updated 8:25 a.m. EDT, Fri April 18, 2008
Yoga's appeal broadening to disability community
By Georgiann caruso
CNN
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A middle-aged woman arrives at yoga class, a guide dog beside her wheelchair. She slides onto a mat on the floor and begins warming up with help from the instructor, stretching her knee and leg muscles to the side.
Adaptive yoga takes into consideration the individual's limitations but still provides the benefits of stretching.
Nearby, a man lying on a bench gets an assist from a class helper as he lifts his leg and brings his knee toward his body. Another person, an overweight student, sits and places his feet on brick-like props to enable him to stretch higher.
This is the scene at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where students attend weekly adaptive yoga class. Derived from traditional yoga, poses are modified for those with disabilities or health conditions.
Hundreds of miles away, longtime instructor Karen O'Donnell Clarke says ...Click this link to read more...
Terri Leonard and Bill Hufschmidt, the featured yoga teachers in this article, participated in Teaching Adaptive Yoga for Multiple Sclerosis with Karen O'Donnell Clarke in 2007.
