Featured Artist

Interview with Yirser Ra Hotep 

Artist:  Yirser Ra Hotep

Craft:  Kemetic Yoga

Those who have been blessed to cross paths with him view Yirser Ra Hotep’s ingenuity and commitment to heeding the call of his craft with the highest respect and admiration.  Master instructor of Kemetic Yoga and the creator of the YogaSkills Method, Yirser Ra Hotep has been an iconic inspiration to thousands of yogis and non-yogis alike all across the globe.  

He is the most senior instructor of Kemetic Yoga in the United States with over 30 years of experience practicing and teaching.  Yirser was involved with the original research and documentation of Kemetic Yoga along with master Instructor Dr. Asar Ha-pi in the 1970s.  

Yirser has written extensively, lectured and led workshops throughout the United States, Africa and the Caribbean, including Cuba. Yirser has been featured in publications such as Yoga Journal, Yoga Chicago, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Parent, African Business and Culture to name a few. He has also been interviewed and featured on WGN TV, ABC TV, NBC TV, CBS TV and has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

In 2004 Yirser was given an award by the Easter Seals organization for his work with helping children with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities through his YogaSkills for Kids program. This program has been replicated at Centers for New Horizons, Southwest Youth Collaborative, Chicago Urban League, One Hope United and numerous public and private schools throughout Chicago and other cities nationally and in Ghana.

Yirser has trained and certified over 100 Yoga instructors throughout the United States and has been recognized for his innovative Yoga Therapy programs for pre-school children, school age children and teens. Yirser holds a master’s degree in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago and has operated Groups Homes for abused and neglected youth, worked as an administrator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and operated youth mentoring programs.

We were so honored that our invitation to be interviewed was so warmly received and accommodated by the wonder that we know as Yirser.  Then, when the day arrived, like the man himself, the interview transpired as divinely as it was meant to leaving us enlightened and inspired.  Enjoy!

Amirah (Interviewer):  So when did you discover your craft?

Yirser:  I started going into holistic health for myself in general when I turned 21 and for that first year I started fasting.  I became a vegan.  I started exploring more holistic health type things, herbs, natural foods and stuff like that.  I became I guess you could say a fruitarian.  I didn’t know how to prepare vegetarian meals so I just ate fruit and nuts.  I would run and work out and stuff by myself.  At the time I was in college and I met someone who was doing yoga and she kept bugging me about going to yoga class.  So I eventually went to the yoga class then I started doing the yoga and I could see the potential of it being something really positive for my health and well-being, for my mental, emotional and spiritual development.  I could see the long-term benefit and that motivated me to want to continue to practice and stick to it.  So that’s when I was in my early twenties.

Amirah:  So you’re saying the holistic benefits is really what inspired you to continue?

Yirser:  You know the benefits in terms of longevity, health and wellness, emotional, cognitive and spiritual.  Those benefits that I could feel within myself are what motivated me.  It was something that could last for the rest of my life.

Amirah:  How would you say, overall, it’s impacted your life?

Yirser:  It’s helped me maintain my physical, spiritual and emotional stability.  It’s given me more spiritual insight.  It’s allowed me to create a business and a lifestyle where I can do most of the things that I like, like travel, teach and work with people.

Amirah:  How would you say it shapes who you are in terms of how you are perceived in general?

Yirser:  I think I shape myself and use yoga as a tool because yoga is just a practice.  It can be anything that you want to make it.  I already know who I am and what I want to do and where I want to go.  So yoga is just one of my tools in my toolbox of self-creation and its a big tool because it has all of these different aspects of it you know.  So you could say it’s like my primary tool.  In terms of how other people perceive me I don’t know how other people perceive me.  I’m always baffled how others perceive me one way or the other.  It’s whether they see me or other people in general like me in their stereotypical way.  I think people perceive that I’m always serious, I’m this way or that way, I don’t have troubles or bothers and nothing bothers me.   I’m a human being and I have to manage my self, my mind, my emotions, my behavior in the right way but I still live life.  I still am affected by my experiences and I don’t know anybody that does yoga, even Indian yoga masters who don’t experience emotions, feelings and things like that.  So its like a myth of what people think you have to be throughout the yoga industry.  They paint this fib about yoga people and I’m pretty much how I was on 39th street living in the projects.

Amirah:  What inspired you to take yoga to a whole other level after being introduced to it?  I think that in that way you did something extraordinary.  Something within you seems to have inspired you to really follow it through and research the depths of yoga and find the true meaning of it.

