Working Through Fear of Faith: Hypothesis #1

I planned my personal experiment with a typical beginning, middle and end. However, the experiment took a quick left turn and ended up going down a much different path than expected. As this paper will describe, I found the end result was exactly what I needed.

Over the last couple months of soaking up a lot of new information, I continually found myself questioning some of these new theories. How was I to be sure that what I was learning wasn’t a lot of ethereal nonsense? I was surprised by my skepticism, but it was unrelenting. So when presented with the opportunity to do a personal experiment, I decided to research some of the yoga and Ayurveda claims. I hypothesized that by arming myself with enough data I could then clearly delineate what is factual and what requires a leap of faith, thus preparing me to become a true yogi.

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Working Through Fear of Faith: Research Findings

I spent the first two days researching the internet to find data that would substantiate some of the claims and methods I’d been learning about. Here is a sampling of what I found:

Question: How does yoga heal on an anatomical level?

Answer:  Certain yoga poses stretch muscles that from animal studies are known to stimulate the lymph system. Lymph is known as the body’s dirty dishwater. The lymphatic system carries infection-fighting white blood cells and waste products of cellular activity. Yoga asana promotes the draining of the lymph.

Also, yoga asana has been shown to affect the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems by initiating a process that turns the fight-or-flight system (sympathetic) off and the relaxation response (parasympathetic) on. This causes the heartbeat to slow and respiration and blood pressure to decrease.

Question: Does pranayama have any physical effects on the body aside from calming the nervous system?

Answer: One study showed that yoga breathing through a particular nostril, or through alternate nostrils increases hand grip strength. The practice of mudras and simple breath awareness showed no change in grip strength.

Pranayama also helped prevent free radical damage in coronary artery disease patients.

Question: Can mediation replace other medical therapies yielding similar benefits?

Answer: In a study of chronic pain patients, 10 weeks of meditation practice resulted in statistically significant reductions of present-moment pain, negative body image, inhibition of activity by pain, symptoms, mood disturbance, and anxiety and depression. The use of drugs for pain decreased and activity levels and feelings of self-esteem increased.

Question: Is honey toxic when cooked?

Answer:  Most information found on this subject said no. However, according to one source (credibility not confirmed) “cooking honey is toxic from chemical changes that occur during cooking to create cancer causing chemicals as well as accumulates free radical heavy metals into your body.”

I found this information to be interesting but also rather random and incomplete. The conclusion I came to after these two days was two-fold. First, there are far too many questions and too much data to try and process in just a couple weeks. This should be a life-long study as my interests take shape and unfold in new areas. Second, I have a fear of faith. And this is where my experiment took its turn.

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Working Through Fear of Faith: Hypothesis #2

I started this program with some concrete beliefs that I’ve long held and was searching for a system to fit these beliefs into. But once I started to learn so much I lost track and started doing the reverse. I began taking outside beliefs and trying to find proof to help me have faith in them. I decided it was time to let go of my fear of faith and simply listen to what the Divine inside of me is saying. I therefore changed my experiment to focus on the application of what I’ve learned in this training program. My new hypothesis was that by focusing on what I do believe, rather than what I don’t believe, I can find deeper faith and peace than I can by searching for proof. My method for testing this hypothesis was to begin a practice that I will carry out beyond graduation from yoga teacher training. In essence, stop learning about being a yogi and start living like one. 

I began by writing out my core beliefs. This provided me with a foundation to build upon. I then designed a daily routine. This included my waking time, prayer, asana, pranayama, meditation, self-care and continued study of yoga texts.  For my meditation practice, I contacted Santosh for a recommendation on a mantra (he gave me Om Gum Ganapataye Namah) and purchased a mala of 108 beads to help keep me focused. I also set an intention to be present; to actively stop dwelling on anything past and not striving incessantly for the future. I let go of any expectations that I will adopt these changes perfectly at the start. I have been forgiving and kind toward myself, knowing that my practice will ripen over time. Finally, I created a schedule of yoga classes that I will attend once I’m no longer learning from Axis.

