L.A. Woman - Meet Jillian Modes

My favorite yoga teacher talks Pride and Transcendence

I was wrapping up a writers’ residency in Iceland, scheduled to move to Los Angeles in a few days, and I wanted to sign up for a yoga studio in my new neighborhood. I have practiced yoga since 1998 and wanted to jump back into it after three weeks of overseas travel. I remember having coffee at the Héraðsskólinn, located near the Laugarvatn hot springs and walking distance from where I was staying. After perusing Los Angeles yoga studios online, I found Veda Yoga Center. One week later, I found Jillian Modes. 

It’s funny how small moments, something as mundane as having coffee and surfing the Internet somewhere far away from what will become home, can crescendo into meaningful experiences. I vividly remember that cloudy late July day in rural Laugarvatn, the coziness of the Héraðsskólinn, and how far Los Angeles seemed at the time, my new life only days ahead of me. A plane ticket was about to change everything. All that sunshine! Palm trees! I hadn’t seen a taco truck or a yoga studio in weeks.

Jill and I didn’t know it at the time but our connection through Veda Yoga would become the beginning of my L.A. life, so it only seems appropriate to invite Jill to be my first L.A. Woman profile, an ongoing series I am introducing to share with all of you the amazing things real L.A. women age 50 and up are doing here on the ground in the City of Angels, the kind of activism, outreach and creativity that doesn’t always get the red carpet attention it deserves. Throughout this series, I will also ask these L.A. women which nonprofits and advocacy groups they wish to spotlight.

In honor of Pride Month, I wanted to hand the L.A. Woman microphone to Jill. She brings tremendous compassion and humor to her yoga classes—it’s refreshing to take downward dog less seriously because the instructor says “downward diggity dog” or has us sing along to “Tiny Dancer” before shavasana. Jill is a healer in every way, and her classes are often elbow to elbow because Jill has fans and the floor fills up. She would tell you as she has told me “It’s the yoga.” And, it is. And, it’s also Jill, a true L.A. Woman. We recently spoke at the yoga studio. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. The video is by @xtina_tedesco.

Me: What brought you to Los Angeles?

Jill: I was born here. I was raised here. We’re in Culver City right now. I have pretty deep roots here. My mom went to Hamilton High School. My dad went to Fairfax High School. L.A. is a place that you can get anything anytime, good, bad or indifferent. If you're looking for paradise, it's here. If you're looking for misery, it's here. 

Me: What brought you to yoga?

Jill: What brought me to yoga is addiction. Nine years ago, I was homeless, a sex worker addicted to methamphetamine and and just wanted to die and had been in jail. And as a trans woman, I spent 37 days at Men's Central Jail. In 2015, I went to treatment and landed at a treatment center, sober living, which is on the next block from the studio. In 2017, I became a yoga teacher at 50 years old. I'll do the math for you. I'll be 57 this year. So, I will have been teaching for seven years. I have a personal belief that wellness, your individual wellness cannot exist without community wellness, and that community wellness must be extended to the most marginalized and disenfranchised in our communities. And that includes transgender people, that includes queer people, that includes people who are struggling with addiction and homelessness and all of these things. Not so much as yoga is the cure, but rather collective care, community care is, it's a big part of my wellness.

Me: What surprises you about middle age?

Jill: Thank you for saying middle age at 56 years old. I quite honestly don't think of myself as middle aged. I think labels are very interesting in that I came into this world, I was given a gender, I was given a name. I was described, labeled as this kind of a baby. Then you're ushered off to school and I was this type of a student. I played sports. And the only way I knew myself was by how you saw me. It wasn't until I found yoga or rather yoga found me that I had an opportunity to look inward and ask, who am I? And it transcends—no pun intended—labels. I grew up with the privilege of being white and male, which definitely were privileges. And it wasn't until I became marginalized that I even had any understanding as to the experience of marginalized people, like women, queer people, people of color. It runs deep.

Me: What’s your ultimate L.A. experience?

Jill: I taught yoga at the beach. It was beautiful, it was at the Venice Pride lifeguard tower. There's a lifeguard tower that's painted in Pride colors. That's pretty quintessential L.A., teaching yoga on the beach at sunset on the most beautiful day with the most beautiful people inside and out. I'm able to see and celebrate it with other queer people, what it means to me. One of my favorite bands growing up was The Doors. And The Doors lived in Venice. My ex-wife was born on the Venice Canals. And “L.A. Woman,” that song was always a favorite of mine, and I would have never dreamed—being a nice Jewish boy from the Valley—I could have never dreamed that I am an L.A. woman living the life I live today, which is absolutely amazing.

Me: I love that. How do you think L.A. treats women? You were talking about marginalized communities earlier, and you've had this experience of transition so you've gotten to experience different perspectives others haven't.

Jill: L.A. treats women very poorly. It chews them up and spits them out. Sex appeal sells, the cult of youth, diet culture, rape culture. There's a number of systemic problems that don't address women's needs. I believe it’s the country as a whole. Silence is violence in that as citizens, we still have a powerful tool, several. One is our right to vote at a ballot box. Second is our right to vote with how we spend our money and supporting small and local businesses, especially minority-owned, women-owned, queer-owned. These are powerful ways that folks can be allies. It's so much needed today. Trans kids need to be protected at all costs. The Los Angeles LGBT Center does amazing work from an advocacy standpoint and they provide medical services to the community in addition to providing health care to trans folks, which is a unique experience itself. And Veda Yoga Center is also a nonprofit.

Me: What’s your favorite yoga pose and why?

Jill: My favorite pose is bakasana/Crow Pose. It is an arm balance that at first seems to completely defy the laws of physics. For me, it's about learning the technique and then practicing it and realizing that the biggest impediment can often be self-limiting beliefs.