you were talking is, and I have an answer for myself, but I would love to hear your perspective. Why do you think it's important to have spaces for just Black men? 

Reggie Hubbard
Because we're told we can't do all the time. You know, we're told where we can't go all the time. You know, when I taught on last… so, the evening of George Floyd's remembrance, we had a sharing circle with myself, Sean Moore, and Devin Berry, where we gave practitioners the opportunity to listen in to what Black people, how some Black men think. That was kind of an interesting opportunity for people, not People of Color, to see how we think and to see our humanity and to like bear witness to the suffering that we have simply because of the color of our skin in this world. But it's important because the brothers who showed up, some of them had armor as thick as, like, a Viking. But I came in… it’s funny, it’s the one story I’ll share from the… this one brother came in and for the first day he gave me the entire side eye. [Laughing] His wife forced him to come. Right? So he was so like skeptical and all these other things. The first thing I said, Harpinder, was like, “Look, brothers, you can come and go as you please. You know, like, this thing is called Permission and Refuge. There ain't no whole bunch of rules here. Like I want—like the only rule I have is this, like, if you show up, be present. And if you can't feel that you'd be present, go take a walk in the woods or go to the lake or do something. And he was like—he told me this at the end—he was like, “When you said that, I kind of had to change my approach. You know what I mean? Because I came in with a side eye.” And he was just like, “Yo, I'm welcome as I am, then I know what to do with it. So I was like, ‘Well, if he wants me to be here, then I'm going to be here,’” you know, this whole thing. But it's… representation matters. So not just from a teacher's perspective. So they need to see me as teacher. The beautiful thing about the sangha that we had is that we had some brothers that had never practiced anything, and their mama, their wife told them to come. And we had some brothers who were teachers. So the brothers who were teachers had never had the chance to teach all Black men. So like, it wasn't just about me holding space, like on the tail end, like, I wanted to create a opportunity for people if they felt led to share, that they would. And so the brothers that did teach, they were weepy because they were like, “I've never had a chance to teach people who look like me.” Like, “I've never been in a room of everyone who looks like me and been able to offer my loving art.” And so those spaces are important. Again, I hope to do like healing retreat for men or healing retreat… like I hope to do those sorts of things. But the most acute problem that I see, especially with respect to Black men, is that if we don't take care of us, nobody will. That has been demonstrated. Right? 

Harpinder Mann
Mmmhhmmmm.

Reggie Hubbard
And I'm not saying that to make nobody upset. I'm saying that because it's the truth. Because if you cared, you would have done it already. Right? So it's important because you get the benefit of, like, not having to explain yourself so much. You get the benefit of, like, being accepted for who you are and how you show up or how you need to show up. We had a young brother show up and he slept most days. And some of the older brothers were like, “Reggie!” I'm like, “Shh, he's seated next to me.” Right? So, like, I'm giving so much that he's getting something because of proximity. And it was funny because on the last day he laid down, I was like, “Brother, I've indulged you all week. Sit your ass up. Right? You've been resting for five days. It's closing circle. Sit up. Give me an hour. I've given you 13.” But because I had given him that space all week, he was like, “Okay.” It wasn't combative. So it was almost like not just the teachers and the students, but like we got to heal each other in ways that, again, I can't fathom on this side of carnation. You know what I mean? Like maybe when I'm in spirit world, I can look back with, “Oh, that was cool.” Right. But like that, that's why I would say it's important and transformative, because all that healing I told you about happened in like four and a half days.

Harpinder Mann
Wow.

Reggie Hubbard
Lifetimes of liberation in four days.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah.

Reggie Hubbard
If I was a capitalist, that would be my marketing slogan, but I'm not doing that.

Harpinder Mann
And thank you for not doing that. Just… I mean, that's a whole other conversation. But I'll bring it back to the refuge. It's powerful. It's such powerful, needed work. And as you were sharing your experience and also the importance of spaces like this, I was reminded… back in 2019, I just started getting a lot of messages. Messages from Ancestor Spirit Guides, Higher Power, just being like, “You're here to service… to be of service and to work with BIPOC.” And at first I was like, “Yeah, but what about the white people? And like, won't I not make that as much money?” And it's, you know, the kind of resistance, like I'm being told, like, “This is what you have to do.” And I'm like, “What about and what about,” and then finally I just have to be like, “Okay, I'm going to listen.”

Reggie Hubbard
“I have to listen.”

