The Yoga Craze is Catching

The Yoga Craze is Catching

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Being born into a family with an older brother who is obsessed with fitness and body building, I used to think that anything other than running and weight training was for sissies. I'm the first to admit I honestly believed that Yoga was for people that didn't know how to do real exercise. In fact, I only enrolled in the ASA just to heckle my friends who genuinely wanted to do it. I know, that's terrible of me but... sorry not sorry. It was not until my first Yoga session that I figured out that in order to do Yoga, you not only need to be extremely fit but you must also posses a great deal of self control.

In the very first session itself I found myself in the deep end, learning new skills, having never had a Yoga class before. By the end of the session I had not only pushed at my strengths but I also painfully highlighting my weaknesses. Needless to say, I quickly learned that Yoga is most definitely not for sissies. In fact, although I could hold my own in muscle strength exercises such as planks and open-hip lunges, I couldn't stretch half as much as I should be able to. To illustrate this, here is an embarrassing picture of me trying to touch my toes in the triangle position. Key word being trying for obvious reasons.

(I know, I know, it's pretty bad that I could only reach that far... 

Photo credits; Ms. Neiderman)

Anyway, although the skill level that Yoga required pleasantly surprised me, and pleasantly knocked me on my butt, I have to say that I'm hooked on it. The Yoga craze is indeed catching on and me, as someone who used to focus only on running and weights, find it an incredibly freeing activity. I've even found myself practising at home, often giving up an extra 30 minutes after my daily run to try and execute a shoulder stand or stretch out my back, demonstrating perseverance when I fail but try and try again to hold a 30 second shoulder stand. 

It's ineresting, this Yoga, and I'm hoping that by the end of the lessons I'll be able to hold my shoulder stands for extended periods of time along with learning a full routine to practise at home. But first I'll need to learn to touch my toes so here it goes, one step at a time!

Peace, Love and Yoga :)

❂ Alzheimers ❂

❂Alzheimer's Service❂

This month was spent recruiting some Grade 10 students for our service group. I was happy to see that we got  5 people signed up, 4 boys and one girl. A nice thing I noted was that one of the guys (Amit) that signed up was in Alzheimer's last year as well so it was good to see a returning face. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of input the newbies put into the meetings, in fact, they had some great ideas for the things we could do at food and fun fair. This included a memory match up game for kids, an idea made in response to the question how to raise funds to buy basic materials for the Alzheimer's patients.

We also had out monthly visit to the Alzheimer's Center which I unfortunately missed due to some work that needed to be done for English class. I'm starting to find that as a Senior, it's incredibly hard to find time to do things, specially with finals looming on the horizon. However, I did get to participate by making 40 mini cupcakes for the patients to decorate as previously planned and now initiated on the Tuesday night before the visit :)

I thought I did a good job on the cupcakes because not only are they colourful and cheerful looking, but I kept in mind that some of the patients needed healthy food and so used a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white flour, considering the ethical implications of feeding old people unhealthy food. Unfortunately the cupcakes were a bit too sweet, specially with the amount of icing they put on but it was a good effort nonetheless.

And although I didn't go, I heard that this visit was one of the very best we've had. Apparently the noob 10th graders did an excellent job in dancing with the patients, undertaking a new challenge since a lot of them were shy. As well as this, they showed that they could work collaboratively with the patients and the people who run the Alzheimer's association. The new kids are shaping up to be pretty cool actually, I'm really proud of them. I've managed to get some pictures of how the visit went, courtesy of Anjleen our great and mighty leader.

The mighty Anjleen (pictured above) made waaay too much icing for too little cupcakes XD

                    Carla, one of our trusty grade 11's, (left) can be spotted with her usual smile :)

                            And Yannis, another grade 11 proves to be a hit with the ladies ;)

 

Need I explain the wonder that is sprinkles?

And here are the awesome little Grade 10's getting some quality time with the patients. They've actually surprised me by staying committed to the service, arriving on time and contributing useful ideas to the group. They're also learning new people skills and learning to be better conversationalists with the patients, a skill I'm sure they'll need in the future.

Khartikiya                                      

Khallis

                                                                                                 

Shloak                                                 

Ika

                                                                                                   




This is a special picture of Amit, also from Grade 10, since I don't have an individual one of him. If you look closely you can spot him dancing in the background :D And also, our supervisor Ms. Ramberg is lurking around in the picture, let's see who can spot her...
                                                                                                                                  

And finally, the full Alzheimer's Service team excluding me :)