Young Yogis OFF the Mat

by Allyson Levine

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As another semester of yoga instruction for young yogis (ages 5 to 20) comes to an end, I find myself reflecting on the impact this practice has on their lives. Though I have been teaching the same curriculum in many of the same schools (Colfax Elementary and Welby New Technology High School) for the last several years, this year the yoga seemed to seep out of the classroom in creative and exciting ways. To my delight, I have seen the students, teachers, and administrators take their yoga practice off the mat and into their lives.

At Colfax elementary, the K–5 grades had yoga once a week. Although the students always arrived at yoga class with mixed emotions, they always left with a greater calmness and openness to the rest of their day. Many of the girls would ask—really beg—for an additional practice with me so they could refine their poses. They often invited me to recess so we could work on handstands in the grass. To witness their shift from shyness and fear to inspired strength and ability was quite powerful.

At the end of the semester, I learned that some of the fourth-grade classes were challenged with disciplinary issues. Before the formal discussion to address these issues, several teachers and the principal gathered the students to collectively practice a few minutes of yoga visualization and breathing. It was incredible to watch Principal Martinez use the core aspects of the Yoga Ed curriculum to specifically address behavior issues. The impact of these exercises can be accurately summarized by one first-grade student, who commented that yoga was his favorite class “because you really get the chance to be quiet with your thoughts and connect to the inner parts of yourself.”

Meanwhile, the 24 Welby students who enrolled in the spring semester’s biweekly yoga elective, discovered greater connections with themselves and one another. Not only did they engage in the physical exercise of yoga, they also researched elements of the practice and presented their findings to the class; they created food logs to develop a greater awareness of their relationship with food; and they discussed yogic philosophy and the way it related to their lives.

Below are some of the things these students said about the relevance of their yoga practice in their lives:

“During this class, I learned how to manage my stress much better. I also learned how to get in tune with my body and see where I need to pay more attention. I practice it at home with my brothers.” —Chloe, 10th grade

“Ahimsa means to not harm yourself or others. I try to think of this when I get mad at someone, because when someone hurts me, I usually hurt them back. But ever since I’ve taken yoga, my mood has changed, and also my character as a person.” —Martin, 10th grade

“Satya means truthfulness to oneself and community. It means accepting myself for who I am and not lying to myself about being someone else…. In my middle school and early high school years, I wasn’t truthful to myself about who I really was. Now I’ve learned to accept me for me.” —Alyssa, 12th grade

“I think that when you study yourself in yoga, you start to understand yourself. You find out what makes you happy, what scares you, what excites you, what makes you feel amazing. One day I realized that when I ate very little, I got cranky. By paying attention, I realized I was hurting me, and I did everything I could to change the way I was.” —Claudia, 12th grade

“Yoga has really taught me how to relax. If your day isn’t going right, yoga can always help make you feel a little better. It has also taught me it takes quite a bit of strength to get into the poses…. I was really proud when I learned to do a handstand, and I feel like doing them has made me much stronger…. I also liked how everyone was so close and pushed one another to do poses.” —Sam, 12th grade.

With recognition that this practice is diverse, distinct, and powerful in the way it impacts each individual, I look forward to the next semester.

Allyson Levine
TWI Instructor

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A Semester in the Life of the Welby High School Yogis

by Allyson Levine

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Last semester the yoga program at Welby New Technology High School was transformative and inspiring. The group was eclectic in many ways and included a mixture of all ages (freshman through senior), body types (prepubescent to overweight) and energy levels (talkative showoffs to wallflowers.) As the students removed their shoes each day to find their seats on the mats, they also began to break down preconceived, and often self- imposed, limitations about themselves. The eighteen teens, 7 guys, 11 girls, completed the semester with expanded awareness of mind, body, and possibility.

Each class began as the students transformed a computer-filled classroom into a yoga space. Once everyone was seated we would start with some type of ‘check in’ activity, giving everyone a chance to express their feelings that day. More often than not, the majority of the comments would be negative complaints about how “bored”, “tired”, “angry”, or “stressed” they were. Sometimes they were given a chance to journal quietly about these feelings, or another specific topic. At first there was a hesitancy to write anything down, but once it became clear that journaling was a chance for them to clear their minds and explore the issues at hand, journaling became a requested activity. Class would typically close with another sharing circle. With almost disbelief, students would describe their ‘post practice’ feeling as, “better”, “calm”, “peaceful”, or “happy”.

