Dee Vee Marie is a free spirit in every sense of the term. Not only is she an educated and well-spoken yoga teacher, she also teaches naked yoga. In this case, naked is not a metaphor for lack of inhibition (although that’s true too) it simply means no clothing whatsoever.
She’s lived in Toronto and Vancouver, and now spends copious amounts of time in San Francisco. We had to ask more about how she got to be oh so cool and what the heck happens in these “clothing optional” classes.
To quote the Sound of Music, “Let’s start from the very beginning.” Tell us about your yogic path.
I got started when I was fifteen and my mom bought me a yoga VHS. I got really into it, memorized it, and started to teach relaxation classes to my high school friends and even their parents. I guess I’ve always been a little precocious.
Even back when I was sixteen, I was really drawn to the culture of the 1960s and 70s - I dressed pretty hippie, owned a copy of Joy of Sex, was involved with women's rights and environmental activism, gobbled up Eastern philosophy and psychedelic culture, and taught myself meditation. This was unusual in my very small, white, mostly-Christian town in Eastern Ontario. My family was not at all into spirituality and consciousness-expansion, and there were no yoga studios (this was 1996!), but my mom supported my path, and kept buying me books and videos.
I continued to self-teach while I was in university studying sexuality, and then I met my teacher, Ananda Shakti. Taking her teacher training at Sananda in 2008 accelerated where I was going. It was a platform and a launching pad!
Launching all the way to naked yoga!
Naked yoga is an extension of a body-positive, pleasure-positive, sensuality-positive aspect of yoga that, to me, is often missing in contemporary yoga culture. Yoga is about connecting to our naturalness, to the body. Tantra teaches that yoga is not about abandoning the flesh as "maya" but realizing that the divine can be found in the nerve-ending-rich tissues of the flesh.
While clothing-free yoga is not about hooking up sexually, our skin is beautifully sensual and this sensuality is a huge part of our sexuality. By doing yoga without clothing, we balance our primal with our divinity, our sensuality with our spirituality. We get to shake up and release anything holding us back from loving ourselves fully – moles, warts, cellulite, fat and everything.
Do you do more contained poses, or can downward dog be naked?
It depends on the class. Many people are afraid to bend over and have their butt in someone's face. Even in clothed-yoga, this can be challenging! So, if the class is fairly new to social nudity, I do the class in a semi-circle, so there's nobody behind you. Then we can do all the forward folds we want. If I'm teaching at a nudist club, then we do all the spread-eagle poses.
In any setting, I tell students that if nervousness comes up, if arousal comes up, if self-consciousness comes up, if judgement about self or others comes up, these are all opportunities to go deeper into our self-awareness and self-acceptance. It's all yoga. So, yes, I do mostly the same postures as I could in a clothing-on class, inviting reflection and a more inward, eyes-closed experience of air-on-exposed-skin. It's truly magnificent, if you can surrender into it.
Do other types of yoga bore you after such an avant-garde class?
I also really love teaching relaxation-based, mindful, hatha yoga. I find much of the conventional yoga offerings in studios to be lacking in the mindfulness aspect of yoga. Everyone wants a yoga body. So, the movements can be very fast, and directed on perfecting asana or conditioning the body, but not on developing greater awareness and relaxation. So, I love students who are not necessarily interested in tantra, but who want to cultivate a more relaxed, mindful way of life. I love teaching them how to become more present, how to use awareness and acceptance to surrender into the moment, how to release and relax the body so more pleasure and bliss can flow.
Whether you want your pants on or off, Dee is there for you in person or via Skype, where she guides her students into alternate states of consciousness, with training in hypnotism.
Check out her Facebook page for more of the naked details.