Harpinder Mann
“I have to listen, right?” Like, “I can't keep resisting.” And now in the last five years of being of service to BIPOC, and especially Women of Color, it’s also allowed me to show up in a way where I feel safe. 

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah. 

Harpinder Mann
Where it allows me to speak my truth and not have to constantly dignify my humanity and have to over-explain myself.

Reggie Hubbard
So other people can feel comfortable. Stop it, yeah. 

Harpinder Mann
Exactly. 

Reggie Hubbard
Right.

Harpinder Mann
And I was on a Decolonizing Yoga panel at Lightning in a Bottle a couple of days ago. And it's me and two South Asian yoga teachers, we're sharing our experiences, what it means to decolonize yoga. And an hour or two later, some white girl that had been a part of the panel or like as an attendee comes to me and I can tell she's… drunk or at least…

Reggie Hubbard
Something.

Harpinder Mann
Something. Yeah, something. And she's holding on to… and she's kind of like kind of wobbling back and forth a little bit, kind of like some tears in her eyes. She's like, she's like, “We have nowhere else to go. Like, we need the yoga studios.” And she's making the case for why it's okay for white folks to practice yoga. And I was like, “Hey, hey, I'm like, I'm not saying stop practicing. I'm not saying we want to take it away from you.” And at one point she was like, “I don't know why you're getting aggressive” to me. And my friend was with me. My friend was just like, “You were not aggressive whatsoever.” And I was like… and that tone policing that white women in particular will take on to be like, “Oh, well say it in a nicer way.” And I was like, “And this is why I like working with BIPOC.” [Laughing] Like, I don't get someone weepy eye who doesn't really care what my perspective is. They just want to share their experience. And I was like, “Phew, just another reminder.”

Reggie Hubbard
The two things that come to mind based on what you said. So one is I remember meeting you in Colorado and what you said to me, right? You know what I mean? So representation matters, right? And like representation, but also authentic representation. So me showing up, big body Black dude in like white ass Colorado, you know, because—a sister said this to me in Kripalu. She was like, “I just have to introduce myself to you because I've been coming here for years and never seen any Black dude with his head held high like he runs the place.” I was like, “I don't run the place, but I'm doing some cool shit and like… and don't really need anyone else's validation other than the validation I have because I'm alive, you know?” And so that's one thing. Another thing that's interesting about what you said is that in my 300 hour training, it was in Washington DC like me, one Black woman and a South Asian woman and the rest were white people. And they asked me at one point, they were like—so there's two things. And one time, this is in the middle of the training, teacher was like, “Reggie, what would you do if someone came up to you and said that they don't feel comfortable in your class?” And I was like, “I would put my hand on my heart. I would raise my other hand and be like, peace and blessing, I'm not your teacher.” And they were like, “You wouldn't do that!” I'm like, “Yeah, I would actually, I totally would.” And they were like, “Why?” I said, “Because why am I going to change myself to make someone else uncomfortable? There are millions of other yoga teachers out here. And if I'm not your speed, I'm not your speed. I ain't changing shit.” Right? And then the other thing is that the end, all of us, you know, “Yeah, I got my 300-hour. Reggie, what are you most afraid of?” And I was like, “Permission to speak freely?” They're like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Y'all. I'm scared of white women. You know, because when white women lie, Black men die. That's a historical truism. And I just don't feel comfortable with y'all and would rather not teach you, honestly.” So spirit being funny, because that's how spirit is, when I first launched my teaching practice, most of the people who practiced with me were white women, so it was hilarious. And until I worked through my fears and things, I didn't get the chance to teach only Black men. 

Harpinder Mann
Wow. 

Reggie Hubbard
So now, and here’s what I learned from that. I learned that my authenticity, when tempered with compassion, has no color, has no gender. It speaks to the soul. And when I got that together, that's when spirit, universe was just like, “We want to help you with anything,” because I've been holding this dream to teach Black men for years. And it wasn't granted until I got over myself.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah, I remember last March at the…

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
…last year at the yoga conference, coming up to you because I had just come back from India. I'd been in India for two months, next weekend I fly into Denver for the conference. I just forgot. [Laughing] I just forgot how white these spaces can be.

