They say yoga is a journey. It’s about the deep breathing and quiet meditation. It’s about the focused strength and body awareness. It’s about challenging yourself to work harder while carving out a little “me” time in each day.
In yogi Lee Sturdivant Carby’s case, it’s also about bringing a new, but centuries old, practice to modern-day Natchez and inspiring a new generation of yogis.
A Greenwood native, Lee is naturally athletic with soccer, track, basketball and cross country playing an active role in her high school years and dabbling with running after college. She took her first yoga class 10 years ago, but it took three more years for it to become her passion.
“At first, it was very new to me and just a different type of exercise to try,” said Lee, 34.
After marrying her husband, Hyde, in 2007 and moving to Birmingham, she started to attend more and more classes, amazed at all the fitness options a larger city had to offer.
“I started liking it much better than any other exercise I was doing. My joints felt better, I was loving the mental benefits of clearing my mind, and I certainly didn’t sweat as much as I did with heavy cardio,” she said.
In January of 2009, Lee moved to Hyde’s hometown of Natchez while expecting their first child. Throughout the next nine months, she continued to take yoga classes to help ease the aches and pains of pregnancy and stay in shape.
After her daughter Jane was born, she, like most new moms, quickly realized her schedule was not much of her own anymore.
“I will be the first to admit that I didn’t practice as much as I should have,” she said.
Naturally, it took time to get into the rhythm of life with an infant while still trying to keep a focus on fitness.
In March 2011, Lee decided to pursue yoga certification. She drove back and forth to Oxford for five intensive weekends of training at Southern Star Yoga, and, after a seven-day immersion, she became certified as a 200 RYT, meaning she completed 200 hours of study to become a registered yoga teacher.
She started teaching classes a few days a week in Natchez and even taught all the way up until two weeks before son Walker was born in May 2012.
“Walker has wonderful balance, and I like to think it’s because of all the yoga he did with me while he was in the womb,” she said.
Soon after the birth of Walker, the yoga studio where Lee was teaching closed. She took it upon herself to seek other options from teaching private lessons in her home to teaching adult classes on Tuesday nights at the Catholic church and even teaching 2- to 4-year-olds on Wednesday mornings at the daycare down the street.
“This really is something you can do at any age, from 2 to 92. With the kids, when we practice an animal pose, they have fun making the noise that the animal makes. We have fun with it. I hear people say all the time, ‘I can’t do yoga. I’m not flexible.’ I don’t buy that. There’s no way to improve your flexibility unless you practice it. And yoga is so much more than that,” she said.
“If you come to my class and just want to spend that time relaxing and sitting on your mat because you need the quiet time, that is completely fine with me. Yoga is about your own journey and doing something good for yourself and your body.”
Last Christmas, Lee decided that 2014 was going to be the year to dedicate time each and every day to do something good for her own body. In addition to teaching classes, she decided to make a yoga goal both personally and publically to make sure she spent time on her mat daily, specifically challenging herself with headstands, often called the “king” of yoga poses and one of the most difficult to achieve.
To hold herself accountable, she turned to social media by creating a public Instagram profile and joining in a worldwide trend among yogis.
“There’s a whole yoga community on Instagram, and they’re all very supportive,” she said. “They post a pose-a-day challenge, and anyone who wants to do it can take a picture of themselves trying the pose and hashtag it so it shows up whenever someone searches the hashtag. These people do their poses in front of the most interesting backgrounds from all around the world. It’s really pretty cool.”
By March she was posting publicly as part of the pose-a-day challenge, and she decided to incorporate a little bit of her proud Mississippi heritage for the world to see.
Lee’s family roots run deep in Natchez, and Lee’s children are ninth-generation Natchezians. Each spring, Lee dresses up in her very own hoop skirt and antebellum dress and participates in the annual Spring Pilgrimage with other family members, giving tours of the historic homes.
“I decided I would embrace it. When the tours would slow down, I would do some yoga in my hoop skirt. I thought it would be an amazing backdrop for my daily pose, as well as a free advertisement for Natchez and the Spring Pilgrimage. That’s how I came up with my Instagram name, @southernbelleyogi,” she said.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
The Pilgrimage posts gained some attention, and the Instagram followers on Lee’s public yoga profile started to grow. She now even serves as an ambassador for a yoga clothing line, hashtagging their name in her Instagram posts.
“Instagram is such a word-of-mouth community,” she said. “People will ask, ‘Where’d you get those leggings?’ or ‘What app do you use to take your pose pics?’ It just spreads.”
Social media has also helped spread a local awareness of yoga in Natchez, and now many of Lee’s friends are getting into yoga and posting their pose-a-day challenges.
“It’s so exciting for me to now share this interest with them, and I tell them all the time not to compare themselves and their progress with others. It’s important to be present and accept where you are in your journey,” she said.
Natchez resident Jenny Robinson, a friend of Lee’s and a fellow yogi, said Lee has really been an inspiration for others who might be interested in trying something new or rekindling the interest they once had in practicing yoga.
“I practiced years ago before my first child and then just recently picked it back up in March, but never before have I done all the crazy yoga poses and headstands I do now,” said Robinson. “Lee has really created a yoga vibe in Natchez in the spring through her $5 classes she’s held on the Bluff and private lessons for clients. She has a very fun spirit and brings that playful spirit to the Natchez community.”
Members of that Natchez yogi community now have a new yoga studio they can call home. Satya Yoga Wellness Center opened in August in downtown Natchez, and Lee is teaching classes three times a week and one Saturday a month.
While she says she’s content with where she is in her own yoga journey, Lee said there’s always room to grow.
“I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life, and even five minutes can rejuvenate you. Yoga strengthens muscles, improves flexibility and joint movement, prevents injuries, lowers cholesterol. I could go on and on. Every pose has its benefits,” she said.
One of the biggest benefits Lee identifies is breath control and movement.
“It’s really like learning to breathe again,” she said. “It’s the Southern thing for ladies to always suck in their stomachs, so we only breathe with our chests. You honestly forget how deep you can actually breathe when you do it the right way. It’s amazing.”
While the health benefits of yoga are too lengthy to list, there’s an added bonus to some of the headstand work on which Lee has been focusing this year: a fountain of youth.
“They say that headstands help with the blood and oxygen flow, so it’s supposed to help you look younger and reduce wrinkles,” she said.
Lee says that any time is the right time to start doing something good for your body, and she welcomes yogis of all levels with open arms, hoping to share her love of yoga and inspire others to do the same.
There’s a traditional gesture and saying in the yogi community, usually performed at the end of a class or session. Said with a slight bow and hands held together in a prayer pose, it translates to “I bow to you” and is a sign of mutual respect and admiration.
“I understand it to mean ‘the light in me sees and respects the light in you,’” said Lee.
And so to both the newbies and the longtime yogis alike, she simply says, “Namaste.”
STORY Elizabeth Grey
PHOTOGRAPHY Melanie Thortis
