Interview with Ryan Leier- Founder of Yoga For Youth and ONE Yoga Saskatoon

RS: Can you tell me about Yoga For Youth? What is it and what do you do?

RL: We’re a non profit organization made up of a group of yoga teachers and what we’re doing is taking yoga to the schools and communities through physical education classes in the public schools, and in after-school programs or though community centers. Our focus is on inner city youth, kids who wouldn’t otherwise have access to yoga classes. For the last year we’ve been working on teaching the inner city kids and then bringing them with us to different parts of town to teach and demonstrate to the kids at other schools.

RS: How many locations are you in right now?

RL: About 20

RS: Are they mostly public schools?

RL: The Catholic schools have been trying to bring us in and they’re really open to what we’re offering. It’s interesting, the Catholic schools want the whole tradition. They want to know the philosophy, the spiritual aspects and the moral codes. I was really surprised in a good way at how open they were because some of the public schools we’re in just want us to come and teach ‘special’ phys. ed. classes, and teach them fitness yoga. Yesterday I went into the Catholic school and the principle was doing an announcement right before the class and what he was talking about was the courage of Jesus and Martin Luther King to be non-violent. It was Ahimsa. It was great, it matched exactly what I wanted to talk to the kids about; being able to use the poses to develop courage so they could speak for themselves and not follow peer pressure

RS: It sounds like Yoga For Youth is sharing a lot more than just the physical practice of asana with these kids?

RL: Definitely, that’s what our intention is.

RS: Do you find that the kids you’re working with are receptive to the teachings? Are they more or less receptive to the asana compared to the philosophy? Where is their interest?

RL: For some of the kids something has definitely sparked, they know that the yoga practice can take them to a new place. We have some kids who are coming from lots of drug use. We have two girls who are from one of the inner city high schools who are starting to come to the studio now on their own, rather than going out and getting high… They both had serious drug use problems. A few of the kids are embracing it as a thing that has the potential to really change their lives in terms of how they behave and respond to their world. Then there’s another group that’s come in from the sports teams that are coming in to use yoga to get fit and to get them into better shape and prevent injuries. So it’s reaching the kids on different levels and I think that for the most part they’re receptive to what yoga is in its entirety, beyond just the physical practice.

RS: What is the average age of the kids that you’re teaching?

RL: Anywhere from 5 years old to 25 years old… I had a grade 2 kid the other day… I always ask the kids what they think that yoga is, and they say things like “strength” or  “peacefulness“, and one little girl put up her hand and said “Yoga is the art of relaxation.” They’re so smart!

RS: How did Yoga For Youth begin?

RL: A few years ago I was talking to the man who was my religious studies professor in college, he’s a Tibetan Buddhist who’s the head of the department for religious studies here at the university. I was telling him about my teacher Father Joe Pereira who does work with HIV and AIDS and drugs and alcohol addiction recovery in India, (The Kripa Foundation has over 50 locations worldwide. It was started by Fr. Joe and supported by Mother Theresa. Visit FR. Joe’s site here and learn more about his project here.) and I was telling my prof, Dr. Jay that I wanted to dedicate myself to serving Fr. Joe’s mission. Dr. Jay said, “Well, what experience do you have with working with drugs and alcohol?” and I said,

“None.”

“What about HIV and AIDS?”

“None.”

He said, “Well you’ve trained to be a teacher and you’re working to coach kids in basketball… Have you ever thought about serving yoga to the kids before they go through all the things like addiction and health problems and using yoga to reach them first?”

And I realized that’s where my strength was so I decided to put together this foundation. It’s been growing over the past few years, and hopefully it will continue to grow.

(Fr. Joe Pereira)

RS: Is Yoga For Youth still affiliated with Kripa and Fr. Joe?

RL: He supports it. It’s not really affiliated but he’s given me his blessing to teach as many kids and train as many teachers as I can.

RS: How many teachers do you have working with you right now?

RL: We have 8.

RS: Are they all teachers who have been your long-time students? Did you train all of them?

RL: Most of them have been my students for a long time or I’ve trained them. I want to keep it fairly consistent right now in terms of the kinds of things we’re teaching and the style of yoga.

RS: You began offering a teacher training last year, can you speak a little about it?