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
And I was in resistance the whole two to three days because I kept having this, like, “I want to have an open heart, I want to have an open mind.” But then also hearing some of the things I'm like, “What are you talking about?” And it's just like, “Okay, open the heart.” And I hear something like, “What?!” and the heart wants to shut back down. I'm like, “Open it back up!” And I hear, I'm like, “Okay, it wants to shut back down.” And then seeing you, I think it was the last day. As I was like, packing up my things, I was like, “Oh, I gotta go see… take Reggie's class.” And being in that class is so healing. And then getting to talk to you afterwards was so healing because I went and asked, you know, I was like, the same thing, “I want to be here, open heart, open mind. But there's still that sense of skepticism, sense of just like, like, why is there only one or two Folks of Color teaching here?”

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah, remember what I said?

Harpinder Mann
I'm actually writing about it in my book, but do you want to share?

Reggie Hubbard
Nah, go for it. 

Harpinder Mann
You said to close the eyes and to really listen with the ears and the heart. And I thought that was so impactful because our eyes obviously have bias. You see certain things and that colors our perception. And I thought that was incredibly impactful to have that piece of teaching and wisdom.

Reggie Hubbard
And that's how I had to get through my stuff, right? Because like, well, big Black dude scared of like a whole bunch of white people. Like, I would have to be like, “Okay, first of all… how in the world—alright, nevermind, I'll figure it out.” But when people would talk to me, and I mean, because some people got like Valley Girl accent, that's just who they are, you know what I mean? And so if I were to sit here and see someone who's hella skinny, talking like, “Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.” Like, I would be in my head. Right? But I would have to be like—I wouldn’t do it the whole time because you can’t have a conversation that way—but like, I would be like,  “Okay, I can rock with this person,” because I started listening. I heard an interesting… and you know this about Active Peace, so Prince is the patron saint, Price and Jimmy Hendrix are the patrons saints of Active Peace. Prince talked about the mind in an interview one time, saying we don't listen with the mind, the mind is a filing cabinet, we listen with our hearts. We think and feel and listen with our hearts. And that for me, I was like, “Oh.” Right? And so that allowed me… because I've done partnerships with people, like white women in the yoga space, that I—when I first got into the space I wouldn't even think about. But I'm just like, “All right, I can rock with you.” Right? Because if you're about the teachings and you're about the liberation of all beings from suffering, I don't care if you've got an accent that kind of grates on my nerves. You know what I mean? I can go into my gong room for that and deal with that. But for me, and it's also like a check on myself, so allowing me to have more compassion and less judgment, which is very hard, but also very essential.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah, absolutely.

Reggie Hubbard
I thought I had to say that to you because I wanted to be like, “Baby, it ain't going to get no Blacker!” We in Colorado. [Laughing]

Harpinder Mann
I forgot. I had just come back from India and I was just, I just completely—

Reggie Hubbard
Ain't no melanin going to be nowhere, mama. Just, you know, just [Laughing] maybe like way on the other side if they haven't gentrified that place yet. But like, yeah.

Harpinder Mann
I forgot. I forgot. I walked into that opening class, probably 60, 70 people in there. And I was just like looking around. I was like, “Here we go again. Here we go again.” And I do feel… I mean, I've had to do my own work around whiteness.

Reggie Hubbard
Absolutely.

Harpinder Mann
And around racism, too. And I feel really blessed to have friends that are white.

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
And of all colors, but to have people that are supportive and understanding and want to be allies, and that want to do the work. Right. Because then that is a reminder to me where it's the skin color isn't necessarily important, although not to like bypass, like not to spiritually bypass in different ways.

Reggie Hubbard
Right, for sure, absolutely.

Harpinder Mann
But yeah, it has been very interesting being in this space. And this is slightly… connects to what we're talking about, but I'm also then interested in your teaching philosophy, how you have found that to be similar or different from yoga studios.

Reggie Hubbard
So when I first bust onto the scene, I was far more aggressive. Now that I've become a bit more established, I don't have to be as aggressive. But the fire still holds true. I don't consider myself a yoga teacher. I'm a yogi… that teaches. Right? So I have my practices in the morning. Like I have my japa. Like, you know, like I have the things that I do to keep me aligned and keep me of service and keep me devotional. And occasionally I'll teach an asana class or I'll offer sound meditation. Because when I teach teacher trainings, I was just like, “So if you don't have a personal practice, then you're not teaching anything but like gymnastics.” Right? Because it's not tethered to anything. So I—people are like, “Why is your teaching so powerful?” I was like, “Because it's from my lived experience. It's from my study, like I got all the sound in this room, I got all the books in that room, all the gongs in that room, right? Like I've played with these things. I've sat vexed with like the Yoga Sutras, the Patanjali’s—what does this even mean?” You know what I mean? Like I've had like, you know, I've read, you know, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, I've read this stuff, you know, like trying to find all copies of Vedic stuff. Like, I've done this stuff. And so when I speak from it, I speak of it from someone who was like ingested this and tried to like synthesize it into their life.

