YES Prep Guest Blog - Karina

Guest Blog by Karina 

Ms. Cash’s YES Prep Yoga Class

It was the beginning of the school year and all of our schedules were messed up. Every time the school “fixed” the schedules, I was placed in a different elective every time until they finally placed me in yoga. 

At first, I didn’t really want to take the class, I was iffy and closed-minded about it. I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t really like yoga, but at the end of the day I gave it a shot. 

At first it was somewhat difficult to get use to because it’s something that I’ve never tried before. Yoga came to be the best thing I ever experienced. I just fell in love with it. 

I found it amazing to find so much self confidence and happiness just by taking yoga. Ms. Cash told us that In-Powered by One Significant Act was a non-profit organization that reached out to places that didn’t have yoga such as school and prisons and I thought that this organization was great way of giving back to the community and giving a chance for people to practice yoga who weren’t really able to.

Yoga helped me found a way to free my mind instead of keeping it imprisoned. It has helped me find peace with myself and has helped me balance my life more. Before yoga, my life was unstable and just unorganized. Yoga has taught me to enjoy life more. It has also taught me how to breathe because breathing is the most important part of yoga. 

When practicing yoga at school with Ms. Cash, I feel very relaxed and calm. It sets my mind free, even for just a bit, from running on and on. It feels great when you don’t have to worry about anything while practicing yoga. 

All I really pay attention to is my breathing and where I’d like my breath to go in my body. Yoga helps me stabilize my body as well as my mind. When I am not practicing yoga, I think about the things that I learned in the course, such as breathing and meditating. I do these two things often when I am going under a lot of stress because of school and work. 

I just take a couple of minutes to breathe and meditate and then get back to what I was doing.

I believe that yoga is a great thing and that everyone who has a chance should practice it. It helps balance the heart, mind, and soul, and it is also a great workout.