How a Cape Breton man rose above his health condition to become a yoga instructor
We wanted to take a moment to share some wonderful news that has us feeling happy and proud. One of the graduates of our recent yoga teacher training was featured in the news last week. His name is Robert Zwarun. Since graduating last February, he has helped a ton of people at his local YMCA in Cape Breton by teaching chair yoga classes. Check out the news story about it here:
Learning to Teach All Abilities
We found new joy as yoga teachers when we moved into the role of trainer, it’s very rewarding, and opens up yoga to new students too. Our graduate is connecting with new students and taking yoga to new places!
As with everything, there was a learning curve to teaching all abilities yoga. Robert told us that when he signed up for teacher training, he didn’t think he could become a yoga teacher because he had never met a yoga teacher who had a disability like his. When he graduated, the certificate he earned opened up so many possibilities he had once thought were impossible.
When we first set out to teach all abilities classes, we also wondered if it was possible. We had heard over the years that chair classes should be separated, and believed that was true, until we discovered the work of Jivana Heyman and his book, Accessible Yoga as well as his training and even his Instagram account is a great resource. Our limited beliefs got shattered.
Discovering Jivana’s work led us to the Accessible Yoga Silent Auction where we bid on and won a consultation with Shannon Crow of The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast. Shannon connected us and with our tiny little YouTube channel we got to interview Jivana! Here’s how it went:
This year we’re supporting the Silent Auction with a donation of our Mindfulness for Children Kids Yoga Teacher Training (you can probably get a good deal on this training in the auction).
It just goes to show how working together, we can do so much good stuff, including things we thought were impossible!
Give the Impossible a Try
We encourage you to consider giving yourself a chance to do something big, maybe even impossible, like training and mentoring the next generation of yoga teachers.
Putting yourself out there, whether you’re teaching at the YMCA, supporting a movement, or becoming a trainer, can lead to amazing accomplishments and new possibilities for everyone.