So I used to bristle and get angry when people call me a yoga teacher. I was just like, “You're equating me with them.” But then I realized I was othering, I need to stop that shit. But like, I don't consider myself a yoga teacher, I'm a yogi that teaches, because like this practice, the discipline of consistent practice for now going on 10 years, has just availed ridiculous truth to me. Made me very humble, made me very inspired, made me very connected, but also has always been the sanctuary I could return to when life didn't make as much sense. So my teaching philosophy is derivative of my lived experience. So if—you can't give what you don't have. So I can't give peace if I don't have it. I can't give wisdom if I don't seek it. So Active Peace Yoga for me—and notice that, and I say this to all the teacher trainers I talk to too, it's like it's not Yoga with Reggie, you know, because I'm going to pass through, like this is temporary. But the peace part, samadhi, like moksha, like that's nirvana, like that is what I serve. Right? And my charge is to activate it. So my teaching philosophy is derivative from the promise of Ashtanga, Eight Limbs, right? So ethical observances. Your body? Cool. You know, what’s the breath like? Are you aware that the breath is the thing that powers us? All right, cool. Now that you know that, come in, get your concentration, find peace, but, you know, most people stop at that. And once I find peace, I've got to take it back out. So my teaching philosophy is derivative of the thing everyone talks about. I just try and live it religiously, not in the Americanized context of religion, but just with devotion, with service, and with an open heart and mind because life changes, but like… but wisdom doesn't.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And something that came up for me in that is…. that connecting to that, that soul level, that consciousness and teaching from that place.

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
Because I know when I teach from that place, it's so much more heart-centered and connected and real. 

Reggie Hubbard
Transformational.

Harpinder Mann
And like letting go of the identities, letting go of this identity I have, this role that I have. One of my teachers shared in a yoga sutra class a couple weeks ago, she was like, “Even me being a yoga teacher right now is an illusion. Me being in the seat teaching to is an illusion.” I keep thinking about that. “I'm just like, man…” It's just like, “Whew!” I'm just still thinking about it. [Laughing] I'm just still…. and then one of my other teachers shared with me when I had a session with her, and she was like, “But also,” she was like, “You're reincarnated into this body for a reason. You were also reincarnated into this body of an Indian woman in the United States of America also for a reason.” So it's a kind of holding space for all of it. Holding space for like, let go of the identities, let go of that, teach from the heart-centered place, while at the same time, reincarnated into this body for a reason. And what's that reason?

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah, I love that. And that's, I try and synthesize that. So I try and teach from the universal through a hip-hop head Black dude who's huge and didn't start practicing this stuff till he got older. Because it is a different flavor of universal wisdom. Right? And so holding that balance is tricky, but as you refine that is magical. Right? So to know… to be able to hold that George Floyd meditation and to think of all the different... so there were like, it was a technological hybrid. So, in person and remote. And there was like, intergenerational, intersectional. So there was like all… there was the… it was the everything and the individual at the same time and in having it open because some people were saying, “You should have this just for Black people.” I was like “No. Like, the retreat is for us. The meditation is for Us. Because white people are impacted by racism and so are we. And so are immigrants. And so are… whatever. You know what I mean? Everybody's impacted by this thing. And it's up to all of us to dismantle it, but we can't dismantle it externally until we reckon with it internally.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah. How do people reckon with it internally?

