Dear Yogis,

Had an interesting last week.  As you know I have been teaching yoga for disability, however, whilst I see people wandering around Woodend in wheelies and walkers they seem unwilling to join the class.  I was talking to one of the Windarring team leaders in Castlemaine, and she made an interesting observation.  People didn’t know how yoga could help their community – they saw yoga on the TV and none of them could even think about doing what those people do.  Obviously the problem we are having is all about perception.

So we have changed the name of that arm of our yoga and called it (unless you can suggest better)  “SO FUN!” Yoga movement for strength and flexibility.  

I am having a new logo made highlighting wheelies and walkers. Amazingly The NDIS pays for walks, trips to the coffee shop, and fun.  It does not support yoga,  massage (unless you are a masseur with a university degree)  and other worthwhile therapies.  We are lumped under the heading INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION.

The first step is for parents and support workers to understand what we are doing… last week at my meeting team leaders, COO, CEO they were amazed that we used straps, weights, and taught strength, physical ability and flexibility.  The importance of branding was brought home hard and fast.  Take heed.

The photo is of children (not Windarring), and yes, they are doing yoga.  For them it was “SO FUN!”

 

CLASSES WOODEND.

Windarring Yoga –  Tues. 1pm .  (Tuesday AM in Gisborne starting in the new term).

STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Wednesday Restorative 1pm,  FRIDAY RESTORATIVE 10am 

DISABILITY YOGA CLASS (YOGA FOR WHEELIES AND WALKERS) in NORMA RICHARDSON hall, starting 10.30am 17th July  by donation. Next term.  All my disability classes with have an emphasis (after time) on meditation/sound therapy.

ZOOM DISABILITY YOGA TEACHER TRAINING. This week class 2 –  6.30 zoom class.

TAROT/PAST LIFE ADVISOR/counsellor – Always available by appointment.
I am updating the Etsy booklets relative to my decks (and my new RED deck).  I will let you know when this is done.

HOT STONES MASSAGE – Our Winter offering once the new hot stones arrive – THEY HAVE ARRIVED!.  Weekdays and weekends by appointment only.

NEXT STUDIO TEACHER TRAINING – The Sunday June 30th at 2.30

 

NAMASTE .  JAHNE

Dear Yogis,

Wednesday already and a hard, hard frost (but beautiful to look at!).  Thank goodness I have wood.

I did get some comments with regards to Mondays biblical reference to the war involving Gaza and Israel, thank you.  Now I am getting back to YOGA FOR DISABILITY.

Starting anything new requires effort, disappointment, realisations, and occasionally joy.  My students give me joy.  It took 10 years for Morgan to translate the bible into Welsh which kept the Welsh language alive and led to Nationhood.  Yoga for Disability (or a new look at anything), takes patience and discipline and often tears, but like Morgan,  one keeps going because of the larger picture.

I am trying to translate the yoga for people who have no way of appreciating it as the rest of us do. For the last few weeks at Widarring, a Student who is challenged mentally and physically, has started to come to yoga.  She communicates with screams and apparently screams until brought to yoga.  When we do “omming” she has the most wonderful smile, and although she doesn’t understand “omming” she copies my physical actions – I feel like the teacher of Helen Keller must have.  Whatever she is experiencing is bringing her back every week.  After every class I take time to acknowledge her effort.  I acknowledge her,  but do it at a distance, as she doesn’t know me well enough to trust me and allow me into her space. I am learning.

I would like to explain this journey in art, but have not yet discovered the language …..  yet, but which? Portraits, faces, bodies, body parts, paint, fabric? It would certainly explain me to me if nothing else.

Dear Mr. Shakespeare did you choose blackness for Othello to challenge the viewer or to explain the darker recesses of the human soul – or both.  At the time of Shakespeare the population had been trained to listen very carefully to what was being said from the pulpit – they bought this skill to the works of Shakespeare, which were “gunpowder”, challenging attitudes on every level.  Before our students can understand what we are doing, we have to discover a language they (and their carers, parents and support workers”)  can resonate to.  I think it begins (and maybe ends) with smiles and kindness.  Yoga and musical chairs, Yoga and Tina Turner, Yoga and Baba – whatever it takes.

If you want to join me on this (challenging) yoga journey, email me.  You may not get into this class, but I can waitlist you for the next one.  yogafirst2@bigpond.com

 

Windarring Yoga –  Tues. 1pm .  (Tuesday AM in Gisborne starting in the new term).

STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Wednesday Restorative 1pm,  FRIDAY RESTORATIVE 10am 

DISABILITY YOGA CLASS (YOGA FOR WHEELIES AND WALKERS) in NORMA RICHARDSON hall, starting 10.30am 17th July  by donation. Next term.  All my disability classes with have an emphasis (after time) on meditation/sound therapy.

ZOOM DISABILITY YOGA TEACHER TRAINING. This week class 2 –  6.30 zoom class.

TAROT/PAST LIFE ADVISOR/counsellor – Always available by appointment.
I am updating the Etsy booklets relative to my decks (and my new RED deck).  I will let you know when this is done.

HOT STONES MASSAGE – Our Winter offering once the new hot stones arrive – THEY HAVE ARRIVED!.  Weekdays and weekends by appointment only.

NEXT STUDIO TEACHER TRAINING – The last Sunday in June at 2.30

 

NAMASTE .  JAHNE

 

 

Dear Yogis,

What a busy time we are all living through – the pace is quickening.  I remember not so long back when I had time to do everything , and even clear up the leaves. But not now.  Maybe today is the day.

For all you readers/yogis who think the bible is irrelevant, think again. Reflecting on the world as it is especially relative to Israel and Gaza, think on this.  Hop back into the old testament and the book of 1 Samuel 15 which can be very difficult for us to read today – it is not easy I know and we are not theologians, but read it all the same.  I am told to read it four times to really understand it.  Twice in the Catholic Bible, once in the New English, and once in Hebrew!

Here is a snapshot of the issue.   Samuel was directed by God to appoint a new King over Israel, Why?  In Chapter 15 God directed Saul to annihilate the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid Israel as they came up out of Egypt.  But we have to go back even further as is often the case.  Amalek was the bastard grandson of Esau who would no doubt been reminded at every turn over Jacob’s cheating of Esau’s birthright.

In Dueteronomy are the words “Remember what Amalek has done to you…do not forget“.  According to Wikipedia, some Rabbinical interpretations etymologised Amalek as “people who lick (blood)”.  The feuding between the Amalekites and Israel is from the beginning, and is a recurring theme – even in this day in the form of HAMAS. Israel is obsessed with total victory and destruction of Hamas – a delusion?  The beginning of this  problem is when  God instructs Saul to attack the Amalekites and destroy EVERYTHING that is or belongs to them.  Saul doesn’t finish the job.  He keeps the best animals to use as a sacrifice to worship himself instead of God.

The core of the story is not actually about destruction, but a reminder that our hearts are important to God as stated in Luke 6:45 “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”.   For Saul, it was his disobedience and move toward idolising himself that God objected to.  Verse 7 reminds us that some people take pride in chariots, and some in horses but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.  Saul deviated from his Calling when he put himself above God, and this disobedience has whispered down the ages, even to today .  The “cure” is (as I see it”) is not in annihilation of a people, but in correcting the heart – loving our brothers as ourselves.

 

MY CORE BOOKS – “THE CAVE IN THE SNOW”.  I am reading it again…. about Tenzin Palmo who spent 12 yers alone in a cave.  A fabulous story about a wonderful life, not yet ended (she is now 80+ years old).  She is still writing, still living, still inspiring the world.

 

 

STUDIO HAPPENINGS  (STUDIO CLOSED FOR “SPRING” CLEANING 1st to 8th July)

Windarring Yoga –  Tues. 1pm .  (Tuesday AM in Gisborne starting in the new term).

STUDIO YOGA WOODEND: Monday Hatha 1pm (full) Wednesday Restorative 1pm,  FRIDAY RESTORATIVE 10am 

DISABILITY YOGA CLASS (YOGA FOR WHEELIES AND WALKERS) in NORMA RICHARDSON hall, starting 10.30am 17th July  by donation. Next term.  All my disability classes with have an emphasis (after time) on meditation/sound therapy.

DISABILITY YOGA TEACHER TRAINING. This week class 2 –  6.30 zoom class.

TAROT/PAST LIFE ADVISOR/counsellor – Always available by appointment.
I am updating the Etsy booklets relative to my decks (and my new RED deck).  I will let you know when this is done.

HOT STONES MASSAGE – Our Winter offering once the new hot stones arrive – THEY HAVE ARRIVED!.  Weekdays and weekends by appointment only.

NEXT STUDIO TEACHER TRAINING – The last Sunday in June at 2.30

 

NAMASTE .  JAHNE