Yirser:  (Laughs)  I don’t know I think I’m kind of crazy, kind of obsessed.  Once I get obsessed with something I’m very consistent.  So once I decide I’m going to do something I do and I never give up.  Then came Kemetic yoga in terms of promoting it, discovering more information about it and spreading it.  For some reason I guess that’s my calling or my mission.  I decided that was my mission.  It’s something that I enjoy and that I wanted to do.  I’m very tenacious in my nature.  I put a lot of energy, thought and motivation into it because I see yoga as being very significant for the well-being of people in general and black people in particular that really need it.  I think just about all of my life I’ve been motivated to be engaged in some activity that’s gonna be beneficial to the liberation of humanity and black people in particular.  So I see yoga as being an aspect of that because I think that health and wellness is so fundamental to liberation and allowing people to become independent and free, being free of disease.  Not only being free of disease, but advancing wellness and living in a state of wellness.  All that it can do is empower you economically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, socially.  In just about every area you have to have wellness to be the full person that you need to be so that you can be liberated.  So for me it was all about liberation, being free, self-actualization.  I’m just sort of driven in that direction.

Amirah:  When did you realize that this was actually your life’s work and how did you overcome the challenges of sticking to it?  How did you push forward through all of that?

Yirser:  I don’t know, just being kind of obsessed I guess (laughs).  I guess the underlying thing is that I believe in spirit and I believe in my connection to spirit and my connection to my ancestors and I draw strength from that.  So no matter what the situation I’m in I try to maintain my focus on the big picture that it’s all about spirit.  It keeps me believing in myself because I know that my self is connected to spirit.  My ancestors are assisting me.  My ancestors and other spirits are working with me.  I believe I came here for a purpose and I have a very clear idea of what that purpose was through the different spiritual works that I’ve done such as meditation.  It’s just a knowingness that I have that I need to continue no matter the obstacles, just keep pushing.

Amirah:  So would you say that Kemetic yoga was one of the primary tools that helped you evolve spiritually and maintain that connection with the ancestors?

Yirser:  Well yeah.  The more I practice consistently and in the correct way it just helps me to maintain my focus.  I helps me to just be strong.  I feel more confident.  I feel more empowered.  I feel more of an inner knowing when I’m practicing.  So it is a tool that I use to motivate me.  When I go to a conference I use yoga as a way of focusing my energy to make things manifest.  So yeah I think that it is a tool.  It’s one of our primary tools.

Amirah:  Now I’m going to shift gears a little bit.  My organization is called the Life Arts Institute so I wanted to get your view on the premise that life is art.  What is your perspective on that?

Yirser:  Well I see it as…. life is not something that has specific rules or blueprint.  So it’s an art in the sense that it can be created and you have to be flexible and you have to be willing to accept the unknown and that there are so many things that you don’t know and be cool with that.  You have to be comfortable with not knowing.  You have to be comfortable with the uncertainty so as you move along you can create what needs to be created.  So everything that we do is of a self creation.  Even as we interact with the material world we have to make adjustments and adaptations by choices that we make that allow us to continue on our path.  So that’s the art of it.  The art is just adding to the wonderment.  Like wow this thing is so interesting instead of having the emotions of oh I’m angry about this or this is making me sad or this is making me disappointed.  Part of the art is doing away with those types of ideas and emotions so that we can just do what we gotta do and be who we want to be, who we must be.

Amirah:  Could you use one word to describe yourself as a life artist and what would that word be?

Yirser:  I don’t know.  The only word that comes to mind is breath.  It’s all in the breath you know.

Amirah:  Exactly.  I know it’s sometimes difficult to describe feelings, but could you describe what it feels like to do what you do as an artist?  What is the feeling that you get as a result of doing what you do for so many people and so many lives that you impact?

Yirser:  I guess a sense of satisfaction.  I feel good.  I feel warm.  I feel happy.  It makes me happy to know I have a positive impact on someone.  I enjoy the act of sharing.  The biggest impact is when I feel like people are really getting it and they can really feel it and they can benefit from what I’m doing, from what I’m sharing.

Amirah:  So being able to do something that’s so satisfying and at the same time so positively impacting so many lives most people would say you’re really lucky to be able to do that.  What advice do you have for other artists seeking to use their crafts to do what you do impacting the lives of others?

Yirser:  The first thing is that whatever it is that you want to share with people has to be something that you live.  It can’t just be well I want to do this.  I want to do that, I want to teach you or whatever.  It’s like you gotta be that which you are teaching.  That’s the main thing.  You gotta be that which you are expressing.  You have to be a representative of whatever truth you’re trying to represent.  You have to be a truthful representation of that in your own self and in your own life.

Amirah:  My last question… if you could complete this phrase…  “The beauty of life art is _______________________________.”

Yirser:  Becoming who you truly are.

Amirah:  Beautiful!  Thank you so much Yirser.  That was a beautiful interview.  Your share has certainly helped me too!

To learn more about Yirser Ra Hotep visit www.yogaskills.com.

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