The majority of most classes included an hour of intense physical practice, followed by at least ten minutes of rest pose. Partner poses were also a part of the curriculum and in some classes they had to work with everyone in the class, not just their friends. At first there was shock at the idea of working with other students, but eventually the complaints faded. Students would always comment on the heat and/or difficulty of the practice, and ask for more rest. As the semester went on however, students were asked to lead the class for a few moments, picking the poses they wanted to practice. Interestingly, they always opted for the challenging poses (splits, arm balances, backbends, and partner poses).

At the end of the semester each student had their favorite poses, and many reported using their yoga practice at home when they needed to calm down or use their time constructively. The last few weeks also became a celebration of how far the students had come individually. When given free time to practice choice poses there was cheering and encouragement for legs to go behind heads, bodies to balance upside down, and for everyone to go deeper than initially thought possible.

Allyson Levine
TWI Instructor

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Dirty Cafeteria Floors

by Tara MacKeigan

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Teaching Yoga to six graders could sound like a nightmare to some, but in fact it has been an inspiring experience. As a Yoga teacher for The Wellness Initiative I currently teach in two middle schools and one elementary school. I have worked with children of all ages before taking on this task but I was curious how deep breathing, being still, and stretching our bodies would land with a group of young people who are at their most awkward stage in life.

It did not take long for me to see that not only were sixth graders capable of being still and stretching themselves emotionally and physically, they actually love being able to do so. On my first day with one of my 6th grade classes, a student who could be described as “the black sheep” said to me as we finished the class, “Wow, I feel so calm.” I could see as he handed me his tightly rolled mat that he wasn’t joking and that this might actually be something that helps him throughout his whole life.

It isn’t only the kid who seems to be an outcast who is benefiting from the yoga. During my class called “To Focus” I was teaching the students the “Eagle Wisdom Pose”. This is a modified yoga pose from our Yoga Ed. curriculum. The pose has you intertwine the hands, and then the arms and then the legs. The curriculum says, “The physical position literally hooks up mental and emotional intelligence, so that like an eagle, one can clearly see the big picture from a higher perspective”. We talked about doing this pose when we feel angry or unable to see a situation clearly. One of the very likable “popular” kids rose his hand and said “What about football?” He explained that in football he uses his anger to make a tackle or a good play. I wasn’t able to give him an answer to what seemed to be the question, “is it okay to use your anger?” But it knocked my socks off to see a young man distinguish his emotions so clearly and vulnerably speak about them in front of his peers.

The students aren’t the only ones who are noticing new things about themselves. When a visiting soon-to-be teacher observed our class she commented, “It seems that the children who have the hardest time in their regular classroom are the ones that are the most engaged and successful in your yoga class.” As someone who remembers what it is like to find something that you are passionate about, It gives me hope that these students can use their success in yoga and bring it to the rest of their studies and ultimately the rest of their life.

It must also be mentioned that not all our moments in class go smoothly. For instance when I present a new yoga pose there is more giggling and laughing than a typical adult yoga class but in some ways, why not? As adults we take yoga to be calm which sometimes can translate into being serious. For my class who is balancing on one foot for the first time in tree pose, or pulling each of their legs towards their head in boat pose, this is an outrageous feeling and they express themselves accordingly. Usually when they try the pose again the laughing passes and as a group they quiet. The feeling in the room changes from a dirty floored cafeteria, to a place of peace. And then, it is my turn to say, “Wow, I feel so calm”.

Tara MacKeigan

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Yoga in Schools Stretches Students Bodies, Minds, and Hearts

by Jennifer J. Wieczorek

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As a dedicated yogi I know the benefits that keep me coming back to the mat. A partnership with Denver Public Health and The Wellness Initiative provided the opportunity to share the benefits of yoga at underserved schools in West Denver. Denver Public Health’s mission, “to promote, improve and protect the population’s health through disease prevention and health promotion activities, direct clinical care, and other health services” aligns with offering yoga programs in schools to increase physical activity, decrease stress, build community, encourage readiness to learn, and improve behavior. On a recent visit to KIPP Sunshine I had the pleasure of joining an after school yoga class. The students were captivated by their teacher, the yoga poses, and breathing techniques they were learning. TWI and their talented staff provide an opportunity for students to be present, honor themselves, share compassion, and take risks while strengthening their bodies. Although the students may not be aware they are expanding their minds and hearts at the same time, one visit is all it takes to witness the beneficial effects of yoga in schools.

