Bending, not breaking

KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Yoga acolytes Natasha Coss (from left), Keyra Wery, Nicole Gordon and Breena Flett.

When a little boy walked into Anastasia Sych-Yereniuk's office crying uncontrollably, the Strathcona School principal tried to calm him down.

Sych-Yereniuk asked the child to think about what his teacher taught him in class recently.

"I just reminded him, 'I know that Miss Adair was working hard to give you strategies of what to do when you're really upset.'"

The boy thought for a moment before telling the principal what might help him.

His idea? Yoga.

"He closed his eyes and started breathing deeply. He was really good about that," says Sych-Yereniuk, who holds back her tears as she recalls the situation.

After practising yoga breathing techniques for a few minutes, he became calm.

The young student had learned yoga in his classroom.

Every Tuesday, over several months, an instructor from Moksha Yoga came to the inner-city school -- located on McKenzie Street near Burrows Avenue -- to teach the kids the ancient mind-body activity.

The idea to bring yoga to the elementary school was the brainchild of Kim Adair, who teaches grades 1 and 2 at Strathcona. After years of taking yoga classes, she wondered how the activity could also benefit her students. A $1,200 grant from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority covered the cost of the program.

"I just know how yoga makes me feel myself. It can kind of just deflate you and give you something to focus on and the stress of the day is left behind," says Adair, noting that some of her charges have short attention spans and are "just really difficult to settle."

Many of the students at Strathcona School are impoverished and come to school with empty stomachs. Some have mothers who are single and are almost kids themselves.

"They might come to school with some different types of stresses," says Adair.

It just took a few sessions, she says, before the students eagerly awaited the opportunity to get into their yoga stances quickly, efficiently and silently.

"When they did the yoga they would all lie down," says Adair. "They were really quiet. They were so settled during that half an hour of yoga practice. It was really, really incredible."

There are a few small studies that prove that yoga can not only benefit their bodies, but also improve their behaviour and ability to learn. A paper published in a 2004 edition of the Journal of Attention Disorders found that boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were less hyperactive and impulsive after several yoga sessions.

Adair has noticed the same phenomenon in her students. The teacher had incorporated yoga into her students' academic curriculum; they learned about India, the birthplace of yoga. They even created art depicting their favourite yoga poses and used colours pulled from Indian fabric.

Just a few days before school ended for the summer, four grades 1 and 2 students contorted their bodies into their favourite yoga poses for a newspaper photographer.

Their yoga instructor, Paula Hahlweg, directs them through a series of stances including tree pose, warrior pose and butterfly pose. "Nice soft shoulders, please," says Hahlweg as she tweaks their positions.

The members of the all-girls class look like yoga pros, dressed in black leggings, brightly coloured tank tops and headbands. (Adair purchased the outfits for them.)

Breena Flett says later that she loves the tree pose best because trees "keep the whole world fresh and good." The animated Grade 2 student -- her bangs striped with purple hair dye -- waves her hands around while she describes exactly how yoga makes her feel. "It's really calm," she says. "It makes people real good; makes everybody calm. And you can have some fun."

Natasha Coss prefers the mountain pose.

The Grade 1 student says yoga is the ultimate way to regroup. "It calms me down whenever I'm mad at somebody."

Keyra Wery says she hadn't heard of yoga before but now loves it. Her friend Nicole Gordon, 6, prefers not to talk but rather demonstrate some of her favourite postures.

Her mom, Chandra Gordon, is proud of her daughter's yoga accomplishments. "She'll bend in funny ways that I was never able to," says Gordon, who watches the photo shoot from a distance. "She actually does the poses at home as she's sitting watching cartoons. I think more schools should offer this. I think it would be great for them."

That's Ryann Doucette's goal. The co-owner of Winnipeg's upscale Moksha Yoga -- with locations on Donald and Waverley streets -- says she wants to introduce yoga to more Winnipeg schools.

Doucette plans to raise money for a Winnipeg classroom yoga program through an ongoing charity drive at her studio as well as through her Aug. 7 event, Yoga in the Park, a giant yoga class happening at Assiniboine Park.

She maintains yoga is a creative alternative to conventional sports -- one that enhances body awareness, co-ordination, balance and flexibility.

"Kids who are good at basketball and volleyball in school tend to be physically active and get the health benefits of that," says Doucette. "But there are so many kids that don't thrive in or enjoy mainstream sports and there's not really alternatives for them. I think the more that there's alternatives to traditional sports, the more kids can all get involved in physical activity."

Have an interesting story idea you'd like Shamona to write about? Contact her at shamona.harnett@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 5, 2010 D1