Teaching Yoga To Refugees

Dear Yogis 

A dear yogi friend recently volunteered on the Greek Island of Chios to help with the refugees that land on their flimsy craft with their worthless life jackets and drenched clothes. After a couple of weeks my friend was asked to teach a beginners’ yoga class. Here’s what she said:

Oh my goodness I was so concerned beforehand and it went really well! We started by going through the language I was going to use with help of the Language Centre - body parts, stretch, extend, etc. I planned an animal theme to the class, found pictures of the different animals, projected them onto a white board and then I demonstrated the poses. I got 8 guys - no women unfortunately.

Then we went outside and more joined. I got a nice playlist and we did a flow. I got to a point where I thought they might have had enough but they wanted more so I improvised! One much older guy who walks with a crutch even joined in. They could nearly all do crow!

I ended with a long Savasana to a lovely track and talked them through a relaxation. They reckon I should train to be a teacher.

My friend and I have hatched a plan: to put on a fundraising class to send yoga mats to Chios. Ealing’s newly opened Decathlon has already agreed to host the class on Sunday December 15th, time TBA. We would need to collect donated mats and collect money to pay the postage. It would be a donation class, suggested donation £10. More details anon.

This date coincides nicely with an event of Kristina Karitinou Ireland – a Celebration of Derek´s Ireland’s life. He would have been 70 and Kristina has asked us to celebrate his life, his enduring example and inspiration on December 15th. Derek raised the level of teaching yoga and made the practice more accessible and widespread. What could be more of an example of this accessibility than teaching refugees to lift their spirits?

Home Studio

There’s a lot of space next week. Come for a stretch on Mondays and Tuesdays and give evening Ashtanga a go on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We can make it a Yin Ashtanga class (!) if the day has taken your energy! Book early. See attached for class availability. For those of you who have been coming for a while, please write a small review.

Training

I’m teaching Ashtanga at Virgin Chelsea tomorrow morning (Saturday 23rd) at 10.30-11.30, covering for Mark Colleano. Come along if you’re a member of Virgin.

By the way, my guru David Swenson is in the country at the moment and teaching in Triyoga Camden. Take a look at his workshops. He’s an incredibly inspirational teacher.

Yoga in the News

The Guardian has: He got away with it': how the founder of Bikram yoga built an empire on abuse. Netflix released a new documentary about Bikram which ‘ visually synthesizes decades of archival footage with first-person testimony and filmed court depositions into a devastating portrait of an abusive narcissist protected from consequences by his own inflated cult of personality, wealth and professional power within the niche world of hot yoga.’

Chiang Rai Times has: How Can Yoga and Meditation Change Your Brain? Paragraphs on how meditation changes the attention span, reduces anxiety, increases information processing, reduces pain signals, increases brain folds, and boosts the volume of grey matter.