RL: I believe teaching yoga is something that really comes through if you have a practice. Someone who teaches, I think, really needs to have a daily practice or the integrity of the teachings doesn’t really translate. At the training we try to teach people how to practice yoga in their daily life beyond just the asana, beyond the 60 minutes or 90 minutes in a class, but in all other aspects of what they do and how they live.

This past year it was a ONE Yoga training and Yoga For Youth training, so anyone that did it could teach Yoga For Youth… In the future the training will be specific, either ONE Yoga or Yoga For Youth. Right now I’m working on our mission statement and developing an 8-week program with different sequences and a class every day with a different focus.

RS: What do you envision as the future of Yoga For Youth?

RL: We were working towards actually getting it into the provincial or at least city-wide curriculum, and I found it’s really difficult. Now we’re looking at getting it into more community type programs like after-school groups where the kids and parents can come and practice. In the inner city schools the thing is that you need to be there right after school gets out, otherwise it’s really unlikely that the kids are going to be able to find a way to come back for the group.

I would love to see it in the curriculum in Saskatoon and maybe even across Canada in different cities. I would love it if we could work with a behavioral specialist who would come in and research what the affects of yoga are on the kids. I think that if we could convince people of the value, we could make it a part of the school curriculum. Ideally I would love to see yoga be a part of every kids school day, 5 minutes of meditation and 15 minutes of poses. It would change the schools and the people completely.

RS: What is it about a yoga practice that’s different from sports or theater or other hobbies? What about yoga would help someone be more aware and more loving or encourage those traits?

RL: Yoga gives people the tools that they need to become comfortable in their own skin and to make good, conscious choices rather than following peer pressure or rather than following habitual ways or cultural standards that aren’t always kind, loving and truthful. I think that yoga helps people to connect with their personal power and their ability to love themselves and others.

Yoga also brings people to honor their bodies. In class we encourage them to come from their hearts and their feelings and intuition rather than doing poses because they’re competitive or because they think everyone else is doing it. It makes them mindful of their actions, their words, their thoughts and it empowers them to learn what they can do and what they can go through. We challenge people in yoga classes, we put them into situations on the mat that are really hard and we make them stay in it and find comfort and just breathe through it even when things get tough. I think that the longer someone can stay in a pose that’s safe, but is challenging and uncomfortable… That learning to work through their physical challenges and discomfort makes them more tolerant and loving people who are accepting of others and accepting of life.

RS: Where do you get your financial support? Do you receive any government funding through the schools?

RL: We receive individual donations and we do fundraiser/karma classes to buy mats and pay teachers.  We’re definitely on the lookout for a mat company to sponsor us if you know of any!

It’s been difficult to get funding through the schools because they have to be a bit wary of religious affiliations, or I guess, what can be seen as religious affiliation. I talked to a woman with the school board yesterday and the first thing she brought up was that some of the parents don’t like yoga being taught in schools because they think it’s religious.

RS: Other than some parents who are concerned about potential religious conflicts, how has the response been from the other parents, kids and teachers? Does it seem like there is some kind of general attitude or response to your program so far?

RL: For the most part, everyone really loves it and they appreciate it and they want more of it. The more time we spend in one school, the more the parents and the teachers see what the possible benefits of yoga are and what yoga can do for them and the kids as human beings. Beyond building strength or flexibility, the teachers notice that the kids are calmer and more focused. The teachers see them actually using some of the principles of yoga like kindness, truthfulness, and non-stealing.

RS: Can you say a little about the perception that yoga is a religion? How do you teach mindfulness and spirituality without teaching religion, or do you? Is that a part of your program?

RL: We talk about things a bit differently. We don’t talk about God but sometimes in Savasana we say things like “Let that force that is breathing you… Whatever you think it is… Let it take care of you and relax with it.” We talk about surrendering and letting to the earth and to the sky like with the native spirituality. Sometimes we use language like soul or spirit, but if we do use that language or if we talk about Jesus or the Buddha, we make sure to say that it’s just one way of describing things. We use a lot of language like joining with your highest self or conscience, and what we’re talking about is the power of love. I guess we use the word love interchangeably with god.

The inner cities have lots of Native American kids whose tradition has really been suppressed and dishonored in Canada so we often incorporate certain aspects of their tradition, like the elements, the earth, sky, fire and water into our teachings. And at the end of the class when we say Namaste we also say words from Crazy Horse, “I salute the light within your eyes where the universe dwells. For when you are at that place within you and I am at that place within me we shall be one.”

