Niroga Newsletter - Fall 2009

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New Mentoring Program Niroga Fall Benefit Training the Trainers Director's Corner Yoga with Incarcerated Youth Join our Social Networks Niroga in Schools Personal Transformation – An Essential Enabler Niroga Center for Healing Niroga Yoga: Warrior Pose What does Niroga Institute Mean to Me? Yoga Community Supports Niroga

New Mentoring Program

Mentors with at-risk youth

Alameda County Public Health Department recently partnered with Niroga to provide Transformative Life Skills (TLS) based mentoring to gang-involved youth. After meeting to discuss TLS and its relevance once a week for 10 weeks, the youth will transition to individualized one-on-one mentoring by caring adults in the community. “We believe TLS will empower our high-risk youth and young adults to move forward toward a healthier lifestyle,” said Quamrun Eldridge, Alameda County Public Health Department. Niroga already has an established Integral Health Fellows (IHF) program to systematically train minority young adults to become Certified Yoga Teachers, with a minimum of 100-hour volunteering commitment. The IHF volunteering hours will be utilized in the mentoring program, in an elegant exercise in community capacity building.

Niroga Fall Benefit

Audience participation at the Niroga Benefit Event

Friends of Niroga, old and new, attended Niroga Institute’s 3rd annual benefit event on October 3rd in Reidenbach Hall of the First Congregational Church of Oakland. Close to 200 people came out to support our work with at-risk and underserved populations. Members of the Oakland Youth Chorus opened the program with a moving musical performance, and Niroga’s executive director, BK Bose, led a fifteen-minute session of Transformative Life Skills (TLS) for the enthusiastic group, giving everyone a hands-on experience of Niroga’s work.

Judge Gail Bereola, Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court in Alameda County, made a passionate plea for support of Niroga’s work with youth, and Quamrun Eldridge, Deputy Division Director of the Community Health Services Division of the Alameda County Public Health Department, shared her excitement about the new mentoring program partnership with Niroga, complementing Alameda County’s Project New Start, a tattoo removal program for ganginvolved youth.

Training the Trainers

When mental health professionals at a recent conference heard that Niroga trains school teachers, they said, “What about training us?” When a group of East Bay nonprofit Executive Directors got a taste of TLS, they said, “We need TLS for our clients, and we need it for ourselves!” In addition to training low-income minority young adults to become Certified Yoga Teachers, Niroga is training educators and mental health professionals, parents and care-givers in TLS, making it ubiquitously available to all.

Director's Corner

Walking Over Fire

“I had heard that yogis can walk over fire, and I was curious,” said a young woman in Juvenile Hall, when asked what drew her to yoga. Fire outside can be quenched by water, but what to do with the fire burning inside, the fire of impulsivity that makes us flare up in anger at the slightest provocation, the fire of desire that deludes us in thinking that our wants are actually needs, the fire of insatiable greed that makes entire economies collapse, bringing so much suffering to so many? What balm will still the quivering flames of fear and desire and calm the waves of our own minds, so that we can realize the infinite possibilities within each one of us?

Transformative Life Skills practitioners

In comprehensive initiatives designed to build healthy communities, as well as blueprints from the World Health Organization, healthy behaviors and life skills are considered essential enablers for health, education and violence prevention. The latest research in developmental neuroscience on the effects of Transformative Life Skills (TLS), a multimodality intervention including yoga, breathing techniques and meditation, indicates that TLS has a profound effect on attention control, emotion regulation and coping strategies, affecting everything we do!

We have proposed a three-pronged approach to bring TLS to the most vulnerable children and youth: in Juvenile Halls, in schools and alternative schools, and comprehensive TLSbased mentoring of high-risk youth in the community. But we cannot walk alone; we are collaborating with school districts and public health departments, partnering with nonprofits involved in youth development, and offering each one of you the opportunity to work with us, sharing your time, talent and treasure. Let us hold hands and help each other walk over fire together.

–Bidyut (BK) Bose

Yoga with Incarcerated Youth

Niroga is continuing to provide over 25 classes each week at Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center. In January 2009, Niroga expanded its services within Juvenile Hall to serve four units, including youth housed in a maximum security unit, where the average length of stay ranges from six months to one year. This prolonged stay allows students the opportunity to deepen their yoga practice and develop bonds with their peers and instructors. Some people may react to the label of “maximum security”, but at a closer look, these students have shown to be focused, respectful and very open to the benefits of yoga. Many of the youth in the maximum security unit are serving long sentences, involved in lengthy trials or waiting to be moved to other detention facilities, including adult penitentiaries. Many of them are grappling with years of trauma, facing the repercussions of their actions and processing the loss of their freedom.

Our program serves as a place for these young men to soften, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and also supplies the youth with skills that they can use immediately and independently. As part of Niroga’s research on the effects of yoga on incarcerated youth, we have received some compelling feedback from the young men in the maximum security unit, in response to the question, “Have you ever used yoga or breathing techniques outside of class?” They responded: “Yes, when I almost got in a fight.” “It helps me to go to sleep.” “Thank you, yoga teachers, for your love.”

Join Niroga's Social Networks

Niroga has started a blog on our website to create a community, where people can share their experiences of yoga and meditation. We are regularly posting suggested practices including yoga poses, breathing techniques and meditation, and there is a comment section, which allows you to share your thoughts on the practice with us. You may also find a thought of the day or a great video clip that may just make your day! Find our blog at: http://niroga.org/pod/ You can friend us on Facebook at www.niroga.org/fanpage and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Niroga, where you will find current information on how yoga is affecting education, health care, violence prevention and more. Hope to see you there, and please help spread the word!

