Yoga on the Front Lines

No yoga studio required. Move the chairs and lay down the mats.

I'm teaching bunches of yoga in non-traditional yoga settings. My dissertation is on the effects of yoga on recovery from drugs and alcohol so I teach classes specifically for my research. However as soon as I got home from my teacher training I joined a yoga non profit that teaches yoga to people in my city who might not otherwise take a yoga class. I wanted to start teaching immediately while all my knowledge was fresh and my dissertation yoga class site was not quite ready for me. The yoga non profit was a great way to start teaching immediately to the kinds of populations I am trying to reach as a yoga teacher. It's was a win win.

I first discovered the joy of teaching yoga at my yoga teacher training. There was something so satisfying about seeing the students find peaceful rest at the end of the practice I had facilitated. I was hooked on teaching yoga. I often reflect that in some ways, teaching yoga is more satisfying than nursing. As an ER and ICU nurse I'm often tasked with performing difficult and unpleasant tasks with people for their later benefit. It is common for me to see patients only marginally better or not better at all. Teaching a yoga class pretty much always yields a positive effect in a very short amount of time. I feel very fortunate that I've found a way to combine yoga and nursing worlds.

Teaching yoga to folks in recovery from drugs and alcohol has been an especially rewarding experience. My first yoga class teaching people in recovery was a stark contrast to the yoga classes I had taken as a middle class white lady in nice studios with experienced yogis. For one, it was the first time I saw people wearing shoes on a yoga mat which would be a major faux pas in a regular yoga studio. The folks on these yoga mats didn't seem to care, which I found refreshing. In your typical yoga studio you may see a fancy water bottle or a special yoga towel next to a yogi's mat. Next to my students' mats were packs of cigarettes and neon colored drinks. When this group did not like the pose I offered or had enough they did not try and over exert themselves. Instead, they laid on their backs on the mat or just sat and watched. Noting that I had lost half my class to these overt signs of "too much, too fast" was my signal to scrap the class I had planned and go with the flow. So I ditched my original plan, threw out some floor postures and gained back the students who had given up. I even got some praise from a student after class.


Today I taught a yoga class at a psychiatric hospital on the drug detox unit. The group was comprised of about eight people and they did not have yoga experience. I pulled out my most beginner class and they stuck with it. At the end I watched them as they relaxed on their backs in Savasana. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was breathing. Afterwards several came up to me and told me how good they felt. One student exclaimed "I do like yoga, now I know!" Another remarked that know she could know what to expect if she were to visit a yoga studio. One of the students wanted to know how she could do yoga in a rural area without access to studios. I just happen to be an authority on online yoga and shared my information. Results like these are better than I ever had anticipated. There is something so special about bringing yoga to people in the throes of struggle, in bodies brittle and abused for so many years. I see them struggle with the most basic of stretches and I admire them and take joy that they are finally doing something healing.

Prior to teaching at the psychiatric facility we had to undergo an orientation. This particular facility had not previously offered yoga to their patients. They instructed us on proper attire, and not leaving behind any objects that could be used for self harm, like pens or earrings. On the positive side the administrators were hopeful that their patients could use the yoga as a coping mechanism when they leave the facility, which also happens to be the backbone of my dissertation research. The administrator explained that when they are making the patient's care plan for life outside the facility, they have to come up with realistic activities they can use to cope rather than their substance of choice. If they have never done yoga before then saying "I'll do a yoga class" is not a realistic plan. Now, if they attended the yoga class, it is a realistic plan. It's so cool to talk to people who have my exact ideas! Here's what I wrote in one of my proposals:

"Yoga studios exist in the community and one can take yoga classes online. By linking relatively accessible and affordable resources for patients from the drug rehabilitation center back into the community, greater rates of long-term recovery may be gained as individuals attempt to reintegrate into society."
 

Later that day I hit the road again visited my struggling  outpatient rehab facility to teach my weekly dissertation class. This was supposed to be the bread and butter site of my dissertation. Now, only a few weeks into my project, the site is closing due to operational issues. I do have a couple of dedicated students here though. I hold my classes after their weekly "continuing care" meeting which is basically an Alcoholics Anonymous type meeting. One student commented a couple weeks ago that she wasn't even going to come to the meeting but did show up "for the yoga". This was interesting because I had read an article in which researchers had discovered that yoga might be a tool to help with adherence to traditional 12 step programs. In fact, I had wrote this very sentence:  "Research performed by Tamhankar et al. (2015) suggested that the yoga program implemented influenced participants’ willingness to follow up with AA.

I have found great satisfaction in teaching yoga to people in recovery. It's also been neat to meet people who share my ideas. Last but not least it's great when everything finally starts to come together; when ideas take shape and form real actions and experiences. This journey has not been easy or straightforward but I wouldn't trade it for any other.