By Charles Pan ’18, Feature Editor
When you walk into room 20 at 2:30 on any given Wednesday, you might find an unusual sight.
During her freshman year, Elaina Kwiatkowski ’18 wanted to make a club that incorporated physical and mental aspects of stress reliving. After talking and planning with Ms. Mahoney, the club supervisor who shared her interest for two years, they finally created the Newark Academy Yoga Club.
Elaina and Ms. Mahoney really liked the idea of “hump day yoga” to help people get through the week, so they chose Wednesday to offer yoga weekly. With the help of Elaina’s mom, who donated the club’s mats and blocks, they host an hour of yoga exercises every week that help with flexibility, body awareness, and strength.
In asking about the benefits that yoga provides to Newark Academy students, Elaina and Ms. Mahoney had detailed answers. “It really helps with stress reduction, flexibility, balance, strength, posture, concentration, and breathing,” Elaina describes. (She then provided me with a detailed handout on the full benefits of yoga, which can be found at the bottom of this article.)
Ms. Mahoney also explained: “Yoga has so much to offer teenagers specifically: increased body awareness, strength and flexibility are primary physical benefits. Many athletes, like Isaiah [Merrit,’17] and the cross country team through Coach Sarah, have seen how yoga can enhance an athlete’s strength, flexibility and help prevent injury.”
She continued: “Beyond the physical, yoga is also a grounding and empowering experience where being on the mat is a no-judgment zone, including no judging of yourself. Meet yourself where you are. And work to appreciate things, including your body and its strengths and weaknesses, as they are. Many students feel stressed at Newark Academy, and yoga is a great way to take some time and give yourself the opportunity to let go of those sources of stress and find more steadiness and calm.”
After listening to these positive benefits, I was inspired to check out one of the meetings. After arriving in room 20, I found about fifteen kids with their shoes off, yoga mats on the ground listening to soothing music and stretching various parts of their bodies. Ms. Mahoney then led the students through poses such as the warrior stance, crow position, and others. The students finally finished with shavasana (corpse pose), a calming-down exercise.
One of the students attending this meeting was Alex Chang ’17. He said, “I first went to yoga club because Elaina forced me to go, but I found the experience so engaging that I started to plan to go to yoga club every week. It really helps me lead a healthier lifestyle and de-stress after the rigors of school.”
When asked about future plans for the club, Ms. Mahoney had high hopes: “So far, offering yoga weekly to the school community is our focus. Perhaps once we get a group of practitioners, we can think about other plans, but keeping it simple in the complex NA environment is a goal! For instance, perhaps we’d have a guest yoga teacher in and try to collaborate with other clubs or teams.” Elaina had a similar answer: “Although I hope to have greater plans for the club, right now we hope to get a better foundation with more regular members so we can do more activities.”
Alex voiced a similar sentiment. “I hope that someday that Yoga Club becomes more popular than it already is, because it can really impact on the lives of Newark Academy students.”
Handout on the full benefits of yoga:
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