Niroga in Schools

TLS for Students

Bringing yoga to children and youth through schoolbased programming has become a large part of Niroga’s community outreach work. We realize that the most effective way of preventing violence in our youth is to give them the skills for self regulation before they reach the point where utilization of those skills becomes necessary. This fall we have begun work with three new schools: Lake Elementary, Nystrom Elementary, and Lovonya DeJean Middle School, in Richmond. These new partnerships give us the opportunity to continue our work in the West Contra Costa Unified School District and other youth based programs in Richmond. By providing the tools needed for our youth to take responsibility for their actions from an early age, we will empower them to create fulfilling lives.

TLS for Teachers

Comments from the recent Niroga workshop at Teachers for Social Justice Conference in San Francisco: “I liked the ABC activity (mindful Action, Breathing, Centering); great focusing skills!” “Felt relaxed and allowed me to STOP and focus on myself. This was wonderful!!” “I appreciated the fact that Niroga is providing us with immediate tools for the classroom and our self-sustainability. Thank you!!!”

Personal Transformation – An Essential Enabler

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character and will. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence – William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890) The latest research in developmental neuroscience suggests that stress disrupts prefrontal cortical processing, reducing attention control, emotion regulation and adaptive coping strategies, while mindfulness practices improve them and affect learning readiness – Liston et al (2009), Jha et al (2007)

Niroga Center for Healing

With very few yoga students and even fewer yoga teachers of color across the country, there is a social elitism and cultural incongruence in the practice of yoga. Social justice is at the core of the Niroga Center in downtown Berkeley, where all classes are donation-based, students give from their heart, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. There are several Healing Yoga classes for special populations such as seniors and cancer survivors, and our students and teachers represent the wonderful diversity of our community. In addition to regular yoga classes, the Center hosts a rapidly growing number of special events, ranging from yoga workshops to educational trainings, to philosophical lectures and gatherings of music and dance.

Niroga Yoga: Warrior Pose

Warrior pose

Stand briefly in Mountain Pose while observing your breath. Place your feet hip width apart, toes pointed straight ahead, press your weight down equally into the balls of the feet. Feel your spine lengthening, as if the top of your head is reaching toward the sky. Continue to observe your breath, staying here for 5 conscious breaths. Now take a wide stance, placing your left foot back. Turn your right toes out and left toes in. Open up your hips and chest and look over your right shoulder. Inhale, take your arms out to the side in line with your shoulder; exhale, bend your right knee, keeping the knee directly above the ankle. Do not let your knee go past the ankle. Relax your shoulders away from your ears, press down through the balls of your feet, and lengthen your torso. Gaze out past your right fingertips. Try to remain here for 5-7 breaths, following each inhale and exhale. As you inhale, straighten your right leg, bring your palms together, and coming through the center, exhale into the other side.

What does Niroga Institute Mean to Me?

An image of Niroga’s elegant, evocative logo comes to mind. It is a mandala in the form of a lotus flower with two layers of eight petals radiating around a center where the sacred syllable om is written in Sanskrit. The bright lotus appears to emerge from a dark circular disk with a lighter rim inside the edge of its outer circumference. Om, chanted at the beginning and end of Niroga classes, is a resonant reminder of the divine essence at the heart of each of us and all that is. The eight petals of the lotus graphically convey Patanjali’s classical formulation of the eight limbs of yoga. The inner petals represent the individual’s practice of the yogic path toward self-realization, while the larger, outer petals depict Niroga’s commitment to selfless service. The circular disc, symbolizing cosmos and eternity, encompasses all.

At Niroga, as a student in weekly classes and the teacher training program, I have found warm, friendly fellowship with other students and teachers of diverse backgrounds. The institute’s integration of the ancient, embodied wisdom of yoga with the analytical rigor of modern biological and social sciences is impressive. Niroga’s compassionate call to bring measurable benefits to traumatized children, at-risk and incarcerated youth, seniors, and people recovering from catastrophic illnesses, is inspiring. I feel thrilled and thankful to participate in Niroga’s initiatives for healthy personal and social transformation. Om Shanti Peace!

–Mitch Hall, Peace Activist

Yoga Community Supports Niroga

Yoga for Niroga is an opportunity for the yoga community to help us bring yoga to those who might not have access to it and who need it the most. In an outpouring of generosity and support, yoga studios are stepping forward to hold Yoga for Niroga benefit weeks, and many respected yoga teachers are offering benefit classes and workshops, and spreading the word through their newsletters, flyers, and social networks.

Give the gift of yoga

If you are a yoga student, will you consider donating the equivalent of one yoga class per month, so that we can bring yoga to those more vulnerable? If you are a yoga teacher, will you consider donating the proceeds of one class or workshop? Just two or three hours of your time could be a matter of life or death for a child chronically exposed to guns and gangs, crime and violence, drugs and death. Could you please inform fellow yoga students and yoga teachers? With all of us working together, we can transform ourselves and the world around us.

Give the Gift of Yoga:
Buy a Niroga Center class Gift Card for a friend or a loved one

YES! I want to help Niroga provide integral development programs
to under-served communities.


Every dollar donated will go to support programs.

Printable Mail / Fax donation form
Other ways to help Niroga