Free Yoga in Long Beach

Hello Visual Anthropology Class! Here's a little update on our progress so far. For the past year or so, Stacie, Julia, and I (Lauren) have been casually attending the Free Yoga classes offered at Bluff Park in Long Beach, at the corner of Ocean and Junipero. We initially heard about this program through Cassandra, a fellow graduate student, as it is her thesis research site. We began our film-related research in earnest in September, communicating with Cassandra as our "gatekeeper" to the community, and quickly making contact with other key community figures. So far, we have conducted one (long and informative) interview with Cassandra and have a few more scheduled for these coming weeks. In particular, we are looking forward to our interview with Dharma, the creator of free yoga, which is scheduled for this coming Saturday the 16th.

Today, I am working on editing our hour-long interview with Cassandra, and some footage of a Free Yoga class session. In addition to this, I'm working on our shot list of shots we'll need for cut-aways to use in conjunction with Cassandra's interview audio. She was a great interviewee--as a participant-observer herself, she was keen to describe the community in a way that was both objective and self-reflective. By re-examining her interview, it will help us with our interview questions for Dharma on Saturday and future interviewees.

We plan to complete most of our shooting in the coming weeks, while the weather is still nice and pleasant. Having experienced shooting outdoors through the fall, the weather can turn quickly and it is important to be ahead of the game. We are hoping that this semester we will also have the opportunity to complete a few indoor interview shoots with informants, in order to practice lighting techniques we learned this semester in our session with Tin.

We are looking forward to a semester of opportunities to explore the key questions of: What is Free Yoga? Who is Free Yoga? And, what effect has Free Yoga had on the community since its inception three years ago?