{"id":272,"date":"2019-06-27T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T02:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/?p=272"},"modified":"2019-06-27T23:32:19","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T03:32:19","slug":"yoga-in-a-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/2019\/06\/27\/yoga-in-a-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoga in a Chair?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Under the city\u2019s Healthy Boston initiative, zumba dancers and yoga instructors hold free summer fitness sessions around the city in hopes of encouraging citizens to be active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chair Yoga and Tai Chi are just two of the many offerings of the initiative\u2019s new Summer Fitness programs. The instructors that form the yoga team hope this new summer series will help people be more conscientious about their mental and physical health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"width: 100%;\"><div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; padding-top: 0; height: 0;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/view.genial.ly\/5d12c43b69b6a10fe74885b2\" type=\"text\/html\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" scrolling=\"yes\" allownetworking=\"all\" width=\"1200px\" height=\"675px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Chair Yoga, where participants do yoga while sitting in a chair, instructor Mike Massey and his friend and former student Born Bi-Kim teach a class that delves deep into the human form. Sessions occur every Tuesday in Symphony Park, conveniently surrounded by elderly facilities &#8212; making the programs more enticing for elderly residents who want to participate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Liza Roman, an elderly participant in these sessions, has been attending in order to help build up her balance and slow down her lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis [yoga] does help you relax and not go at a fast pace like you usually do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And she\u2019s not the only senior there, as nearly all the participants are older, and appeared to be frequent members. Massey and his friends knew many of their names and checked in with them personally before beginning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although it may appear that the chairs act as a support for senior citizens,&nbsp; Massey said he believes the opposite is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cChair yoga works better for kids than older people to be honest with you,\u201d he said. \u201c I mean, think about our society. Who gets in trouble for not sitting in chairs &#8211; kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Massey used to work at teen detention centers and said yoga can help struggling inner-city teens develop discipline and improve their mental health. He recalls a time in which he ran into a former student whom he had met at these facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe was like, \u2018Yo, that chair stuff worked, it got me outta jail.\u2019 You want these kids to stop shooting each other and killing each other over gangs and colors,\u201d he said. \u201cYou show them their enemies are just as blessed as they are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that&#8217;s one of the main virtues of yoga that Massey and Bi-Kim&nbsp; mentioned: Isvara Pranidhana. Massey describes it as \u201c giving up these blessings that you are learning, this discipline that you\u2019re learning \u2026 to a higher power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The two have worked in a trio with friend Karland Barrett, a massage therapist at 3R Massages, a traveling massage company based in Jamaica Plain. The three provide a combined offering of yoga, vegan cooking, and massages in Dorchester and the South End, communities near where they are based. They stress the benefits of yoga and how the End Goal is always \u201cSamadhi\u201d, or liberation. Youth street violence is a serious concern, and they feel that if teenagers stepped on a mat, they would \u201cnamaste\u201d away from crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt&#8217;s why we call ourselves the Wu-tang Clan of Yoga, like,&nbsp; all of us can do our own thing by ourselves. They can all make an album and go platinum, but when they get together, they\u2019re stronger,\u201d he said. \u201cWe couldn&#8217;t do it by ourselves, we had to build a super team so we can be in all the places that need us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Massey added that the ancient nature of yoga is, \u201cliterally older than dirt!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe don&#8217;t have to reinvent the wheel, we just went back to what was right and what was wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under the city\u2019s Healthy Boston initiative, zumba dancers and yoga instructors hold free summer fitness sessions around the city in hopes of encouraging citizens to be active. Chair Yoga and Tai Chi are just two of the many offerings of the initiative\u2019s new Summer Fitness programs. The instructors that form the yoga team hope this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[15],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/Catalyst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}