Free Falling: A Reflection of Teaching With AHHAH

What are you doing? This is a game we often play. Jan Michner, Bri Murphy, and I have taught this game to the teenagers at the Chester Country Youth Center (CCYC). It has almost become tradition with Jan’s nonprofit, Arts Holding Hands and Hearts (AHHAH). My favorite part is that no matter how many times you play it, you still don’t really know what you’re doing. It’s improvisation. There’s always something to figure out as you make your way through.

What are you doing? I asked myself this very question when I showed up to teach Expressive Arts for the first time with Jan. Did I really have time to teach at another location? Maybe not, but the chance to do creative projects with a creative person like Jan is hard to pass up for an artsy fartsy gal like me. Still, I did not know what to expect, or who would be there, or what would happen, or if I was even qualified for the position. Sure, I have had lots of writing and teaching experience, but this was a very specific kind of student. I knew I would be meeting teens who had suffered trauma. What could I possibly offer for advice? How could we relate? I grew up in a middle class family with solid parents. It wasn’t perfect, but I was loved. I was part of the track team, the school play, and the National Honors Society. I never smoked pot. I never even got drunk until I was 20. Why should they listen to anything I have to say about dealing with pain? Here comes Pollyanna with a notepad!

Jan and I entered the shelter unit and saw girls in baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts. The grey, shapeless attire seemed to match the mood. Some looked curious. Most looked truly tired, wounded, and fed up with whatever it was that put them in the shelter. By the end of the workshop, I saw how Jan splashed color all over the room with her posters, markers, games, and laughter. It was contagious! I’ve never seen anyone shift the mood like Jan does. The girls began to smile and participate. Light came to their eyes and cheeks. They expressed their anger, fear, sadness, and even a sense of humor. It was truly, to quote Jan, “amazing!” I learned something, too—we all have a story worth sharing.

Each month, the girls share things that I cannot imagine, and I share struggles that they cannot imagine. They know that I do know what pain is, in my own way. I tell them that I struggled for years—during all those plays and awards and plaques—with my own demons. People identify with the details of their misery—addictions, rape, violence, neglect, prejudice, eating disorders, bipolar disorder. Who, what, when, where, why, and how. Each particular misery is very different and certainly should be acknowledged and treated accordingly. However, they do not have to be used as barriers. I’ve found that what brings us closer during Expressive Art workshops at the CCYC are the common threads. They just keep popping up! I worry about what others think of me. Please don’t judge me. Don’t laugh at me. I hide my pain. I smile and joke, but I’m hurting inside. I love my family. I want to be loved. I want to be accepted. I miss my home. I need to be with the people I love. I want to get better and do right. I want to be happy. What often resonates for all of us most joyfully is: I love fried chicken!

Each time, we listen to each other. That first day, it became clear that Jan and I were not there to save them. We were all there to help each other. They had to take as many steps as we did to make these programs work. Many girls have been open about trying to heal from the most painful experience of their lives. It is scary. It is unsettling. It is incredibly inspiring.

The boys in the Evening Report Center (ERC) and Detention Center were very different, but oddly similar. Those same threads, in different words, continued to pop up. Missing home, loving family, having passions and hobbies, having dreams, wanting to become my own person, wanting to do better and get better. It is worth mentioning the outstanding talent you can discover with these teens. One 12 year-old boy, very socially mature for his age, made us laugh hysterically every time. He had this terrific charisma and love for performing. He could make anyone smile and was a great help in motivating the less enthusiastic boys. It is with boys like this when I want to ask: “Why are you even here? You’re a good kid!” Most of them are basically good kids. They are not angels, and they have made some serious mistakes, but are still human beings with real potential. If the positive side and talents are fed, there is no telling what they can do. The “What Are You Doing” game never failed to impress me. You see the boys take chances, act silly, and challenge each other to leave their comfort zone. It is a physical orchestra of random actions and emotions, to the tempo of their adrenaline. I’d explain the rules, but its better you play it than read about it…

There are those teens with more serious issues, too. They are stuck emotionally in a dank, dark room that we don’t have the key to. They’ve hurt and been hurt in ways that I can’t understand, and reject the creative tools we have to offer. It is rare for us to meet these types of students. When we do, it is not comfortable or pleasant, but I know that comes with the job. What’s good is that I never feel unsafe. The CCYC staff and AHHAH policies are very supportive of teachers. I am glad that AHHAH programs are optional so that if a teen doesn’t want to do it, they don’t. With all my students anywhere of any ages, I only teach those who want to learn. Both teacher and student roles have to be played for a class to flow. I sincerely hope that the more difficult students find their way with another teacher at another point. They can still succeed. It just may be with some else. That’s okay because, again, we’re not there to save them.

I plan to continue teaching Expressive Arts with AHHAH. Where I finally leave my post at CCYC is with Yoga. Though it is time for me to step away, I have no regrets. I learned so much!

What are we doing? Sometimes Kathy Potter, Bri, or Jan would ask this before yoga class. My answer was almost always “We could…” followed by silence and a prolonged scrunch of my face. I never knew because every time felt very new. There were often new teens joining in. Even if it was the same group, they might be in a different mood. Something significant may have happened to them—good or bad—that morning. I taught with a co-facilitator every Tuesday from 2:30-3:30PM with the girls and 4:30-5:30PM with the ERC. Detention Yoga rotated co-facilitators on Wednesdays, 2-3PM. The time and date was consistent, but the student body was always a little different. This was especially true for ERC and Detention Center. Who will be there? How will they feel? Injuries? Is their history violent, or are they just mischievous kids with a liking for weed? The girls from the shelter, however, made me especially nervous at first.

