Source: Los Angeles Times
CALIFORNIA, October 30, 2001: “We can be grateful we are here in such a safe place,” Hatha Yoga instructor Tara Guber says in a soothing tone. “We can be happy to be here together to stretch, let our bodies open and our minds be set free, so that perhaps when we leave our yoga class we can move into another mind-set. More at peace with ourselves and others.” This is what Yoga Journal calls “Om Schooling.” Here at the Accelerated School in Los Angeles, a high-performing campus that serves kindergarten through eighth grade, Guber is giving brainy underprivileged children a head start in high-end hatha. Guber is not America’s only yoga apostle. Pro bono yogis across the country are teaching yoga to prisoners, pregnant teenagers, people in halfway houses and at Boys and Girls clubs. Guber even invited one of South-Central’s yoga-baptized gang members to detail his newfound inner peace at a symposium. “This is their birthright too,” Guber said. “Consciousness is for everybody.”