Reggie Hubbard
Another beautiful thing about yogic and meditative practice, you got to sit with some stuff you don't like. And when I told you that thing earlier about—I had to sit with myself in like a angry, why was I hating on kids for wellness? Like I had to sit with that, that was super uncomfortable. But, if you don’t sit with it, you know, it's… I teach a lot on grief as well. And what grief has taught me is that if you can cultivate compassion to sit with something that you don't like, it will surprise you what will manifest. Right? So sitting with the thing I don't like gives the heart space to grow around it. And then, you know, love is the only power, love is the only force in the universe that can, like, dissolve anything. Hey, closed-mindedness, all of the social maladies, loneliness, depression, like all of these maladies which are spiking in the West, maybe other cultures too, but I'm fully knowledgeable on the West, can be dissolved through unconditional love. Right? So holding space for all of that has given me the opportunity to just not to, as I feel—so this is what I tell the brothers at the retreat—I was like, “The only reason that I can be before you now is because I put on a snorkel and dove into the abyss of my own stuff. And as I dealt with some things, it has allowed me to impact thousands of lives.” And I shudder to think about—remember I told you my ancestors were like, “Get your ass to work, right? We didn't send you here for this.” What if I ignored that and like the tens of thousands of people whose lives I've impacted mostly through this dot, but increasingly in-person. I can’t—that's a weight I can't even fathom, right? So, like, if I didn't do my work to heal myself to have opportunities to heal other people, hold the space for them to heal themselves, which is more appropriate…. I—you get back to the waiting room of souls and, like, “Yeah, so you were supposed to do this. You ain’t do none of that.” I'm not trying to have that conversation. Like I'm trying to be like, “I know I didn't do everything, but I did this, this, this, this, this.” I'm trying to have that conversation. But I feel the need, I need to tell you, you know what I mean? I'm trying to like create conditions for my liberation because I can't, you know, I can't have a teaching practice called Active Peace and be a mess. Or, a mess that's not working on it. I can be a mess. I mean, because one thing I'll share is like I taught a grief thing online in February, and this past February, we had like my family had a really, really rough winter, like five deaths in like three weeks. It was just a lot. 

Harpinder Mann
Sorry to hear that. 

Reggie Hubbard
I—thank you. I, in my grief class one day came in with like, I had a lesson plan, but my uncle died on Saturday. And just broke down and just like just was just teaching. I don't even know what I said, right? But I was just very open and forthright because I was just like, “Here's what I know. I know that if I am teaching grief from an intellectual perspective, I'm not really doing it justice. So here is my… trying to model my messy practice three days into a ridiculous heartbreak.” And that messiness, people were like, “Oh!” They were like, “That's the most powerful thing I've been through.” But it's because I was basically just like, “Here!” [Reggies gestures taking his heart from his chest and giving it to the viewer]. “Ugh, here!” And most teachers don't allow themselves to be human at your peril. You know, I think about what you talked about with your teacher saying this is an illusion. Because of the hip-hop nature of my practice, but also the… you know, Thich Nhat Hanh talked about like the next Buddha being the Sangha, right? So if I hold myself above as opposed to within, that doesn't allow each of us to offer wisdom. And who knows what one person's perspective can help another person. I'm just here to hold a space and interject here and there, maybe teach some techniques, but not to be like, “This is it.” Not true.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah, I mean, we started the Women of Color Summit a couple years ago, we were very intentional around not wanting that top-down learning. 

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
It being hierarchical. And instead, knowing that wisdom lives in community and wisdom lives in that interbeing and interconnection. And I love that that's a part of the way that you teach and hold space. Because each one of us has so much wisdom because each one of us is on our own journey. Each one of us has things that happen to us that are unimaginable, trying, beautiful, whatever it might be, and we're each learning something from our experience. So to discount someone else's experience as not being as important as yours, I'm like, “That's not a good teacher.”

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah, because they didn't read as many books as you? They're alive, aren't they? Ask them a question to get them engaged and see how your mind can be blown.

Harpinder Mann
Absolutely. Yeah. The next question I had is… a bigger question is what forces are causing society, and especially BIPOC, to be unwell?

Reggie Hubbard
Great question. That's something I clearly think about a lot. One answer that's easy is the way society is constructed. Right? So all the -isms, like racism, patriarchal system, capitalism, grind culture, the chasing of something… I call it chasing ghosts. Right? So when People of Color feel they have to chase an ideal, but it's an apparition because white people be changing it. You know what I mean? So you're chasing after an ideal that the goalpost is constantly shifting. So that not only makes you physically exhausted, but it messes with your mind. So that's one thing. And the answer, which isn't as accepted, is that we buy into these systems. You know, we have forgotten our agency. We have forgotten that we don't have to be miserable all the time. To some extent, that becomes a choice. So one of the things that blew my mind when I got into deeper yogic and meditative practice is I was like, “Oh, I can choose not to believe this? Oh, man! Okay.” So the most compelling example of that is, so everyone was woke as hell when George Floyd was murdered in 2020. And I knew this from lived experience, I was just like, I fully sensed that white people are open-ish. That's because they stuck at their house. But six months later, six months from now, people aren't going to care as much. And so I'm going to, A, as a new teacher, just go for it, be everywhere. Like this is, I felt like Harriet Tubman, like, “Oh, I see my path to freedom. I'm taking it. Y'all come this way.” And at the same time, when white culture gets over caring about Black people, because it's not fashionable or whatever, Black and Brown people, I'll already be established, right?

