Shambala Yoga Teams Up With Acorn High School to Bring Yoga to Teens

In the first class, there were three, then there were nine, and according to Saida Valme’, age 16, even more came after that.  These swelling numbers describe a new partnership between and Acorn High School where Acorn students can choose to take yoga for their gym credit.

Sarah Schumann, founder of the program and director of Shambhala Yoga, has a goal for her yoga studio to be fully invested in the community. She already has a community program with the local Interfaith Medical Center and an involvement with the Hope City Empowerment Center, a local soup kitchen/food pantry.

Adding the partnership with Acorn High School, which is located on Grand Avenue at Dean Street came about when she met the assistant principal at a party and started talking about her vision of yoga for the community.

Initially anxious about teaching the high school set, Schumann concedes that she has learned so much from her Acorn students.  She is grateful that yoga has provided an avenue to access an age group she might never have met otherwise. 

“It’s exciting to see them learning that they have everything they need right inside them, all they have to do is learn to breathe,” Schumann said.

The theme of one class, being “present,” means being completely engaged in the moment with all your senses attuned to the here and now. You are neither dreaming of the future nor regretting the past.  This theme is one of the goals of yoga and most Eastern based meditative arts.

Of the girls who come to her class, Sarah Schumann says that they are so stressed when they arrive from the high school to the yoga studio. “I don’t think they ever get a chance to be completely present during the day, everything is so distracting,” she said. 

Schumann says one of the keys to the program is that it takes place in the yoga studio rather than at the High School. It gives the girls a chance to be apart from their normal routine.

Jemiah Johnson, age 16 says she wanted to take yoga because it relaxes you and makes you more flexible. She says, “I feel serene when I do yoga.”

Other girls concur.  Both Saida Valme and Endira Henry, age 16, did not need the gym credit, but wanted to take yoga because they felt it would be a good way to unwind. “It helps me to relax and I needed to relax,” says Endira. 

Qiana Ancrum, age 16, other yoga student, reflected that in her regular gym class, she exercised her muscles, but with yoga, “I get to find myself.”