After a tumultuous few years filled with pandemic-related challenges and racial harassment, Waterloo Region’s only Black-owned yoga studio, which recently hosted an event at the University of Guelph, is closing.
The decision to shut the doors for good was an incredibly difficult one to make, said owner Selam Debs in an interview. But it’s one that has been “compounding for years.”
The financial impacts of the pandemic were nearly crushing; Debs has been floating the formerly thriving studio and covering losses by working full-time as an anti-racism educator.
“I did this with the hopes that we would eventually move in a more positive direction,” she wrote in an email. “However, the financial loss has become unsustainable and is impacting my ability to support my own family as a single mother.”
This was made worse by ongoing racial harassment, from a white man exposing himself on camera during a Zoom yoga class, to receiving “hundreds of messages of racism, hate, violence.”
It started early on in the pandemic: Debs said they "got a lot of hate" for enforcing things like vaccine passports. This was followed by “thousands of messages, along with death threats, stating that they would come to the studio" after Debs spoke out against the trucker convoy earlier this year.
Then last month, journalist Jonathan Kay tweeted about a yoga class Debs taught for Black students at the University of Guelph to his 68.5K followers, triggering even more online harassment.
Most recently, the studio’s social media accounts, as well as some of her personal accounts, were hacked – an act she said she knows is targeted because of “the constant hate."
Still, she didn’t think she would ever close Juici Yoga.
“In my mind, I thought the studio would be around for another 10 years,” she said.
But the trauma of everything that’s happened has started to impact her mental health, and she no longer feels safe going into the studio.
“I can’t ignore it and pretend that it’s just online, because the reality is, we live online. And what happens online often can translate to what happens in the world. I just don’t think that it’s responsible for me as a Black mother, as a single mother, to take that risk anymore,” she said.
The studio space didn’t always feel like such an overwhelming and dangerous responsibility, though.
Debs first came to the Waterloo studio as an instructor when it was still called Community of Hearts and owned by Grace Rosewarne. At the time, she was going through “an abusive relationship and divorce,” and was trying to figure out what her next step would be, how she would provide for her family.
“I was in a rough spot,” she said. “I didn’t have enough money to buy groceries or gas.”
So she decided to freelance and teach yoga. But when she learned Rosewarne was thinking of selling, she knew what she had to do.
“Immediately, I knew that the studio was for me. I knew that I was going to be able to transform it, and turn it into a community hub of learning and of care.”
Debs took over in 2016, rebranding to Juici Yoga. Determined to make it work and come out on the other side, she taught over 20 yoga classes a week in the beginning, which she said goes “beyond what any yoga teacher would ever do.”
During that time, she lived, ate, breathed and sometimes even slept at the studio between classes.
“And it helped me heal, because when I walked into that space, it was almost like I was able to leave everything that was going on outside, and it would allow me to have clarity, would allow me to focus on my sense of peace, allowed me to focus on healing and serving the community.”
What Debs accomplished while owning Juici Yoga went beyond her wildest dreams, from being able to take care of her family as a small business owner to repeatedly winning Best Yoga Studio and being featured on podcasts, TV and in magazines.
“Also, we brought experts and wisdom teachers from everywhere, (who) saw the studio as a hub where they could bring their practice and teach our community.”
But most powerful part for Debs has been how “caring and loving and inspiring” the Juici community is.
“And I'm gonna miss them,” she said of the more than 300 people whose names and stories she has memorized. “It was really a dream come true to be able to create something like this.”
“So the loss is exceptional,” she said. “It’s been incredibly heartbreaking.”
The only relief, she said, is that she’s no longer going to be placing herself in “a vulnerable situation where my safety is constantly at risk,” and that she feels supported by the community that has so lovingly rallied behind her.
Though she’s grieving the loss of the studio right now, she still plans to continue teaching yoga, focusing more on Black, Indigenous and racialized communities, merging activism and yoga.
“Healing can’t happen without activism, and activism can’t happen without healing,” she said.
She doesn’t know what that will look like moving forward, but said she wants to “teach in a more meaningful way from that framework.”
In the meantime, Debs is trying to raise money for the studio rent; even though they’re closing the doors Dec. 31, they’re forced to pay for the next four months.
A fundraiser is being organized by Kween, the executive director of the Guelph Black Heritage Society to help with the costs. Details haven’t been released yet, but you can stay tuned on her Instagram page.
Moonlight Yoga in Guelph is also hosting a PWYC pop-up yoga fundraiser at Found Coffee to help raise funds on Dec. 19 from 7 to 8:15 p.m.