Teaching yoga for victims of trauma is quite tricky. Yoga is chock full of butt-lifting, hip thrusting, chest opening positions. It can look pretty sexual at times! Claire Dederer, delightfully sardonic author of Poser, confirms what everyone wonders time to time in yoga class. Is it me or is there something…erotic about this bridge pose? She describes a situation in “The, Um, Sexy Yoga Essay” when her husband asks her to show him what she learned in yoga class:

“And, reader, I did it: I hopped out of bed and — there on the bedroom floor in my shortie pajamas — I did the poses. I did downward dog and upward dog and plank and a couple of warriors and camel, the porniest pose of all. I would’ve done wheel, but I couldn’t yet manage it. I did them all, and my husband watched very, very closely and was very, very happy.”

It’s pretty funny to read about there, from the perspective of a grown woman who has experienced healthy, consenting sex. The “um, sexy” element is a humorous observation. Yet, what if your students are young girls who have experienced sexual abuse? How can I queue them to open the chest, spread their legs, and bend over? How can I not? Most classes, from the traditional to the trendy, involve all those motions at some point. (Or together at once—prasarita padotannasana!) Cut those postures out, and what are you left with? The breathing? Oh…

The breath. That’s all I had, all they had to start with. So we breathed. Then we practiced meditation, visualization, body awareness. The awareness of your legs, butt, hips, and everything else—I’ve found—doesn’t necessarily include thrusting or spreading or lifting. By stripping down the beginning of class to its basic elements, both the girls and I got in touch with the heart of yoga. Once we established that that is what it’s all about—breath and awareness—everything else came easier. We did the folds and the bridges, and they seemed “very, very happy” in a different way. It didn’t seem to feel sexual or exposed, as I’d feared for them. Kathy Potter, my co-facilitator, demonstrated all the poses and the modifications as a way to encourage them. It was also paramount for me to have her there to show them while I verbally queued. The space was safe, and they had the option to not to do any of it. There was safety, choice, and kindness—basically the opposite of the trauma they experienced.

The boys were, again, harder for very different yet very similar reasons. Now it was me doing this potentially-interpreted-as-sexy stuff in front of a bunch of teenage boys. Yikes! Again, we made it about breath and awareness. Then we moved on cautiously to other poses for strength and balance. Brianne Murphy, my fantastic partner, taught me more about how to teach yoga than I could have learned in 100 workshops. I observed so closely every time for how she spoke, lead, moved through the practice. There was no orgasmic yoga teacher voice or demonstrations of the hardest, fanciest version of the pose. She brought them through step by step, always with a sense of humor. Humor is key because you just can’t avoid the awkward moments.

My favorite memory of ERC yoga will always be when one of the boys thought Bri told him to kiss her. This boy had already brought his good looks to our attention earlier on in class:

“Look at this. You ever see a Mexican with green eyes?”

“No. And yes, you have beautiful coloring. So moving on…”

Toward the end, the boys were all getting chatty in easy seat. Bri told them to “bring your lips to meet” as a cute, yoga-y way of saying “Pipe down!”

This boy thought Bri had said “Bring your lips to me,” and asked, dumbfounded, if that was indeed what she said. All of us—the boys, staff, me, Bri, and the boy himself—laughed for about 5 minutes. That group laugh was cathartic. I just remember that even a staff who had looked so tired and serious was cracking up.

Another unexpected and comic moment came in Detention Yoga. One day, we queued Happy Baby pose. We had done a bunch of hip openers. The bright sun shining in the gym made me sleepy and delirious. So, I thought What the hell? Maybe they’ll like it. Miracle of miracles, they all did happy baby. And they did like it. They were just tickled by the act of being a baby. One of the tougher, more silent boys giggled—so help me he giggled—and said “Yo, this is what I did as a baby! I think I tried to eat my foot, too.” It was wonderful to see them acting so young and carefree. No one could guess we would all be doing happy baby that afternoon.

There were tough moments, too. There were times with all three groups--ERC, Shelter, and Detention—when everyone was tired and no one was into trying anything. There were days when they’d stare blankly at you with a what-the-f$*-is-the-point look on their faces. There were classes when I was wondering the same thing as I retreated alone into child’s while they stared and said “uh-uh.” There were days when I cried all the way home because I just felt painfully disconnected from them, like a trapeze artist who misses the hand of another, allowing them to plummet. (Or was I was the one falling into a net of self doubt?) Those days were tough. Those days were few.

Most of the time, yoga was a mixed and wonderful bag full of surprises. I learned so much from my teaching partners: Bri, Jan, Teresa, and Kathy. Teaching these teen taught me to avoid the pitfalls of yoga trends and cut to the clear essence of yoga. Yup: the breath and the awareness. Though I will not be continuing with yoga at the CCYC, I will remember and use all that I have learned from these wonderful individuals—teachers, staff, and students alike. I will take it with me to my class and my own practice.

The journey continues with Expressive Writing. I cannot wait to see what is in store for these teens. I cannot wait to write and read and breathe and become aware of how deeply we are all connected. Maybe we are all constantly falling towards the net, all the time.

What are we doing? We are bouncing back up, and meeting each other again.