Washington Alternative School students perform the extended triangle pose during Yoga East Studio’s Intro to Yoga course at the school. (Contributed photo)When Beth Daugherty instructed her first Intro to Yoga course at Chattanooga’s Washington Alternative Learning Center last October, many of the students were less than cooperative, she remembers.
Some of the kids hung out in the back, goofing off, while others struggled to settle down.
By the time the semester ended in December, however, that same restless bunch – now tripled in size – had become active participants, fully concentrating on their poses and well on their way to finding inner peace.
“The last class was so quiet you could just hear them breathing,” Daugherty said of the group of roughly 20 students who ultimately opted to take the class. “Just to see them lie there, calm, relaxed – to me, that was a great moment.”
The pilot program was born out of a partnership between Yoga East Studio on East Brainerd Road and the Chattanooga-based Gandhi Global Center for Peace, with the goal of teaching students how to use mindfulness techniques to bring calmness into their lives, especially during stressful situations.