Dear Yogis,
- “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door”… (Coco Chanel)
For the past 60 years I have been doing yoga, teaching yoga, and teaching yoga teachers. I have written about, written the course and have been teaching YOGA FOR DISABILITY. This is a door for yoga teachers to move into a new community, a new income possibility, a new way of thinking.
I have for the past 15 years (together with my own studio and clients) been involved in teaching yoga in Drug Rehab Centres and in Centres catering to High-Needs clients – those who are neurologically, physical, emotionally, and spiritually compromised. Really High-Needs, not just athletes in wheel-chairs..
In the centres I work, it was said that yoga would not help them, but without exception, yoga has been magnificent and my students have grown. In Drug rehab centres the courts sent me my students. It was me or gaol, and once they got over the initial reluctance became “passionate” yogis. I taught up to 8 classes a week!
I have been asked many times to teach Yoga for Disability, and wonder if you would be interested in learning how to work with this community too. It is not an easy ask. Our life is full of physical movement and certainly full of mental movement. One common description of the mind is that it is like a drunken monkey, jumping from thought to thought continually – the most important thing we do is to help people slow down…. turn off.
The outpouring of happiness and a hunger for connection is palpable in the classes. The energy is high, the feeling for us all is one of gratitude. It seems we have a deep need, not only to see, but to feel, to touch with permission, and to smile with another from a foot away. Zoom is not the same.
I have learned that although the NDIS is pulling in its head and funds, there is another lower level of the service (proposed by the Government) that is going to be introduced for lesser disadvantaged individuals and families. This will be administered by and through schools, health services etc. This is another door for our Yoga for Disability to be introduced. Another way to be employed. Although controversial it will have to be passed as it saves the government $92m in NDIS contributions.
If you want to be employed in this sector, well, you will have to be properly trained, registered and insured – you will be working with professionals, and you have to be one too. You will also need to jump over a certain amount of red tape – an NDIS ID, even to join me as a spectator – once you have this potential employers will know that they have all your approvals – police checks etc. Took me an afternoon to achieve, some people take three months!!!
Since the NDIS was introduced many people who would have been ignored, or living in backwaters of communities (we had them in run-down buildings in our shire) have been coming out of the shadows. Everyone of them can benefit from directed movement – yoga – or as it is known by the NDIS INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION.
This is a professional course, not a quickie. You can’t do a quickie. I would be interested to hear from you – let me know you are interested in this new direction – and we will work out how it can be achieved.
May we live like the lotus, at home in the muddy water. The muddy water for me is technology. We need it to communicate but I know the tension it causes deep inside the body – this is where imbalance and disease can start.
F.Scott Fitzgerald said “The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.” – The Great Gatsby
YOGA CLASSES AND STUDIO TIMES….. CLASSES AS USUAL ON HOLIDAY MONDAY
ZOOM GITA : Monday evenings at 6.30pm
Windarring Yoga – Tues. 1pm a joint class – Kyneton and Gisborne combined. Surprising changes coming up.
STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Mon. 2.15, Wednesday Restorative 1pm
TAROT – Always available by appointment.
NEXT STUDIO TEACHER TRAINING Sunday 28th April at 2.30
THE YOGA LUNCHEON: Saturday 30th March, at “600 ABOVE” the new Wine Bar in Woodend, at 12noon. We have the “Pressed Tin Room” to ourselves. You are all welcome, but please let me know if you would like to join us if you haven’t emailed me already. yogafirst2@bigpond.com.
SEE YOU IN THE STUDIO
and – you can always make an appointment to see me at my studio gallery.