Are there certain yoga postures that are better for black people? Of course not! That would be racist. But on an emotional connection level there is a yogic form that may better resonate with blacks. (Please continue to read this. Even if you’re not black you’re bound to find it fascinating.)I always associated yoga with India, but according to Basu Asr Aunkh Aakhu, yoga actually had its beginnings in ancient Egypt with black people. Yoga master Aunkh has been practising kemetic yoga for the past 15 years and was in Bermuda for a few weeks giving foundation training to members of the Bermuda African Dance Company. The local charity, as part of its holistic healing arts programme, plans to offer the ancient Egyptian yogic form as soon as members are certified to do so.Latoya Bridgewater, spokesperson for the Bermuda African Dance Company, said the group is eager to offer Bermudians a chance to connect with and celebrate their African ancestry.“We have a programme, holistic arts healing, [which incorporates] African dance, kemetic yoga and Kiswahili language as a way to help heal our community,” she said. “Communities that are culturally grounded tend to be more productive and healthier than ones where the people are disconnected from their ancestral culture.”Ms Bridgewater first became aware of kemetic yoga when she lived in the US.“I am connected to an African study group that incorporate kemetic yoga in what they do,” she said. “However I wasn’t involved in that part of it, I only went to the book club sessions, but I did know that it existed.”Ms Bridgewater, who also owns the local natural foods store and bookshop It’s Only Natural, said she learned more about the practice when she was buying books for her bookstore.“That’s when I saw the history of where it was coming from,” she said.Interested in the form, she and her family would try the poses at home. Her young daughters completely enjoyed it, she said.Speaking with a longtime friend in Florida about what she was doing at home, Ms Bridgewater was put in contact with yoga master Aunkh. Eventually he agreed to come to Bermuda and provide instruction for the dance charity’s members.Kemetic yoga master Aunkh told Body & Soul the practice is over 5,000 years old and was commonplace in ancient Egypt.“If you go to the various temples in Egypt today you will see many of the postures that we are doing inscribed on walls. They are well documented,” he added.“Five thousand years ago the world looked very different and the interaction between nations was different. We have the impression that the world didn’t start until we got here but in fact these nations interacted and shared cultural practices the practices that we see in the yoga of today were also practised in ancient Egypt.”Such practices were developed in Egypt at a time when its population was black-African, he said.“Egypt, in terms of the population, now looks very Arabic, less African,” he said. “The people were dispersed, invasions occurred, many things happened and transpired that took away a lot of the original people and practices that were there and so we see them emerging in other places around the world, and being culturally developed in specific ways there.”Researched literature shows kemetic yoga pre-dating the hatha yoga of India. There is further showing that it was introduced to India by displaced Egyptians in ancient times.“You could say that a big branch, that of hatha yoga, developed in India,’” he said.Yoga master Aunkh said the pure kemetic trunk is no longer seen in Egypt because the people that practised it are not there anymore.So just how has the form managed to survive? He said it was revived around the time of the black power movement.“What’s happened in recent times is that there has been a revival of African history based on people, primarily in the West, who began to question their place in history because in the books we never found ourselves,” he said.“The only places we found ourselves were in chains and in ships and the bottom of the sea. The notion is that we had no place in history and we were lucky to have been enslaved so here we are.”This absence from history has created a disconnection so that blacks have “no sense of continuity as a people”, he added.“The devastation of that now, is that if we have to start our history and tell our children that we began as slaves, it almost pre-programmes them that they should not rise beyond certain levels in society,” he said.Researchers of black-African history attempting to close this gap discovered that blacks had made significant contributions to civilization. “And it turns out that we have made phenomenal contributions,” said kemetic yoga master Aunkh. “It means that we are phenomenal people, but now we have to do the work of reconstructing ourselves to find that phenomenal ancestral genius and replace that in the world today.“Our challenge now is to become the kind of people that we once were, people that can create vast civilisations,” he said.And for blacks, practising a yogic form that was created by their ancestors can imbue them with a confidence that is grounding, real and healthy.Kemetic yoga master Aunkh revealed that prior to following his yogic path his temperament was very different.“By birth I’m half-Bahamian, half-Jamaican. I would say that is a very interesting mix of blood because I am dealing with people who are hot-tempered in some ways,” he said.“In my early life I would have been considered someone who was short-tempered and hot-blooded, impatient, really quick to the draw, that was the bulk of my story until I got into Kemetic practice. I’m also an Aries, a fire sign, so that probably does not help the situation.“What I found with these sciences is that it completely transformed my personality. It has given me a new type of confidence that comes from a place of peace and not a place of arrogance or a sense of bravado.“In my life it has helped me to reconstruct or reconstitute the understanding of the ancestral genius that my forefathers had and how to apply that in my life today.”After just two weeks of classes with kemetic yoga master Aunkh, Ms Bridgewater said she has not only strengthened her abdominals, but she’s noticed an improvement in her temperament.“I love it. I absolutely love it. I feel like it has opened me up to so many challenges,” she said.Kemetic yoga master Aunkh is based in Miami, Florida. He said some forms have been practised in the US for about 30 years and are being practised in the Nubian areas of Egypt today as well as in small pockets in other African countries.“But it’s very small and very exclusive like martial arts on the African continent you don’t hear about it, it’s not put into that context, so it’s very obscure in that sense,” he said.Committed to helping the Bermuda African Dance Company in its efforts to offer this practice to Bermudians, kemetic yoga master Aunkh said he’s seen real determination in the charity’s members.“Once you get into yoga you understand it’s not about the physical ability, because that is going to come with time,” he said. “It’s about where we are spiritually and psychologically. Are you ready to embrace the path yoga offers? So I am impressed with people who are willing to endure some of the physical challenges because they know it will lead them to a place within themselves that is peaceful, that is harmonious, that is balanced within life.“And I think there is a lot of need for that in general in the world right now because of the whole construct that we are in, but it’s been really pleasing to see how it plays out in Bermuda.”For more information on kemetic yoga, Basu Asr Aunkh Aakhu recommends visiting www.egyptianyoga.com and www.yogaskills.com. For information on local classes contact the Bermudian African Dance Company on 595-4105.