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Working Through Fear of Faith: Conclusion

Over the course of this experiment I have found spiritual growth in setting a routine. When I first approached this idea from our Ayurveda section, I expected to feel physical benefits. I can’t say I feel any better or worse but it has given me a way to actually practice my spirituality. And this is what I was missing. I had my core beliefs but very little context for them. Now I have a way to express and deepen my faith on a daily basis. I have also enjoyed the process of refining my yoga practice with each new experience. For example, experimenting with the order of my sadhana and finding what works best for me. As well as realizing that visual meditations aren’t as helpful to me as using a mantra. This process makes me feel as though my practice is my own and I’m not just following someone else’s directions. This is how I know I am working through my fear of faith, because originally I wanted someone to hand me a complete set of instructions for how to be a good yogi and why it’s all worth it. Now I have grown to listen to the teachings from my own heart instead.

Setting an intention each day to be present and live consciously has also been powerful. I made this attitudinal change years ago but combining it with my other practices gives it additional strength. It has been especially helpful in this vata season to help keep me grounded. Rather than darting from one task to another, always with an eye one what’s next, I’ve worked on appreciating the moment. I’ve begun to decline invitations in order to keep space in my schedule for me to just relax and stay caught up. While part of me regrets missing out on those activities, I appreciate the calm I am able to maintain.

I certainly haven’t been perfect. Some nights I stayed up too late and had to miss some of my morning routine to catch up on sleep. Some days I ate poorly and felt the ill effects. Over the Thanksgiving break I caught a cold while travelling and completely fell off my schedule with that double whammy.  However, having given myself forgiveness and kindness during this process, I finish feeling successful and excited about this continued lifestyle. Including a post-teacher training schedule and continued study into my methodology for this experiment gives me confidence that I will transition smoothly into the next chapter of my life as a yogi.

I can’t even count the number of times during this teacher training that I was told “your own personal experience will be your best teacher.” Now I can fully agree that this is true. As I had hypothesized (the second time anyway), I have re-connected with my faith by focusing on my core beliefs rather than on the unknown and the uncertain. And is this not the definition of faith itself?

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Student Brings Yoga to the Classroom

As part of Denver-based Axis Yoga teacher training program, students are asked to implement the what they are learning  into their daily lives. Ashley, a recent graduate of the program, works at a public school in Denver  helping third graders improve their reading. She is confronted with the fact that many of the students she works with are emerging readers “behind schedule” as defined by the public school system. Ashely explores the question of how yoga can be used to support literacy and reading in the Denver Public School system.

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Bringing Yoga to the Classroom: Introduction

Each afternoon for the last hour and a half of the school day, I work on reading with third graders. By this time of the day, the students and their teacher are worn out and a frenetic buzz drives students to throw paper, write each other nasty notes, and engage other forms of crazy-making. The teacher’s frustration is apparent: her face flushed, she calls her students back to their meeting-place, the carpet, in an effort to recall their attention to the task of independent reading and station rotations. I witness this daily routine and mull over what I’ve learned and noticed about children and education since I began working in an elementary school several months ago.

Children’s brains are not prepared to focus on reading for sustained periods of time – not without support anyway. Children need a lot of support to develop the skills necessary to read. Certainly, this is the presumed role of the educational institution: to provide support. In the Denver Public School (DPS) where I work, literacy instruction accounts for about 80% of the school day. In addition to the classroom time dedicated to literacy, many students are pulled periodically throughout the day for literacy intervention programs. With such heavy emphasis on literacy, I was shocked to meet students in the third and fourth grades who are still working as “emergent” readers.

One wall in the room where I lead intervention groups is dedicated to tracking the literacy scores, goals, intervention programs, and development of each student that attends the school. The wall is a graphic representation of the cultural value we assign to reading, it is divided into three sections and progresses from left to right: Unsatisfactory on the far left, Partially Proficient in the middle, and Proficient on the right. Each student has a card somewhere on the wall. The left side of the wall is rather cluttered. With such a sturdy support system in place I wonder how so many students fall off or become stranded on the scaffolding that has been built to help them achieve academic excellence. I suspect there must be something more fundamental in a child’s education than literacy.

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Bringing Yoga to the Classroom: Public School Philosophy

In his March 18, 2010 message to the DPS community, Superintendent Tom Boasberg says:

“We are failing the civil rights challenge of our generation: to ensure that all of our students, regardless of ethnicity or income status, graduate from our high schools prepared for college or career. Now is time to accelerate our reforms, to sharpen the focus on student achievement, and to get all of our children—in every neighborhood of Denver—on track to walk across the commencement stage armed with everything they need to forge a great future for themselves.”

