I first interviewed Donna Noble for the Yogamatters blog at the International Yoga Day event at Alexandra Palace, London in June 2016. At the time, we were both starting out, finding our way as we stepped out into the unknown. Much has changed for us both since then and having this opportunity to reconnect and catch up is a real privilege.
Donna is now working on her first book about body positivity in yoga, a training guide on accessible yoga aimed at yoga teachers which will be published next year. Having the occasion to take over the OM Yoga Magazine Instagram page, she now has a monthly series called Noble Conversations, in which she most recently interviewed internationally acclaimed yoga teacher Seane Corn. She’s become an advocate for anti-racism within the wellness industry, determined to champion those who are invisible and disrupt the wellbeing industry where necessary. Nominated in National Diversity Awards 2020, Donna has devised a 12 week programme for yoga teachers about how to navigate these difficult times, which she describes as ‘a two way thing, exploring the difficult issues you won’t find in other courses out there. Yes, I’m teaching diversity to teachers, based on my lived experience as a black yoga teacher, but there will also be the opportunity to ask any questions and to pick my brain about anything.’ The course will be delivered all online via Zoom, so can be accessed by anyone, not just yoga teachers, anywhere in the world. Back in January 2020, Donna appeared in the US yoga company FERAL + TRUE’s list of 20 YOGA TEACHERS OF COLOUR TO WATCH IN 2020 – the only yoga teacher from the UK in that list, and from that, was invited after the tragic death of George Floyd to offer her services to teach the yoga community in the US to allow the yoga teachers there to rest.
Looking back now, Donna realises what a turning point that class that she delivered that day at Alexandra Palace actually was. I attended that class. I saw the number of black yogis staying all day to join Donna in that class and felt the incredible vibe as we practised together in that special moment. For whatever reason, at the time, Donna did not see the significance of that. Writing for Elephant Journal recently in an article entitled My Blackness is Not a Trend, Donna admits that initially, she tried to be invisible: ‘When I created CurvesomeYoga back in 2015, only a few people knew I was the innovator. Once again: hiding! It was while teaching at a yoga show on the International Day of Yoga where it became apparent I was doing my community an injustice by hiding.’ Yes, she felt blown away that so many black yogis had come to support her but failed to see at the time how important it was for those yogis to see a black yoga teacher delivering the class. As she reveals in the article, she now can see that ‘Representation is critically important. If you never saw someone who looks like you doing something, would you even consider doing it? The likely answer is no. In the United Kingdom, only 56% of black women are doing the recommended 60 minutes of exercise per week recommended by the British Medical Examiner.’
Donna wasn’t ready to see the magnitude of what was happening at the time. She wasn’t confident about having attention drawn to her being a yoga teacher. Now she sees the truth. Those people came to that class on International Day of Yoga because she was black. That’s the beauty of her involvement with NoireFitFest, which targets the black community because they are the ones generally not engaging with wellness and exercise. Having heard the experience of others and from her own experience, Donna knows how hard it is to the be only black yogi in the class. When a black person comes to the mat, bringing their daily trauma and experiences of discrimination to the yoga space, a teacher who looks like them will have a better understanding of them. It will feel like a safe place. As Donna points out, this happens with curvy women or absolute beginners too. To feel safe, they need to feel represented and understood.
Which brings us back to our first conversation four years ago ‘In Conversation with: Donna Noble’. What interests Donna is real people. Real people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, abilities, religions, ages. Real people doing real yoga… Donna’s initiative Curvesome yoga just grew organically out of this desire for yoga in the UK to be more accepting of every body.’ She still can’t put a finger on when and how. She wasn’t intent on carving out a niche for herself. She grew up around family members who were curvy and had a deep desire to support those who were invisible. She ended up doing something no one else was doing at the time.
In that sense, not much has changed.
And yet Donna now is comfortable with being in the limelight as a black yoga teacher. She has developed a strong voice with plenty to say. She’s still speaking out for those with no voice, those who are invisible. However, she’s not prepared to be seen as ‘trendy’ or to be invited to something to tick a diversity box, saying ‘If people are genuine, that’s fine. If it’s to tick a box, then I’m not interested. I’ll call it out now. I don’t have to put up with that.’ She’s not assimilating any more. She’s more independent, becoming stronger. She has a platform and plenty of valuable lived experience which can positively influence opinions and practice.
She’s grateful to have grown in a part of London which was very diverse. Her early experiences of yoga were diverse too: her first yoga teachers in the late 1990s were Indian and then mixed race, and then she went to a studio run by two black yoga teachers near Clapham Common. However, she entered a corporate world where she didn’t see many people like her. She worked in a law firm where she daily faced the double discrimination of being a woman and being black. She felt under pressure to try harder than everyone else and to watch what she said. That’s an internal trauma that she carries with her wherever she goes. She undertook her Triyoga yoga teacher training as the only black person there. She was used to that. She continued her training in the States and worked in Texas, where she focused on body positive yoga. And then when she returned from the States, she looked around her and asked, ‘Who’s not on the mat with me?’ That’s the question she’s always asking herself.
The events of this last year have been a massive catalyst in Donna’s life. COVID-19 has led her to teach more online with a fast-growing natural organic reach on YouTube. Having been seriously ill back in February, possibly with COVID-19, Donna initially sat back, took the rest she needed and went with the flow. As more people of all shapes and sizes turned to yoga, more people discovered Donna, the Noble Art of Yoga and CurveSomeYoga online. Donna was already confident using Zoom and saw what unfolded as a natural and positive transition for her, explaining ‘COVID has shown me how adaptable I am. I love change. I embrace change. COVID forced me to do what I’d been putting off for years and to develop my teaching online. This gave me more time for my own practice, and more time to rest and reflect. I met people online and developed friendships I would never have had otherwise.’
Going forward, Donna has no grand plan. For her, it’s simple: ‘I share me, and I share what I like and often it resonates’. Her thirst for knowledge has been reignited – knowledge about her background and the background of yoga – and she’s questioning what she’s been taught. She’s concerned that the conversation around Black Lives Matter has gone very quiet now and she’s determined to keep speaking her truth. Whatever path Donna Noble takes, this truth will remain her noble calling: ‘I seek to help in any way I can to change the landscape we find ourselves in right now’.
To learn from Donna, sign up for her 12-week course, “The Noble Art of Yoga for Teachers” starting 28th of October 2020 here. This course is the designed to help newly qualified or experienced teachers who find themselves lost due to the pandemic, navigate the ‘new normal’ and find your clients that are waiting for you to find them..
