Hour Detroit: Marketing student Adria Moses gets Warrior strong
A large window overlooks the grocery store floor, providing a bird’s-eye view of shoppers walking the aisles of Detroit’s Whole Foods. The phrases “Community Focused,” “Community First,” and “Community Proud” hang above the window. Adria Moses, tonight’s yoga instructor and a marketing student in the Mike Ilitch School of Business, is one of the first to arrive.
Moses is preparing the space where she holds classes every Tuesday, setting up her mat at the front of the room. She happily greets each student as they filter in, encouraging them to apply the essential oils that she’s placed upon a table at the entrance. One attendee — he first discovered the class when he spotted people leaving the store with yoga mats — asks Moses why she teaches for free. “Karma yoga,” she says with a smile.
By the time class starts at 6:30 p.m., there are seven students, enough to comfortably fill the small space. Starting in “child’s” pose, Moses leads everyone through breathing. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.
The lesson continues like this, focusing on breathing while moving through poses — cow, cat, downward dog, and, finally, warrior. The students hold the position, gazing over their left hand toward the window.
“We get uncomfortable and stop breathing. That’s what life has taught us,” Moses says, her soothing voice rising above the outside bustle. “Breathe here, warrior. You’re showing strength.”
This comment is especially striking coming from Moses, a warrior in her own right who, at only 24 years old, has had to fight more than most to be at the class she’s teaching today, let alone to be alive.
