Newsletters

It's been a long time since we were able to put out a newsletter. We've been busy with many tasks; teaching yoga and offering wellness workshops chief amongst them. These go well. We learn every time we teach. We grow humbler with each breath.

We've also learned many limitations. When i started Street Yoga almost five years ago, it was only teaching and a tiny bit of admin. Late last year, i hit the wall with administrative tasks for Street Yoga. I couldn't hold down a full time job, teach, and run all the behind the scenes tasks of keeping a small non-profit afloat. No complaints; just observation.

Within this admission comes some mourning, for contacts i have not been able to follow-up on, for opportunities to teach we could not accept. Luckily, we have an amazing core group of people and we have begun adopting a new model of self-organization. We aren't quite run by committee yet, but we have a small number of us working in different areas, holding each other accountable, learning to get things done while staying healthy and enthused.

We're also looking into even more creative models for a small non-profit, ones that will radically shift us away from being solely dependent on the kindness of others, to being more directly within the streams of capital that flow all around us. We'll put out more about this in the coming months. It's a subtle shift, an addition to our vision, but one that i think will have positive impacts for other well-meaning groups trying to stay solvent.

A couple of training notes. We'll be offering a Street Yoga Teacher's Training in Portland, OR, May 11-13th. Please click here for more info. The Saturday and Sunday classes will be held at the Multnomah Athletic Center. The Friday class at a community site yet to be determined. If you are interested in this, please click here for details and an application form.

In June, two SY teachers (myself and Katie Arrants) will be offering a workshop at the National Health Care for the Homeless Conference in Washington, DC, entitled "Compassionate Communication for Homeless Care Providers". This will offer mindfulness and communication practices to help service providers avoid burnout and better connect with their homeless clients as well as their co-workers.

We started teaching this fall three classes weekly at the Donald E. Long juvenile detention center in Portland. In keeping with our observations about the circuit that many youth tread between foster care, homelessness, detention, home, transitional housing and around again, we felt this work was fundamental to our core mission of preventing youth homelessness.

Offering classes to a group of young men, Free Thomas has been able to create with them new insights, hope and joy. He wrote up a good piece on his work, which you can read by clicking here.

This work brings me great joy. I personally had the opportunity late last fall to teach yoga to a group of 9-12 year old boys who are in treatment to help them recover from severe abuse. I wish i could share with you the joy of that experience. Aside from the laughter every day, half of the boys were happy to report that they had gone home to teach their moms and sisters yoga, and the group decided to give up "game time" in favor of more yoga!

We're developing evidence based practices for helping young people heal from abusive pasts thorugh yoga, that can be replicated across multiple sites, finding ways to interweave yoga and other therapies for trauma recovery. We were planning this summer a curriculum on Yoga and Creative Expression, which we hope to run with a number of young girls who have studied yoga with us this year.

Look for us on the back of a Peace Cereal box. How fun is that!? More when we know more!

Some of you may have heard about our yoga card projects. We are encapsulating much of what we have learned over the years into series of yoga cards. They are focused on giving the youth a portable, compact, shareable yoga practice which they can do anywhere. So many of our students fall in love with yoga, so much so that they often teach their family members between classes. We want to honor that spirit by giving them tools to bring yoga not only more deeply into their own lives, but into the lives of their loved ones.

There are many great programs offering yoga to kids, but two come to mind today that we wanted to recognize for their great work.

Shakta Khalsa has built her Radiant Child yoga work into a delightful, joyful practice that is true to the heart of children everywhere.

It's Yoga Kids in San Francisco is working to bring yoga to as many children and families as possible and we appreciate deeply the support they have always offered Street Yoga.

And to Mara, good thoughts for feeling all the way better as soon as possible :-)

Finishing up in San Francisco, i wanted to share something from kidoakland that touched me today. He writes online, and notices life in a touching way. With this, i send blessings to you all, namaste, mark