One of California State University of Long Beach’s alumni, Bobby Wilson, has been teaching yoga for the past six years.
Originally, Wilson attended CSULB to major in recreation and leisure studies with an emphasis in tourism management, but somewhere along the way he found a passion for yoga.
“In college I started taking a lot of yoga, and I took a few classes at Cal State Long Beach’s recreation center,” Wilson said. “I ended up going on my first yoga retreat, and on the retreat the teacher kind of pushed me into doing the teaching program, and I’ve been teaching ever since.”
Wilson teaches at Ra Yoga Studio located at LBX near the airport, along with hosting his own classes at Los Altos park off North Bellflower Boulevard. Every Sunday at 10 am, Wilson holds an hour-long yoga class, and all are welcome. There is no sign up process, and there is no cost, but donations are appreciated. If interested, Wilson posts on his Instagram every Saturday whether or not the session will be held on that Sunday.
“I started that in the beginning of 2021 because I wasn’t at Ra yet, but I wanted to teach in person,” Wilson said. “I drove by this park, Los Altos park, and I thought it was perfect, so I’ve been teaching there almost every Sunday for about a year now.”
When people think about what a typical yoga class may entail, most describe it as a peaceful, spiritual, and calming energy. Wilson describes his classes as not the “typical” kind of yoga class, but a class that is “high energy” and focuses in on the physical challenge.
Throughout his classes, he blasts house music along with other forms of electronic dance music. He says that with the energy of the music, the movements everyone is doing, and the way the participants in the class get involved, the environment is high energy and fun.
“Yoga for me is more about the movement, so I don’t like to hold things for X amount of time,” Wilson said. “For me it’s a fitness class, so I’m here to give you a work out in a fun way, with yoga.
Wilson prefers in person yoga classes, but when COVID-19 hit, he decided to start posting yoga classes online. When he first created his Patreon, he posted a video everyday to be consistent with uploading content, but eventually it turned into once a week. Wilson is hoping to start online classes back up by April, for anyone interested.
Bobby Wilson welcomes everyone with open arms at his park or studio classes and hopes to see more CSULB students at his next classes.