Yoga studio will host meditation ‘flash mob’ on pier this weekend

Suzy Nece, owner of the Yoga Loft, and David Romero, an instructor, find a moment of peace at last year’s “Meditation Flash Mob.” Photo courtesy Suzy Nece

 

About a year ago, Suzy Nece noticed that she was attending more rallies and gatherings. She also noticed that almost all of them required driving somewhere.

Nece is the owner of the Yoga Loft, a yoga studio near the Manhattan Beach Pier. Like people across the country, she experienced an increased interest in activism following the election of President Donald Trump. Along with many fellow yogis, she attended the Women’s March in downtown Los Angeles, and then a protest against the administration’s “travel ban” at LAX a few weeks later.

She wanted to do something closer to home, and so began a meditation “flash mob” on the pier. Hundreds of people gathered to sit, meditate, take in a sound bath and clean the beach when it finished.

The event is back for its second go-round this weekend, kicking off on Sunday morning. As with last year, the yoga teacher in Nece looking for a way to bring people together in a time that felt increasingly divided.

“I think our aspirations aren’t so much political as they are about humanity. How can we come together toward something?” Nece said.

It’s not an easy balance to strike. Sue Torf, a Yoga Loft regular who is helping to organize the gathering, recalled that last year some people hurled obscenities at people sitting quietly on yoga mats, perceiving their silence to be an act of denigrating the president. Although Torf said none of the people participating in the rally engaged with the hecklers, she said the incident was emblematic of the stark partisanship in the country.

“It’s always a bit of a barrier when things are perceived as political when we need to come together. We just kept doing what we were doing,” she said.

Nece had originally planned for this year’s event to be organized around a basic theme of love, but last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla. made such a generalized sentiment feel lacking. In a nod to the 17 people who lost their lives there, the gathering will feature a 17-minute silent meditation.

Nece said that, as with the 2012 shootings in Sandy Hook, she felt different dropping off her daughter at school the next day. Her admittedly quixotic hope is that, by assembling peaceably and quietly, she can provide a model for positive change.

“It’s about having a reason to wake up and not just kick the TV,” she said.

The drive for action includes reaching out to local nonprofits. They include South Bay Cares, which focuses on issues including immigration and health care, and Kids In Need of Defense, a Los Angeles-based pro bono legal organization.

Connecting attendees with causes are one way that the event’s organizers plan to make something positive out of the bitter feelings that have surfaced since the election. Torf grew up in South Africa and participated in the movement there to end Apartheid. Her activism dwindled in intervening years but has been reawakened since the election. Though it has proved challenging at times, she doesn’t think it’s inevitable that this increased awareness has to be the end of the conversation.

“I’ve had friendships that are lost since the election; I think a lot of us have. With the political divide we have, it’s hard to talk about these things. Our hope is that this event can help heal some of that,” Torf said.

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