So six months after George Floyd was killed, a Black man was killed in Ohio for holding a sandwich, Casey Goodson. And when I saw that no one cared, that… I mean, George Floyd was very awful. It's equally as awful to be killed for holding a sandwich that someone thought was a gun. How the fuck is that possible? Pardon my candor. And, Harpinder, when I saw that no one responded at all, and it was kind of like back page news, I chose to know… so both Satya and like the Buddhist principle of like not—delusion being a pillar of suffering. So I was like, I'm deluding myself to think that this culture will continue to care about Black men. So I rescind that delusion. And people are like, “Oh my gosh!” I was like, “Shhh! I'm deprogramming my mind from expecting you to do something that is not happening. So what I will do instead is love myself so profoundly that your ignorance and hatred are irrelevant.” And so that's when my teaching practice super exploded, kind of like the first explosion. It continues to be tectonic and concussive. But when I was like, “I'm deluding myself into thinking that this is going to change without me doing what I need to do for me.” And not choosing not to get angry about it. Right? So most people say, “I'm deluding myself and sliding the nihilism.” I was like, “I'm deluding myself and I'm taking agency and like going to love myself so strong that it just doesn't matter what you think. Like, because I'm creating conditions for my healing by not buying into this thing.” So the two things are societal, but… and that's why I teach so much and why I teach so raw is because, A, most people don't want to hear that you aren't being an agent in your own change. And you have to articulate it in a way like I just did because you could lose some people, right? And saying like, this is your fault too. No one wants to hear that, even when it's true.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah. Because we're all complicit, right? We're all complicit in it.

Reggie Hubbard
Right.

Harpinder Mann
And what I appreciate about yoga and contemplative spaces is it provides a brave container for us to be able to acknowledge how we're complicit. 

Reggie Hubbard
Right.

Harpinder Mann
It's not in a—

Reggie Hubbard
A judgment. 

Harpinder Mann
Right? It's not like, “You're bad.” It's just like, it's just the reality of what it is. And letting ourselves be with that reality without… I mean, so maybe some, some shame, some guilt without it needing to completely take us down is important. Because otherwise, how will there be progress if we just ostrich and put our heads underneath the sand? It's like, “Well, it's not me, it's not my problem. I didn't pull out the gun and shoot that person.” It’s like, “But, why…?”

Reggie Hubbard
You were apathetic when it happened, but which is worse? Or I mean, in the context of what we were just talking about, I had to go through that myself. I was like, “I choose to blame someone else for me not taking care of myself. What am I going to do about that?” Then when I did something about that, I was like, “Oh, I basically started building the muscle of self-reflection, resilience, and self-actualization.” Like, those three things, like, with consistency can flourish as, like, nihilism or anger. I used to have the strongest “I hate everybody in the world” tree in the universe. Now, like, the Active Peace garden is flourishing. Right? But my garden used to be as, like, “No one cares, why should I care?” Like, those bushes were thriving. So like, it's just using agency and investment of energy in ways to create liberation for myself and other people. Once I realized that I had control of that or influence, not control, because control is an illusion as well. But once I had influence, oh man, I was like this, “This! This is fun.” [Laughing]

Harpinder Mann
What comes up for me is also a question. I've been with spaces with Black and Brown folks where I've heard people, and sometimes I've felt this way too, where just feeling burnt out or feeling like is change ever going to happen? Is what I'm doing actually making an impact? What do you say to those folks?

Reggie Hubbard
Rest is productive and necessary. Right? You don't have to be on… you don't have to and can't fight all the time. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing. Because if we don't create conditions for separation, then new ideas can't emerge, or new approaches can't emerge, or again, like because—I said this to a friend of mine before we got on—I was like, “I'm so successful, I have to teach less to safeguard my own energy, to keep from burning myself out.” I had this energetic rebalancing when I was in Massachusetts. And the practitioner was just like, “This is your essence.” I was like, “What?” [Laughing] So all this gross anatomy, like this thing…? So I fell asleep during the treatment, but saw myself sleeping. I was like, “Whoa! Oh!” Right? But the only reason I could have that experience is because my body was at rest. Because the one thing that People of Color have to remember is that rest is your birthright. We've taught to normalize being burnt out. Rest is our birthright. And in that rest from, because especially in the context of African Americans, like you were worked to death. You know, in other Communities of Color from an immigrant background, they teach you to work your ass off. Right? So being burnt out to some extent is still being beholden to a system that never meant for you in the first place. So your act of taking rest is revolutionary.

