Carlos Gomez
STACEY PAPE, STACEY ANNE PHOTOGRAPHY
Carlos Gomez, founder of Yoga Day, grew up surfing in his hometown of Acapulco, Mexico. When he was 26, an aerial maneuver landed him in the backwash, and his board violently crashed into his right leg. “My knee swelled to the size of a soccer ball,” Gomez says. The incident left him with a chronic injury that kept him from doing much of anything.
Two years later, he was working at a hotel in Acapulco, which happened to be hosting a yoga teacher training group. To be polite, Gomez agreed to try a few classes. He had never practiced yoga before and really didn’t expect much—he thought yoga was just something rich people did when they were bored, he says. He liked it, though, and continued attending class. After a few weeks, he noticed something shocking: His knee was healing—there was no more…