The thought of writing this blog post was very overwhelming to me. Not because of the fact that I don’t want to to write it, but because I have SOOO much to write. The past few weeks have been a whirl wind. By now I am sure everyone knows about the events that have taken place in Boston, and while life has resumed here for the most part, the tragedy is still very fresh in most people’s minds. I don’t want to spend this post writing about the horrific events of last week though, rather I want to focus on the way that the city of Boston, and the world, has responded to these events. I have lived in Boston my whole life, and I have never seen a group of people come together the way that people have during this time. We obviously saw the heroic actions of many on Marathon Monday, but the kindness has not stopped. From restaurants not charging customers for their meals, to yoga studios offering free classes, the community here has stepped up to try and ease the pain that is so prevalent within everyone.
On Sunday April 28th I was lucky enough to attend an incredible event at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA hosted by
Yoga Reaches Out. I cannot condense yesterday’s experience into one post, so I will probably be referring to in many future posts. Yoga Reaches Out, founded by Sarah Gardner, truly exemplifies the impact that a group of people can have when they come together. Yesterday 1,000 people unrolled their yoga mats with some of the most amazing yoga teachers that exist, to practice 5 hours of yoga in an effort to raise money for
Children’s Hospital Boston and
The Children’s Tumor Foundation. The morning portion of the event featured teachers Jill Abraham, Jacqui Bonwell, Goldie Kaufenberg, David Magone, Shawn Shaw, and David Vendetti & Todd Erik Skoglund.
Some of these teachers I had practiced with before, some I hadn’t. All were amazing. After lunch we had the privilege of being lead by teacher
Bryan Kest, the founder of Power Yoga. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know who he was before this, but in the Yoga world he is a big time celeb (he is also hilarious and I definitely fell out of a few poses from laughing so hard). Bryan immediately explained that people are often mislead by the title “Power Yoga” because we think of it as something that is physically very intense and therefore we are intimidated by it. He named his form of yoga Power Yoga not because of a physical demand, but rather because of the power this practice can give us both mentally and physically. In the past decade yoga has become something that we try to perfect, judge, and compete with, when in fact it’s real intention is to calm our bodies and eliminate the need for perfection, judgment, and competition.
Towards the end of his sequence Bryan had us in tree pose. Rather than tell us to try and balance and keep ourselves upwards, he actually wished that we would fall!
“I hope you fall into the person next to you and take out the entire row!”
He told us he didn’t really care to observe us balancing perfectly, rather he was more interested in seeing how we react when we fall over, because at some point we always will. Of course, I couldn’t help but relate this idea back to the events on Marathon Monday. As a city we fell over that day, but we proved our strength and resilience with our ability to rise from this fall.
Everyday at Children’s Hospital kids and families are faced with the reality of illness but their courage, tenacity, and support aid in their ability to stand back up. On Sunday 1,000 people got together and raised $500,000 for a cause that I think everyone unanimously would agree is an important one. It was an amazing day and I can’t wait for next year!
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Moral of Today’s class Yogathon: The way we react when we fall strengthens us more than if we were to remain standing.
-A
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
what yoga gave to me... 