We like to honor those teachings of the Mother Earth and the Father Sky. We’re on sacred land, here on Earth, and also as our bodies and in our minds we’re sacred.

What we’re teaching is not religious. We’re not asking them to be any certain way. We’re empowering the kids to really be themselves and we’re basically teaching them that at the core of who they are, they’re no better, no worse, no different than anyone else, there’s no superiority and no inferiority. We say things like “Have a proud heart and a humble chin”. What this program is doing for these kids is uplifting the kids that really need to be uplifted who are shy, insecure and maybe unhealthy. And it’s helping to humble the kids that have learned to bully or look down on their peers. The program works to bring young people into their center where they really are perfect and there’s nothing wrong with them and there’s nothing to prove. We’re trying to teach them to connect to that part of themselves. I think that’s really the heart of what yoga is.

Click here to view the embedded video.

RS: What inspires you most, what motivates you to do what you do?

RL: Just looking in these kids eyes when they’re connecting to their source. What inspires me is these kids that are just shining and to be able to help them keep that shine and make it stronger. If we go to one school with 300 kids and 1 kid ‘gets it’. If just one kid understands the simple teachings of yoga it could have a huge impact on their whole life. If one kid came and said “Oh wow! That was really cool, maybe when I get older I’ll go and study that.” Or like a lot of these kids that we’re teaching now, maybe they’ll be inspired to become yoga teachers and teach their peers and stay on the path towards a peaceful and mindful life. I think that’s worth all of the time and effort that we put in.

RS: If you could design a t-shirt what would it say?

RL: LOVE!

But I also like Muhammad Ali’s poem that just says, “Me, We.” Because we’re all in this together, whether we like it or not or realize it or not, we’re all one, we’re all here on Earth together and we have to help each other out.

(Feed The Yogi will being selling Yoga For Youth T-shirts on the site in the next few months. Keep an eye out for them, all proceeds go to YFY)

Ryan and his lovely daughter and teaching assistant, Kiyah

December 13, 2009
Interview with Ryan Patterson from Away Inward Retreats.

In the last year and a half California-based massage therapist Ryan Patterson and his Partner Jason Frahm have taken four groups to Peru for a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience including hikes to sacred Inca ruins, fire dances, earth offerings and plant ceremonies guided by Andean Shamans, massage, journaling, yoga (of course), Machu Picchu (of course) and a deep commitment to serving 2 local orphanages. I interviewed Ryan about the vision of Away Inward and his mission of charitable outreach.

How did Away Inward begin?
Jason had been working in southeast Asia; Thailand and Bali, but he had anchored in Peru to work on his project (The At-Onement Project) bringing education to remote areas. Simultaneously I was starting Away Inward as a charitable yoga foundation, mainly doing retreats. I had just started it when I met Jason. I had the bank account and the url, the business side of the setup, but I hadn’t done retreats yet. I went on a journey with him to Peru and the retreat center we stayed at was working with an orphanage (Casa de Milagros), so we spent some time there and we were introduced to the process that they had in which profits from the retreat center funded the orphanage. During that time we also found out about another retreat center (Las Casitas del Arco Iris) which supported a different orphanage that was part of a larger initiative that also included a daycare program for young children, a technical and vocational school for children and adults, and a free medical and dental clinic for the community. We both felt pulled to help support these programs and that’s where we came together to start the retreats to Peru.

What kind of funding opportunities does Away Inward set up for these two programs? What do you do, how do you do it, how much do you give?
We start with simply asking each of the guests to bring a bag of supplies; clothes, medical supplies etc. Before the trip we each do various fundraisers, I do raffles for massage and teach donation yoga classes. We typically take down about $2500 USD at the beginning, which may sound nominal to us but is actually a good amount for them.
The way we set up the retreats, our guests know that they’re supporting the programs, they know that’s part of the reason for the trip. When we stay at the retreat center attached to Casa de Milagros we spend a good portion of our last day there with the kids at the orphanage. On our way back (from Machu Picchu) we stay at Las Casitas del Arco Iris where we do a tour and our guests get to see the facilities and see what they’re supporting. Our company gives 10% of profits back to the orphanages and at the end of the trip we open the door to guests to donate as well. We typically raise an additional 8-10,000USD from the guests per trip. (Editor’s note: 3 trips to Peru per year averages an accumulative min. total of $34,500-$37,500 per year raised for the projects)

Do most of your guests donate after?
Yes, for sure. We’ve been blessed, but as I said we build that in from the beginning. So introducing the guests to the people, showing them where the money’s going and what they’re doing with it really makes an impact.

