For Special Populations

As a person with special needs, you may be seeking ways to enhance your body's ability to be strong, flexible, and balanced. You may be looking for friends who understand what you are going through. Let Your Yoga Dance® for Special Populations, a unique combination of yoga, breath, dance and music, brings inspiration and celebration to heart and mind. The result: healing through joy.

Dallas Hull: "As a person with Parkinson's, I lke to say,'Park in the sun with a smile'."

Parkinsons Disease is a challenging phenomenon but there are opportunities to live with it in a healthy way. Let Your Yoga Dance® for Special Populations is a delightful form of physical fitness and support for people with Parkinsons and their loved ones.

Here are 9 Reasons why People with Parkinsons Benefit from Yoga Dance:

1. Let Your Yoga Dance® breaks the isolation of being alone with a progressive disease. People with PD and their caregivers come together in a safe, easy environment to learn to dance their yoga.

2. Let Your Yoga Dance® increases flexibility and strength, helping people with PD to safely practice repetitive movements while sitting in a chair, standing, and moving.

3. Let Your Yoga Dance® stimulates not only the mind by engaging in simple and challenging movements throughout the body, but also the emotional body, bringing endorphins to the brain and joy to the spirit.

4. Let Your Yoga Dance® activates all the senses through deep breathing simple movements and postures.

5. Let Your Yoga Dance® increases body awareness and the ability to live more consciously inside it, resulting in more confidence in walking, moving, and dancing.

6. Let Your Yoga Dance® plays with all kinds of musical rhythms which are stimulating to the brain.

7. Let Your Yoga Dance® includes constant focus on the breath. In the time-honored practice of yoga, breathing exercises naturally activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the relaxation response in the body. Deep breathing fosters deep relaxation which is essential for someone with PD. 

8. Let Your Yoga Dance® is an express route to joy! This practice brings a natural merging of yoga, dance, and movement, along with the use of wonderful music from around the world.

9. Let Your Yoga Dance® for Special Populations is FUN and healing at the same time.

Articles and You-Tube online for more on Let Your Yoga Dance® and Parkinsons:
See Berkshire Eagle article by Michelle Gillette about Let Your Yoga Dance® for Parkinsons class: Nov.27, 2008.
Google: "Getting their Groove Back": Aug. 25, 2007, New York Times, Mark Morris Dance Group.
Google: "The Ed Rudman Story"
Google: "A Cautious Investor wants to find a Cure for Parkinsons"
TouTube: LetYourYogaDance for Parkinsons

Classes for Let Your Yoga Dance® for Special Populations:
Massachusetts, Berkshire Region
Richmond Congregational Church
Richmond, MA
Tuesdays from 10:00-11:30 a.m.
Contact: megha@letyouryogadance.com
Massachusetts, Boston Region
Naomi Goodman, a graduate of Kripalu YogaDance Training, teaches YogaDance for Parkinsons in the greater Boston-Waltham area.Contact Nancy Mazonson at: nmazonson@jfcboston.org for information.
NewYork, New York
Contact Mark Morris Dance Group in Brooklyn at www.markmorrisdancegroup.org or
www.danceforparkinsons.org

A Brief History of the Origins of Let Your Yoga Dance® for Special Populations:
Megha's interest in offering Let Your Yoga Dance® for people with Parkinsons began four years ago when she met Ed Rudman, from Berkshire County and Boston, MA. He has had Parkinsons for 12 years but you would never know it. He is spry and active. To keep himself healthy and happy he has found the panacea:  daily Kripalu YogaDance classes at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. “It helps lessen my symptoms,” he says, “and best of all, it makes me smile and laugh. People with Parkinsons don’t smile very much."

Megha and Ed had some private yoga sessions together. One day Ed forgot to bring his medication. He was concerned because he knew his gait in two hours would be uneven without medication. Megha thought, "let's see what happens with the yoga." She made sure that they did a lot of yogic breathing, and she put Ed into an inverted pose with his legs up the wall so that blood, energy, breath would flow right to his brain. At the end of the session he remarked, "I can't believe it! I feel I could run a marathon!" We have heard many anecdotes like this since. Combining, yoga, movement, and breath is a powerful healing tool for everyone, and particularly important for people with PD.

If you would like to learn more about Let Your Yoga Dance®for Special Populations, please select the play button on the YouTube featured below.