Jennifer J. Wieczorek, MPH
Denver Public Health
Health Program Administrator

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Without this hour to find some quiet, there might not be another opportunity…

by Rebecca Yarmuth

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There are so many ways in which we over-book, over-whelm, over-schedule, over-nurture, over-indulge our kids. Living in a place like Boulder, it is easy to do. There are endless activities and options for kids, many of which begin after a full day of school and continue into the weekend. For those kids who are not booked with rock climbing and Nordic skiing classes, there are many who spend long days in a school building attending back-to-back classes, leaving to work or raise their young babies, coming up for air only for brief interludes. The pace we ask many of our kids to keep is frantic, but it is also the reality of our culture.

Yoga classes with TWI offer a perfect antidote to the frenzied pace of our kids’ lives, while still working within the overall structure of their world. It can be scheduled into the school day (thanks to schools adopting this as an important part of their curricula) or into their afternoon and weekend activity-marathon. But, even if it is one more thing in an already too-busy schedule, it is the one thing that can slow things down, get us to remember our breath (what is that!?), and re-center us so we can tackle (or decide not to tackle) all that lies ahead.

As a school administrator, I know how eager my students are to stop, quiet their minds, do a relaxation exercise, breathe. When I visited a TWI class at New Vista High School there was a palpable sense of urgency amongst the students to slow down, and the urgency seemed to stem from the fact that without this hour to find some quiet, there might not be another opportunity.

Wellness is about many things, but one of them is balance. TWI is offering this precious commodity to students who need it most—whether they need it because their lives are filled with privileged activities or the reality of being a teenage parent. In both cases, and all the cases in between, pausing to find one’s breath, check in, and practice yoga is where we should all be offering our support.

Rebecca Yarmuth, TWI Board Member &
Director of Admissions and Development at the Watershed School, Boulder

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We Should All Support The Wellness Initiative

by Eric Weissmann

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The outcomes produced by Colorado’s public educational system are disgraceful. Denver Public Schools only graduates about 50% of its students, and the rates for black and Latino students are even worse, 39% and 31%, respectively. Many of you know that education is one of my top policy priorities – I serve on the boards of three non-profit groups in the education arena. One of these is The Wellness Initiative – a Boulder-based group that provides yoga and nutrition instruction to lower, middle, and upper schools in Colorado (at-risk schools get it free, better-funded schools pay for the programs). I’m pretty sure that I am the only conservative involved with TWI.

Today, I visited a yoga class at the New America School in Lowry. This is a charter high school focused mainly on recent immigrants. They offer both day and night classes, and heavy English immersion instruction. The yoga class offered is on the curriculum as an alternative to P.E. The 5:40 P.M. class was attended by five young women and two young men, all between sixteen and nineteen, and all ‘of color’. This is a challenging environment – three of the students had children of their own.

The class began with a journaling session – Alison, the TWI instructor, gave the students a few minutes to journal thoughts on their similarities with their peers, and their distinctive qualities. Once the students understood the instructions, the room was quiet. This was the most focused group of high school kids I’ve ever seen. The students than shared some of their observations, and related them both to the unique yoga environment and their lives. Alison then led the class through 40 minutes of yoga poses, with reminders to stick with the mental side, like “focus on your exhale.” I did the yoga side by side with the students, and I can tell you this is no watered down “yoga for wimps” practice.

I spoke with one young man, Dontrell, who is not quite seventeen but looks twenty-four and is the father of a nine-month-old daughter. Dontrell said two things that stuck with me. First, he told me that through yoga, he has “learned to stay calm in stressful situations” and this used to be much harder for him. Also, he has learned delayed gratification – he is “willing to be poor and work hard now to be wealthy later”. How many sixteen-year-olds think that way?” How many, indeed. I’m confident that both Dontrell and his daughter will be well-served by these learnings.

What are my own thoughts from this experience? First, all of us should support The Wellness Initiative. Click here to make a contribution, or contact me if you want to be more involved. Second, we need to think very broadly about potential solutions in education. How many ‘education experts’ in Denver or Washington would come up with something like this on their own? Something that seems offbeat or wacky on the surface may have a real impact; the awesome creative power of the marketplace of ideas must be harnessed towards education. Third, we need comprehensive school choice – including schools both public and private – in Colorado now. The children of wealthy parents today enjoy a wide array of options for their education – both public and private – and the autonomy to decide which of these options best fits their child’s needs. Why shouldn’t Dontrell’s daughter – and the other two young children of the yoga students – have the same opportunity?

Eric Weissmann, TWI Board member

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