How is that for your guests? How are they affected by these trips and the visits to the centers?
They’re tremendously moved, in the last trip we had a few guests from Italy who had been fairly sheltered from the severity of third-world poverty. When they see people who have given their entire life such as Mama Kia, (who moved from Sweden to start Casa de Milagros, or Helena Van Engelen from Holland who started Casitas del Arco Iris) who have moved to Peru with the sole purpose of taking care of the kids that are left on the streets; when our guests see how much good work is being done they’re usually moved to tears.

Why do most of your guests come? What are their motivations?
Peru. It’s the destination that they’ve always wanted, thought about, but they would never go on their own. Most of them are into yoga also. We can work on the charitable side because we have the pull of Peru and the element of Karma Yoga, or of giving back. When we first designed the retreat it actually wasn’t about getting people to donate to causes, but we knew that just by staying in the retreat centers we could help the orphanages.

Can you speak a little bit about your personal philosophy and intention behind Away Inward? What does “Away Inward” mean?
Going inward to me is the notion of connecting with intuition or what some people might call a “sixth sense”, but I just call that inner awareness. For most of us in our day-to-day lives we have so much external stimulation that we lose track of simple things like our breath, how we feel, illnesses that are going on, stuff that we should be connected to and inherently know.
So I think that sometimes we have to go away in order to reconnect to that knowing, to our ‘center’. The destination’s not really as important as the going away. Going somewhere new takes us out of our routine, takes us away from obligations, cell phones, internet. Without those things we don’t have expectations and distractions that are barriers keeping us from listening to our bodies and our inner guidance, or that inherent wisdom. So I think that’s the main philosophy; to find a way inward. That was the original idea with Away Inward, to get out of your comfort zone, out of your daily routine and check in with yourself at a higher level.

What is it about Peru that would help someone to go inward?
In Peru we spend a lot of time with Shamans. We do things like creating ceremonies to connect with Mother Earth and saying prayers. It’s simple ceremony that brings back aspects we’ve lost in our culture and daily life. But here we can reinforce that connection. It’s a bit easier in Peru because there are so many people that are still connected to the earth and earth based traditions. For westerners that whole concept is a great catalyst for introspection and an invitation to tune in to a higher potential.

Are people able to integrate these elements when they come back from the trip? Or do you always have to go away to be inward?
*Laughs* Unfortunately a big part of me believes so. I try to hold on to it when I get back but I can feel it changing day by day. It’s back to the phone calls, back to the stimulation that distracts us from our center. That’s the whole goal of yoga, or at least my yoga practice, is to stay in that center. But having to work and carrying on with the daily routines can quickly move us out of center.

How does a yoga practice fit in while you are on retreat? Is it something that you encourage people to continue with when they come back?
On the retreats we have much more time for meditation, we can do walking meditation and we do silent portions of the hikes, all with the intention of grounding and reconnecting. We offer that to guests to bring home and we encourage them specifically to develop a meditation practice that will help them to maintain the essence of what gets created on the retreat.

When I first contacted you by email you mentioned that part of the work of Away Inward was to create community. I think it’s an interesting proposition that two totally different cultures can come together and “create community” and I sometimes wonder what people really mean by that, it’s a term that’s used in many different ways. How does it happen for you, how do you go about it?
When I talk about building community by going to Peru, I’m speaking more about global community and awareness. We’re bringing different worlds together. We’re taking people that know the energy of Manhattan sky-rises and we’re bringing them to third-world poverty and dirt floors. It’s about building awareness of the larger community of Planet Earth. Our guests build community within themselves too, they bond and form relationships and afterwards when we’re back we have a community of shared experience and we can talk about it and motivate to keep working together and then everyone affects their outer circle of relationships.

What I’m hearing from you is that you’re encouraging a community that’s less something physical or spatial with borders, but rather a community of understanding or a coming together of knowledge from different cultures and exposure for people who wouldn’t otherwise be exposed.
Right, it’s exposure to knowledge with a lot of cross-polination. A lot of information we’re getting from the Shamans in Peru is similar or even the same as the information coming from the yoga practice and from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

What is your definition of a healthy community?
A healthy community to me is a larger awareness within each individual. A healthy community is made up of individuals who have a broader sense than just how they were raised or what they know specifically.

