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Outreach: New Directions Housing Corporation

Outreach: New Directions Housing Corporation

by | Apr 28, 2015 | Community, Life Experience, Uncategorized

What first drew me to 502 Power Yoga was the promise of community by co-owner Sarah Smith. Being of service to my community, be it local or global, is my driving force. Even greater is my desire to work with and for children. Since November, I have co-led the studio’s outreach classes at New Directions Housing Corporation’s after school programs.

The mission of 502 Power Yoga’s outreach program is to make yoga accessible to anyone throughout our Louisville community. The sessions with the children at New Directions give them an introduction to the yoga practice, and encourage them to work together in a community and to use their bodies and minds in a creative way. Most importantly, we have fun!

Each week we are greeted by a handful of smiling children rushing to grab their favorite color mat. Once they’ve got their mats down, it’s time to get moving. To get them in a flow, we start with Sun Salutations, and pretty soon everyone begs for a turn to be the teacher. They also try to show up their teachers by dropping back into wheel and then walking around the room. I don’t have to pretend that I’m impressed! After our flow, we move on to a variety of other activities. We may do a team building exercise that uses cooperation and have students reflect on the process. Once we did partner poses, and now the kids want to climb all over us each week. The kids also enjoy story time yoga, where they create their own poses while we read a story. We spend the final minutes of our time together in a guided meditation. Meditation is about as quiet as you would expect it to be with elementary age students, but the reflections on gratitude or happiness they share afterward are always thoughtful.

When I first started with these kids, many thought yoga was simply closing their eyes in Lotus or Tree and humming, but over the past few months they’ve been introduced to a practice where they can move, create, and have fun. From my experience, I have learned that yoga is a vehicle for patience, communication, laughter, and community. Even if the students are still working to remember what namaste means, I feel powerfully the connection that our 502 Power Yoga community has with the greater Louisville community in this outreach program.

 

 

Written By Laura Olinger

Life After Yoga Teacher Training

Life After Yoga Teacher Training

by | Apr 13, 2015 | Life Experience, Teacher Training, Uncategorized

After a week-long immersion at 502PY for the second week of Teacher Training (TT), the transition back to the “real” world has been a slow and interesting one.  Our last day was March 28th, and it is strange to not feel the intense connection with everyone I interact with in my daily life like I did in TT. This has opened my eyes to seeing something I didn’t know I was missing.
I spend a lot of my day talking with my co-workers, responding to work related emails, answering questions on the phone, etc. but I don’t know that I would consider those interactions.  Interaction–it is such a meaningful word; I would say most of my interactions are words that fill the space. Those times where my words make an impact, cause an effect, I feel those. I wish I could say they always made a positive impact, but I have seen the way my interactions can knock the wind out of someone.
In TT, we were so immersed in life-changing transitions and deep self-work that we did not have a lot of simple conversations, we had interactions. I was seen when I spoke and I was heard. I was understood and intentional; purposeful, powerful words were spoken back to me by both my peers and leaders.
I have been in touch with my fellow graduates and there seems to be a common string in a lot of our reentries to our “normal” lives – there is a feeling of being a fish out of water. Of feeling inauthentic. Of being called to something else. And maybe that is because some are ready to take this new training into a full-time career, but I think a lot of it comes from being reintroduced to constant empty conversations and few meaningful interactions.
What would happen if we were all more intentional about what filled the space around us, what entered our minds and our hearts, what we put out into the world? Maybe we would see more eyes light up. Maybe more people would feel heard and understood.  Maybe more people could be hurt by words that cut you to the bone. Maybe we would all feel just a little bit more. And in a world as far removed from personal interactions as ours, that could start a revolution.

The transition back to the real world has been slow, but the change it has created is lasting. I’m looking forward to using the connections I made in TT throughout my every day, and interacting with the people around me intentionally.

502 Power Yoga Teacher Training

 

Written by Becca Washer