Meet Duduetsang Phele, the larger-than-life yoga instructor who is breaking beliefs that you have to be skinny to be fit.
Voluptuous and curvy, she is also a flexible figure skater.
Having studied at University of Johannesburg, she is now enthusiastically trying to change people’s mindsets around the discipline of pilates and yoga.
Phele said she had for six years tried to get people, especially black people, to understand that there is a need to balance one’s mind through healthy living.
“During my research with nutrition I discovered yoga but I also realised that yoga is considered to be for a specific race or class group. That made me love it even more because I wanted to break the mould,” said said.
Phele admits being fuller figured does sometimes cause people to drop their jaws because she doesn’t look like a typical yoga guru.
The 36 year-old said she fell in love with yoga particularly because it is “an all rounder”.
“It balances one’s mind. It’s not a religion. It’s simply about moving your body, getting fit, improving flexibility, gaining strength, relieving stress and, of course,
balancing your mind.”
Her own healthy journey started when she saw family members suffer from health-related illnesses – especially obesity.
“I grew up seeing my grandmother struggle a lot because she was a really large lady and she was having all these other ailments like high blood pressure and diabetes.
“I knew that all of this was because of a lack of activity,” she explained.
Phele added that becoming a figure skater happened by “mistake”.
“It started as a hobby but I didn’t know that I had this hidden talent for skating.
“It was kind of meant to be because even with figure skating in Mzansi, there are no black figure skaters at all,” she said.
That too was her way of trying to break the mould of what is socially acceptable.
Five things the yoga teacher tries to make her clients understand is that: “You can start at any age, sometimes you can fall off the wagon, you always have to start slow, stay positive and live a balanced life.”
By Nokuthula Zwane
zwanen@sundayworld.co.za
