Where the Community Flows: Yoga at Cohox
Every idea starts with a point of interest. Hopefully, that starting point takes you somewhere unexpected and real. In this case, a yoga class took me straight into the heart of Port Richmond.
Each Wednesday night a group of women show up at their local rec center for yoga.
“For us, we feel like it’s a necessity,” said Amanda Bossard who has led the class for 6 years. The group welcomes new faces and always expects to see familiar ones.
Flossie Haze, 68, a class participant for 15 years, has been going to the Cohocksink Recreation Center, better known as Cohox, since she was little.
“When I was a kid, I swam here,” Haze said. “I hung here as a teenager and I still hang here.” Cohox is a cultural anchor for generations of residents, offering swimming, sports, after school programs, chess, zumba and dance from Irish to hip hop.
Viola Toner, a regular in the yoga class for 2 years, comes for flexibility, exercise and help with her arthritis. Bossard responds to such individual needs with appropriate warm ups, breathing and poses. She believes leading this class has been life changing.
“[The class] allowed me to see that I wasn’t alone in those instincts I had, to be around people and adults in my community, and to do something for myself, that I was welcomed,” Bossard said.
Yoga at Cohox, Wednesdays 7:15PM – 8:15PM, 2889 Cedar St. For a full schedule of programs, visit www.phila.gov/findafacility