And change will happen when we dismantle and detangle ourselves from systems. And so you talked about contemplative practice and contemplative spaces, when we have the ability to see that us being burnt out is the way that the game is rigged. And me detangling myself from that begins the revolution. And then if I convince more people to do that, things change. But it happens with rest. And, like, that's not to say that you don't have a right to feel upset, you don't have a right to be exhausted. It is exhausting being a person in the universe. It is exhausting being a Person of Color in the United States, or the world actually, so Britain and Europe be conveniently hiding about how they've been destroying like Brown people for centuries, right? You know, I read a article recently on The Partition, and was just like, “How in the world are we not talking about this?” You know, right? Like, so, you know, it's, I know America is American-centric, but like the Indian subcontinent had like some wild shit happen 60, 70 years ago! Let's talk about that trauma. So anyway, we don't have the opportunity to rest from the accumulated trauma, which means to some extent we'll never find the healing that we deserve. So, take the rest, create the space, and then allow your healing to give you opportunity to explore more healing.

Harpinder Mann
Yeah, I think that's really important advice, to rest. And as a—from a personal perspective—as a daughter of Punjabi Sikh immigrant parents, I was really taught, you have to work. My dad a couple years ago, he must be 65, 66 now, he was like, “Oh,” he was like, “When do you think I should retire?” I was like, “When you have enough money? Like, when you feel comfortable?” He was like, “I feel like when I retire, I'm just going to die. Like, I feel like I need to keep working. That's the only way like I'm going to keep living.” And I was just... 

Reggie Hubbard
I've had my dad say that. My dad said that too. He's 72. 

Harpinder Mann
Yeah. And I was like, “Wow. Like, this is just so built-in, right? It's completely hardwired.”

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah. 

arpinder Mann
And I was like, “No wonder…” And I've spoken about this before. I've had many a vacation I completely ruined for myself because I felt like, “I should be working right now,” feeling so guilty, did not know how to relax, did not know how to rest. And I luckily deprogrammed myself from that. It still shows up a little bit, but that resting is important. And I've had clients wanting to work with me, and their question is like, “I don't know how to rest.” And these are all Folks of Color. There's like, “I don't, what does it mean to rest? If I have some free time, then I just start working on something else.” And I'm like, “Wow.”

Reggie Hubbard
One of the most amazing experiences of the Men of Color retreat is that my co-teacher, Danny Fluker, founder of Black Boys OM, did this. We did Surya Kriya. And then he borrowed one of my singing bowls and everybody in the room fell asleep. [Laughing] Right? So to have 17 Black men—and I woke up early so I got to bear witness to it, actually meditated to it—17 Black men asleep. Like number one, that was part of our programming and pedagogy, it just worked well, way better than I thought it was going to work. But to normalize rest as program. I was like, “Danny, I want people to be so comfortable they fall asleep.” That's basically what I said. I was like, “Whatever that looks like, go for it.” People slept for like an hour and a half in refuge. The response was that I didn't know I needed that rest, your body did. And we burned through, like, that frenetic energy. And the mind was a bit toned down. So the body is just like, “All right.” And that was the most—like, that was one of the most beautiful—like, outside of the cartwheels and big grown men having fun flying each other, like acro yoga and stuff, the better part or the most humbling, and part of the maybe weepy… was watching people comfortable enough to sleep in the middle of the day.

Harpinder Mann
It's so vital. And I'm… I said at the beginning, and I'll say it again, I'm just so thankful that you're out here creating spaces like this. And it makes me think of—I work with teens.

Reggie Hubbard
Okay, bless you.

Harpinder Mann
And after a while, maybe after the second or third month, I was like, “Hey, if y'all want to sleep through our sessions, sleep.” So I was just thinking back to being a teen, how overworked I was. I was like, “Why was I getting to school at 7am, then I have my extracurricular activities, I'm on this or that, I'm not getting home till 5 or 6pm,” and I was like...

Reggie Hubbard
Then do homework!

Harpinder Mann
Right, and then do homework! And that's not even including the bullying that was probably happening and the comparison, and your mind is constantly going. And I was like, “Hey y'all, if you want to sleep during our time together,” and they love it, some kids will come running, like, “Nap time!” And I'm like, “Yeah, nap time.” And I'm like, “We need more rest from a younger age.” But it also, for me, it took a lot of, where I was like, “Oh, but am I really teaching them something if I'm not like offering them something, right?” And then I was just like, “I am.” I don't need to constantly be… also for myself, putting on such like a horse and pony show to feel like I'm doing something of value. I was like, “I can also just rest and hold space and that be okay.”

