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Working in a Yoga Wonderland

by Ellie Spielberg

Mar 27, 2008 4:27 PM

Teacher puts new twist on working with special-needs kids

There’s a new approach to a 5,000-year-old curriculum at PS 811 in the Bronx.

And the lesson plans were designed by one of the earliest unions.

“The word ‘yoga’ means a union of body, mind and soul,” says Martha Gold, who has a doctorate in physical therapy and earned her twisting-stretching-meditating credentials from the renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass.

“There are many gurus in disguise here,” Gold said of the students at PS 811, around 600 kids with multiple disabilities ranging from age 9 to 21, half of whom are wheelchair-dependent.

“If you are open, you can learn so much from them,” she said. “I’ve learned lessons that far surpass my expensive physical therapy education — although I’m grateful for that education, because it led me to the work I’m doing here, to my purpose in life.”

Four years ago, Gold got the idea for a program she named Yoga Wonderland, classes for all kids based on the principles of the hatha school of yoga and adapted for their needs. It took off, and now the school’s 20-plus therapists and many of its 200 paraprofessionals are leading or assisting the weekly yoga classes.

“I think it’s marvelous,” said Evelyn Perez, a paraprofessional and the school’s chapter leader. “We’re the school with the biggest population of multiple-handicapped students, and the program shows that all kids, no matter their abilities, can participate in yoga and benefit from it. It really stimulates them.”

“I’ve witnessed the amazing physical, mental, emotional changes in the children,” said Gold. “They can’t wait to do yoga and say it’s the highlight of their week. The classes I lead are as large as 50-60 students, from the profoundly disabled to kids with challenges that are not physically apparent. Don’t ask me how or why this class works so beautifully, but it does!

“There are other components of yoga that are as valuable, or even more so, for our well-being as the physical postures. There is the spiritual and moral aspect. At the end of every class we sing the Namaste Song,” she said, adding that the Hindu greeting “namaste” means “the light inside of me honors and bows to the light inside you.”

And how does all the yoga and Eastern spirituality get funded?

By chocolate.

Therapists make chocolates to sell along with the other goodies made by the staff at bake sales. Gold also gets donations for yoga mats, props and music CDs and the like from yoga supply companies and from individuals.

She also digs into her own pocket for supplies and for the annual Namaste Party, “which we hold to acknowledge the students in the yoga program and to show our gratitude to them for being the beautiful souls they are,” she said. “The kids and the staff here are amazing; it’s really a joyful place to work. We’re one happy yoga family.”

This year’s party celebrated 150 kids on Feb. 8, complete with great eats and pro-bono clowns, magicians and balloon artists, all of it put together by the staff and by volunteers that Gold recruits.

Apparently chanting “om” does not mean that a soul cannot have great worldly ambitions.

“Imagine our world today if we all had reverence for one another, knowing that we are not separate from each other, regardless of perceived differences,” said Gold, whose vision is to make Yoga Wonderland a citywide afterschool program for all kids of different abilities. “I can’t imagine a better education for our children than to respect, honor and tolerate difference in their fellow human beings.”

Interested in starting a yoga program of your own? If so, you can reach out to Gold at mhgdpt@yahoo.com.