Natasha Baebler, RYT came and saw one of our Fit Abilities students at school today and taught him about calming himself when he felt anxious with different mudras and yoga poses
Addressing Bullying
Today at Fit Abilities Trauma Informed Yoga Program, we addressed issues that many of our students continue to face including the toxic stress of enduring bullying and giving into peer pressure when others are getting hurt. Natasha told an interactive yoga story about collaborating and powering with others instead of dominating and powering over others. #traumainformedyoga #fitabilties #resilience
Bringing Fit Abilities Into the Classroom
We have been bringing Fit Abilities into the classrooms for direct instruction to integrate some yoga skills into their education routine with the Teacher of the Visually Impaired of two of our students for the last month. For some kid we’ll prepare for instruction with puzzles and others bean bag activities.
With one of our students we are facilitating opportunities to be more aware of how her body is moving in space and being mindful of fast and slow movements. We start our our session with her with fast movements and prepare her for slower activity levels before instruction begins.
Below is a video of our OT intern Kourtney cueing her to be mindful to move the bean bag slowly from one body part to another.
Building Trust through the Small Things
Building Trust in the Little Things
One of my students who desperately needs opportunities to empower himself in healthy ways and learn a locus of healthy amounts of control tells me each week what he wants for snack that week at Fit Abilities. Today it’s banana bread….specifically from Corner Coffeehouse in downtown Ferguson. He anticipates it, I follow through and we build trust. Follow through is key in these moments, even little things like this matter for our yoga students with high ACE Scores. Showing up with the little things like banana bread matter in building safety and making sure they feel heard and seen. It also helps them understand that they play key role in the cause and effect nature of healthy relationships. Trust begins with banana bread and yoga for this kid in particular.
#traumainformedyoga #fitabilities
The Safety of the Guide Dog
This is Aspen, Natasha’s, Seeing Eye Dog, who helps guide our Fit Abilities Yoga Teacher around since she is also visually impaired. He’s pretty much our mascot for the program since so many of our students are learning the concept of safe travel but also emotional safety in their environment as well through their yoga practice.
Grateful for Yoga Photos
Today in Fit Abilities the kids drew their favorite thing about yoga class with Natasha Baebler. For the most part the kids are thankful for healthy angry basketball ball games, the Magic House (because it’s “magic” like yoga), colorful yoga mats and all the different yoga poses #fitabilities #traumainformedyoga
Thoughts and Hopes for the 2016-2017 School Year
Julie Johnson, M. Ed, TVI, ATS and Fit Abilities Program Cooridnator is on the blog today sharing thoughts on yoga, her students and hopes for the Fit Abilities program for the upcoming school year. See below
In a world that reinforces external forces of control for self-worth, it is important for today’s students and all people to have opportunities to practice a path of self-empowerment that is not dependent upon pleasing other people. This starts with learning the art of mindful breathing and moving aka yoga. This is the basic premise of why I believe it is important for all students to learn yoga and also build a wellness community based on yoga principles within our school environment.
This semester, my hope is that our students in the Fit Abilities Yoga Program deepen their understanding of self-empowerment by connecting the power they feel in their bodies when doing yoga to the power they feel when they follow through with a hard task in their academic lives as well. I am hoping as a program, we can really begin to bridge that gap in understanding that the power we feel in our bodies when we are doing a yoga pose is the same power we can access to get through a very challenging academic task at school, families and social life. I hope that we can lay seeds of understanding for our students that their inner power is not dependent upon the task they need to achieve but their ability to know that is in them to help them face all kinds of adversity.
Additionally, it is also my hope that the families in our program continue to benefit from the community resources that the Fit Abilities Yoga program is built upon. We have plans to offer a few monthly yoga classes for the mothers who stick around during the after school program and hopefully help create a safe space for nurturing and self-care for themselves and also connect them to trusted, trauma informed resources in St. Louis who support holistic approaches to self-empowerment and personal healing. Some of these resources include play therapy, integrative health for pediatrics, family therapy for parent empowerment, etc.
I look forward to keeping everyone up to date on our progress as a program and lessons we have learned. We officially start on September 21st and will go for 13 weeks straight.
Please meet out fall Intern, Kourtney Mraz
The beginning of the school year is just around the corner and that means so is another season of Fit Abilities. We are happy to announce that we will have an intern for fall, Kourtney Mraz, a Doctoral Student at Washington University of St. Louis studying Occupational Therapy.
You can get to know Kourtney a little bit better below in this guest blog post. You can read more about community engagement and passion for Occupational Therapy below:
My name is Kourtney Mraz and I’m a student in the occupational therapy (OT) doctoral program at Washington University in St. Louis. I got my Bachelor’s degree in Community Health Education at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. I’m from a small town close to Chicago. I have 2 younger brothers and a 2-year-old Australian Shepherd Beagle mix named Lila. Some of my hobbies include spending time with family and friends, going to the movies, and reading. I completed an internship at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, MO last fall. This summer I have an internship at Labre Center in St. Louis, which is a community agency that works with homeless men with mental health disorders. I have experience planning and implementing programs in the areas of nutrition, assault, and physical activity. I’m interested in program development and grant writing in the school setting and am planning to be a school OT after I graduate in December 2016.
Thanks for Supporting Fit Abilities at Practicing Yoga
A big THANK YOU to Roxanne Krummenacher, owner of Practicing Yoga for hosting Fit Abilities as Practicing Yoga’s Community based project of the month. We had our final yoga practice yesterday with a great turn out! We are so grateful for all the support and love from the St. Louis Yoga Community who have continued to show support for the Fit Abilities program. All proceeds from last month’s yoga class will go to support the ongoing to Transportation costs for cabs for a few students to get to the Fit Abilities program, yoga mats, cost for food for Family Support/Child Family Yoga classes and Natasha Baebler’s time/salary.
Fit Abilities Program Report and Data
Our report of our first eight weeks is up and running! Please check out the data tools we used and how our extra special approach to yoga at link below:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zXmxLthfmYbiNVnatlu8-rMYJADQtVjuBg1UlVj6pY8/edit?usp=sharing
Fit Abilities 