I recently offered a 5 week yoga course to Life Choices in Cape Town, which is an NGO started by the Salesian Institute. Now run independently they provide skills training to youth in areas such as coding, the solar industry and sales. They also offer various forms of counselling and health services to communities. If you have never visited South Africa it is difficult to grasp the constant challenges faced by the majority of South Africans. High levels of poverty, gang violence, crime, lack of basic services and health care plague many, many communities. There are also struggles with mental health issues and unemployment. Access to basic skills can be challenging so the work of organisations like Life Choices can and does change lives.
I offered managing directory, Mignon Hardie, the Dru Back Care programme as so many of us spend our days sitting and hunched over computers. The value of the course is that it is beneficial to everyone – sore backs or not! The sequences and postures are repeated over the 5 weeks, enabling students to memorise some of their favourite movements and hopefully one of the sequences. The favourite tend to be the Dru Earth Sequence for its calming and grounding effect. Slow breathing brings attention to to the breath and the students were quick to catch on to breathing low and slow. I also spent time explaining to the students how our breathing impulse responds to the level CO2 in our blood. So if we we breathe hard and fast we offload too much CO2 and so the body does not absorb enough Oxygen. (Known as the Bohr effect) See more on my post on the Control Pause.
it was wonderful to be able to give back to a group of students who are involved in giving to their community. It was an hour dedicated to themselves and switching off from the world outside and their own difficulties . For the 3rd session I enticed them outside into the Spring sunshine, which proved a hit, despite the noise of the traffic and squinted eyes from the sun! We did a 5th session outside and managed to get some great pics – see below. This shows a smaller group than usual as some were caught up in work. Overall about 14 students benefited from the experience .
it was incredibly rewarding to teach this lovely, responsive group and hopefully I’ll be back