(“Letter From the Superintendent”, Denver Public Schools 2010 Denver Plan: Strategic Vision and Action Plan, 3)

Superintendent Tom Boasberg simultaneously underscores and marginalizes the factors I believe are more fundamental than literacy instruction in a child’s development: Boasberg states, “regardless of ethnicity or income status,” the role of DPS is to ensure student success beyond school – he affirms the need to provide each child “in every neighborhood of Denver … with everything they need to forge a great future for themselves.” So, while Boasberg acknowledges a civil rights challenge in which ethnicity, income status, and living condition – neighborhoods – play leading roles, he proposes that education can transcend these factors. Boasberg’s use of the word “regardless” produces a particularly frightening spin on his message: without paying attention to the present circumstances (ethnicity, income status, neighborhood) DPS schools will ensure that all students are prepared for college or career (“regardless” Dictionary. Version 1.0.2. Apple Computer, Inc. 2005). These are pretty hefty words to carry into a classroom where ethnicity, income status, and the neighborhood environment are overwhelming factors in a student’s success.

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Bringing Yoga to the Classroom: Present Circumstances

It is absolutely necessary to pay attention to the present circumstances of students. Boasberg’s proposal calls attention to the inherent difficulty embedded in his words and within the school system. Boasberg and the Denver Public Schools 2010 Denver Plan: Strategic Vision and Action Plan address the concerns of the individual student, but my experience demands that I wonder what this concern looks like in a classroom. DPS is moving in this direction: one strategy of the DPS’s “instructional core” is to “provide coordinated and comprehensive support systems for the whole child” (22). The 2010 Denver Plan document states: “Each student comes to school with unique circumstances, strengths, and needs. We will create support systems for all aspects of our learners, including their health and physical and emotional needs, as well as academic needs to give them the best opportunities for success.” How does and how can this strategy move from the conceptual to the actual? I can only address this question from my limited experience at the school where I currently work: the majority of students do not receive specialized attention. Students who are deemed “unsatisfactory” or “partially proficient” are given individual educational plans. Special education candidates may visit a speech therapist, occupational therapist, or physical therapist.

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Bringing Yoga to the Classroom: The Whole Child

Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs and even kindergarten are not required by DPS. This is especially true of populations at the fringe of the dominant culture – ethnicity, income, and neighborhoods are factors that impact the “whole child” before they enter the school building for the first time, and each day thereafter. Many students attend school for the first time in first grade. First grade students and teachers march through the school year with an eye to meeting standards. I venture that these standards assume a healthy first grade student. Teachers are then confronted with the daunting task of meeting district and national education standards that don’t address the reality of the students they teach. Given the additional factors of high student-to-teacher ratios and the bureaucratic responsibilities of each teacher, how could teachers possibly support every aspect of their students’ health, physical, emotional, and academic needs? Many individual teachers incorporate movement into the classroom, and more structured programs like Brain Gym (braingym.org) are widely embraced as teaching strategies. I believe yoga can provide educators and students with additional tools to begin to address the “whole child.”

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Overview of Yoga Classes for Kids in Denver

Several Denver-based yoga studios and groups offer classes specifically for children and/or adolescents: Between the Bones, a movement and dance group operating at the Sixth Avenue Church of Christ, offers Storytime Yoga, Girl Power Yoga, and Peaceful Warrior Yoga; Yoga For the People matches volunteer instructors with nonprofits who help at-risk youth; Yoga for Young Warriors offers classes in several Denver locations; Karma Yoga Center offers Kids Yoga several times a week; Vital Yoga offers a Vital Kids class in Cherry Creek.

Several studios offer a parent-and-child styled class (“Mommy and Me” or “Daddy and Me”). A simple Google search reveals classes at Belly Bliss, Pearl Street Yoga, and Spiral Yoga.

Additionally, Yoga Teacher Trainings designed to address children are becoming more and more available – in Denver, Prana Yoga and Ayurveda Mandala will offer an introduction to children’s yoga on January 21, 2011 and beginning February 3, 2011, will offer “Denver’s First Comprehensive” children’s yoga teacher training.

Of the classes and programs mentioned, only Yoga For the People and Yoga For Young Warriors offer the possibility of addressing the needs of many DPS students: they propose to bring yoga to the school building in after-school or in-school programs. To take accessibility a step further, Yoga For the People relies on volunteer instructors to make yoga classes financially accessible – this potentially addresses both the dominant culture and populations at the fringe of the dominant culture that DPS aims to “[arm] with everything they need to forge a great future for themselves.”

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