Reggie Hubbard
It's hard for teachers to learn. 

Harpinder Mann
Yeah. Because you get… I don't know in your trainings, but in my trainings, I definitely got taught like, “This is what the class should look like and this amount of poses and blah, blah, blah.” And it's… then you really start teaching and it's like, it's not like that.

Reggie Hubbard
Right. One of the best things I—that ever happened to me was, so Faith Hunter was my 200-hour teacher, beautiful, amazing, pioneering Black woman out of New Orleans. And Faith was just like, “Teach what you want to teach.” And I'm like… you know, so in my other trainings, they're like, “It should be this way.” But my first training was essentially my own alchemy. And so what I've been able to do is take the beautiful hatha structure from Sri Dharma Mittra, like the creative freedom of faith, and all these other things, and serve the needs of my students or community. Right? So if you want the up-tempo stuff, I'll give it to you, but 25 minutes. Or do those sorts of things. And the beauty of the pandemic is that I had the opportunity to create my own norms. So studio culture, while studios are important, studio culture had like the 60, the 75, the 90. I started teaching people on Capitol Hill. I didn't have 90 minutes, I had 20. How can I create connection to spirit and the beyond in 20 minutes? That takes… that's art.

Harpinder Mann
How did you do it?

Reggie Hubbard
Meditated and prayed a lot. I was like, and, but also thought, I'm like, “Okay, so the quickest way for me to get you relaxed is to find balance.” So basically, if you sit for hours like this [makes collapsed and tense body posture], I just open you up, relieve stress where tension points are, so here [points to temples] and stuff, give you a sense of creative freedom, play a sound bowl, then you're out. So it's balance in the body, then when the body's balanced, like tuning down like the volume of the mind, and then that alignment, it's magic. Like that's yoga. 

Harpinder Mann
Absolutely. 

Reggie Hubbard
Yeah.

Harpinder Mann
I don't know how it's been over an hour. I'm like, “I keep talking to you. I have more questions. I have more things I want to say. I have more stories.” But with this time confinement that we have, any last words that you want to share? I have a question. So my question is, what change do you wish to see in yoga in particular or in the world as well?

Reggie Hubbard
Well, to me, it's the same, right? To some extent. So I occupy a unique space where for activists and real people, I'm trying to bring you into rest, right? Or practice that gives you peace. For the spiritual community, I'm trying to get you off your ass. You know what I mean? “I'm just gonna sit here and meditate and hope.” No, you need to vote. You need to be more engaged and take a… the same way you took agency in your spiritual life, take agency in your community because there is no separation. 

Harpinder Mann
Absolutely. 

Reggie Hubbard
So my vision is A, that the yoga world, spiritual world gets off of this aloof and becomes more engaged. And for everyone else, my hope and prayer, as recently as evidenced in the healing retreat for Black men, but I want this for all people, may you find rest, may you find protection, may you find healing and liberation, because your pain is my pain, but your healing and liberation is my healing and liberation. So my hope and prayer is for that, like that people for whom peace is abundant, that they do something with it, and that for whom it is scarce, that they deconstruct patterns that keep them from that and lavish it upon themselves. 

Harpinder Mann
May we all be free.

Reggie Hubbard
Ashay. 

Harpinder Mann
Thank you, Reggie. There's so much wisdom in this conversation. I'm so thankful for your time, for your wisdom, for all the work that you're doing. I'm so excited for folks to get to experience this podcast. And thank you so much. It's been such a wonderful time chatting with you. 

Reggie Hubbard
It's almost malpractice for me to have all this sound and not play any of it. How about I gong us out?

Harpinder Mann
Yes, I would love that.

Reggie Hubbard
Cool with that?And so the preface I'll give y'all is that so we live in a world where there's a lot of words. The mind does not rest with words. The mind rests with silence and sound. So if we can find a different amplitude of brain waves, like that reminds the mind that it's okay to disengage a bit and tune in as opposed to tune out. So I'm going to play, I have so many gongs, but I'm going to play the one that is dedicated to this space. So find a posture that allows you to find space in the body, in the heart, in the chest. We'll have one clearing breath and I'll play this gong three different times, so three times. So in through the nose, exhale release. Ahhh!