What was your original motivation or calling to this work?
I was in Thailand and a lady I met there mentioned visiting the orphanage. It wasn’t even something that I had thought of doing, but I did and then I ended up spending the next three days there and that opened the door for me to really want to participate in an orphanage in the third world in some fashion. Eight months later I was in Peru with Jason. When we went, we knew that there was an orphanage affiliated with the retreat center but that wasn’t the original purpose of the trip. But then we got there and we realized it was the obvious thing to focus on and so it fell into place.

How long have you been teaching yoga?
2.5 years

Can you tell me what drew you to yoga as a practice and how your practice has shaped what you’ve decided to do with your work/ career?
Yoga has enhanced my compassion, and it’s definitely changed my view of people. My senses of awareness, service and gratitude have all opened up with my yoga practice. In my work as a bodyworker and massage therapist yoga has made me much more intuitive and connected to my clients. It’s given me a way to stay open and healthy.

What is your vision for the future of Away Inward?
To duplicate what we’ve done in Peru in other locations. We’re in the process of working with someone in Bali who has an orphanage and a midwife center. In the long term we want to have 3 or 4 destinations annually that are all tied in to charitable organizations.

Are these retreats accessible to people at different levels of income? Do you have a scholarship?
In the future we’d like to have a volunteer program, where we can bring people down who will work longer at the orphanages, but we don’t have that in place yet.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I don’t recall ever having a mission really, like I never thought “I want to be a fireman“. I went to college for pre-med, then I went skiing for a few years and I was on ski-patrol. I was always kind of in the field of health and healing, but as a kid I wasn’t specifically drawn to anything I can remember. Bodywork just kind of happened, a friend suggested it and I tried one day of massage school and I just knew I would do that for a while. That’s how I came to yoga, I was looking for a way to heal without putting my body through so much work.

Where do you want to be in 20, 30 or 50 years from now?
I would love to have a local studio in California and one in Boise, Idaho which is where I’m from, and one that’s abroad. I’d like to have a company that runs retreats and a sustainable retreat circuit that’s available to other teachers with similar goals.

Do you have any major influences/ inspirations?
Someone like Mother Theresa, someone that can roll up their sleeves and work without worrying about what they’re going to get back from it.

Do you have New Year’s resolutions?
I’d like to find a consistent volunteer program here in California where I can volunteer and be involved.

If you could make a bumper sticker what would it be, what’s your message?
Turn off your television. Turn on your heart.

Away Inward Retreats are one week long Cultural Immersion Retreats.
Prices range from $2300USD- $3700. Included in the cost are meals and transportation, daily yoga and meditation, mindfulness practice, 3-4 hours hiking daily led by Andean Shamans to sacred Inca sites, ceremony, massage and visits to Casa de Milagros and Casitas del Arco Iris.
Airfare is not included
The next trip scheduled is March 7-13, 2010.

For more information visit http://www.awayinward.com

Other Links:
Casa de Milagros
Casitas del Arco Iris
The At-Onement Project
Ryan Patterson’s personal website

Ryan Patterson and Jason Frahm

Two years ago my dear friend Ryan from One Yoga in Saskatoon brought me to a 3-day workshop with Reverend Father Joe Pereira while he was visiting Toronto. To this day that workshop is one of the most vivid examples I have ever had of the true transformative peace that can come from a yoga practice. Fr. Joe is a senior Iyengar teacher and a good friend and colleague of Mr. Iyengar and he worked alongside Mother Teresa for many years in India. Fr. Joe is the founder of the Kripa Foundation where he works to treat HIV patients and people recovering from chemical dependencies.

Kripa Foundation is the largest NGO in India, affiliated with the Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, working among people afflicted with chemical dependency & HIV Infection. Kripa Foundation has become a module of non-discriminating, supportive community living, empowering people to introspect and bring about a change in lifestyle. Kripa’s strength lies in the eastern disciplines and facilitating lifestyle change, which it propagates in all its centers as Basic Therapy to cope with life’s stresses including addiction, which is an outward manifestation of the turmoil within an individual.  It is this inner healing which is enabling Kripa to realize its dream of becoming a global presence.