Close your eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. If you’ve been to a yoga class, you might feel relaxed at these soothing verbal instructions, but those in the deaf, deaf-blind, and hard-of-hearing community often find this type of teaching exclusionary.
“Having a community that welcomes you, respects and honors your uniqueness and individuality, is so important,” says Jessalyn Akerman-Frank, the founder and self-described “chief inspiration officer” of Deaf North—a Twin Cities–based yoga org that embraces deaf, deaf-blind, and hard-of-hearing yogis, offering accessible, virtual classes using American Sign Language.
“Knowing when you log on, that people in the room share the same barriers, the same discrimination, the same fight for access—or everything you go through in your daily life—they get it,” Akerman-Frank says. “So, you can now just show up and be you, be understood…. That is the most incredible feeling: to just be. To be accepted, loved, honored, respected, appreciated for being who you are.”
be. To be accepted, loved, honored, respected, appreciated for being who you are.” —Jessalyn Akerman-Frank, founder of Deaf North
After experiencing severe asthma throughout her youth, Akerman-Frank turned to yoga to help her heal. During the 1980s and 1990s, yoga wasn’t nearly as mainstream as it is now, she says, and she didn’t have access to yoga as a deaf individual.
One major barrier to entry was having access to ASL interpreters at yoga studios. It was the responsibility of the deaf yogi to provide their own interpretation, she says, rather than the studio that offered classes.
When she moved to Minnesota in 2001, she sought formal training programs that would accept deaf applicants but also provide ASL interpretation. Finding training proved challenging, despite the fact that Minnesota is one of the top places in the U.S. for deaf people to live (“It was the reason I moved here instead of back home to Wisconsin,” Akerman-Frank says), with the Metro Deaf School, Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf, the Charles Thompson Memorial Hall deaf club—the oldest deaf club in the world—and countless opportunities to learn ASL.
But Akerman-Frank found a way to do what she does best: be flexible and pivot. The Gallaudet University graduate, who obtained a master’s degree in special education from the University of Minnesota, enrolled at Saint Paul College, which—under the Americans with Disabilities Act—must provide ASL interpretation. She received her RYT certification and became one of Minnesota’s first deaf yoga instructors.
Stretching Boundaries
Besides founding Deaf North, Akerman-Frank is an active (!) activist for the deaf community in Minnesota (and beyond). She co-founded the Minnesota-based nonprofit Deaf Equity, serves as president of the Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens, acts as an ASL coordinator for Twin Cities Pride, and advocates for training and awareness around the issue of deaf domestic violence and sexual assault. She has taught yoga for more than 20 years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Akerman-Frank found another way to improve access to yoga for the deaf community by pivoting to exclusively virtual classes. This has allowed rural Minnesotans to participate more easily. In the past, many yogis had to drive up to an hour and a half for a 60-minute class, which would sometimes be canceled if the building manager was unavailable.
“Access to group exercise for the deaf, deaf-blind, and hard-of-hearing is especially difficult,” says Deaf North yogi Patrick Vellia. “In yoga, this is especially, doubly so because in meditation, we can’t close our eyes—otherwise we won’t see the ASL.”
For the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, Akerman-Frank recognizes the importance of the eyes. She often explains yoga poses in ASL prior to meditation practices and uses breathing exercises or a visual timer on the screen to count down until the group moves onto the next pose.
Cindi Martin, a deaf student at Deaf North, says it’s hard for her to close her eyes and take a deep breath, be mindful and stress-free, if the instructors don’t know ASL. “It was nice to see instructors know ASL, and they are signing to us during yoga” Martin says of Deaf North.
For the deaf-blind community, Akerman-Frank prioritizes tactile communications, going through yoga poses using touch, encouraging participants to follow her lead by feeling what she’s doing or by signing into their hands. This is generally done in person, she explains, but participants often have an impeccable memory, so after repeating the process three to five times, many yogis have already memorized the entire routine.
Centering Deaf Culture
When it comes to virtual classes, Deaf North raises funds to pay co-navigators, tactile interpreters, or other support-service individuals so they can provide tactile or protactile information to deaf-blind participants. Raising funds to pay these interpreters continues to be one of the biggest challenges that Deaf North faces, Akerman-Frank says.
This virtual access was especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the boom in interest across Minnesota—and across the country—has led Akerman-Frank to continue her efforts virtually, offering Chair Yoga, Sun Salutations, Gentle Yoga, Core Yoga Flow, Yoga Stretch and Flow, Meditation, Reiki Yoga, Self-Care for the Deaf Soul, and other adaptive classes.
While classes are primarily geared toward the deaf, deaf-blind, and hard-of-hearing communities, they also welcome families, friends, and ASL students to join. “This class is open to all with the understanding that it is taught in American Sign Language, so we keep the space focused and centered on the culture and language of the deaf [community],” Akerman-Frank says. Often, yogis teach live on Facebook or Instagram, so she welcomes anyone to watch and learn.
“Our basic mission is [that] yoga should be accessible to all,” Akerman-Frank says. “Everyone defines that differently. For us, that means there are no barriers to accessing yoga in any way or form.”
Classes cost $8, and private lessons cost $13. For more information, visit deafnorth.com.