On Sunday night, I got a text from my co-worker at Mind Body Solutions Amy Burke. A woman with a spinal cord injury was driving across the country, stopping in Minneapolis, and wanted to attend my Monday morning yoga class. This class is typically for “traditional” students, meaning people without any overt disability or special needs. 
Chelsea rolls into our yoga studio. She has long blonde hair, blue eyes, sunglasses on the top of her head, and fantastically fashionable worn jeans. She looks cool. She is on the final leg of a solo, six-week road trip that will end back in Pennsylvania. This morning she seems a little anxious and why wouldn’t she be. All the other students are walking around and she does not really know if yoga is even possible for her. She is completely paralyzed from the middle of her torso down to her feet. All she does know is that the teacher – me – also gets around in a wheelchair. Chelsea is both a traveler and an adventurer. This will serve her well throughout her life.
“Do you experience any sensation in your legs?” I ask.
“Sensation is a funny word…” she replies with a coy smile, “…so that depends.” Immediately, I know that she been exploring not just outwardly driving down the highway but also inwardly within her experience. Her ‘coolness’ is not just skin deep.
“Have you ever done any yoga?” I ask. She shakes her head with a helpless but hopeful look in her eyes.
“This is going to be fun,” I say smiling. “One final question: are you willing to get out of your chair and onto the floor”? She shakes her head again and says something about a restrictive hip condition where she has too much calcium surrounding her joint. She also mentions a serious bone infection. I know this resistance well. As a spinal cord injured person, there are always reasons not to do anything. Then she reveals another level of truth.
“I’m just not comfortable on the floor,” she says sheepishly. I remember this too. I inwardly smile because there are limits to her adventuresome spirit, at least right out of the gate. This too will serve her well.
The class flows beautifully. Chelsea is a good listener. She is strong enough to simply observe parts of the class with gratitude on her face. More than that, there are two yoga teachers – Julie and Mary Pat – in the class. They have trained with me and are accomplished adaptive yoga teachers in their own right. What I watch unfold is amazing teamwork. Julie and Mary Pat seamlessly and quietly help Chelsea in opportune moments, whispering more instruction off to the side and guiding her with their well trained hands. But they also give her the space to navigate the class by herself. As a teaching team, we have nearly struck a perfect chord. At the end of class, the result is that Chelsea is beaming with wonder and hope and the desire to return someday. Everyone present – both traditional and non-traditional students – can feel that something beautiful has happened over the last 90 minutes. The glow is tangible. As the founder of Mind Body Solutions, I bask in this collective accomplishment. It feels like sunlight.
Chelsea is so inspired that she decides to attend one of our adaptive yoga classes that night at the Courage Center. Amy teaches that one and Mary Pat will be one of the assistants. Chelsea gets her world rocked. Amy convinces her that it is safe to get out of her chair….there is no reason to feel awkward. Once on the floor, Chelsea’s world truly starts to shift. She begins to feel things she has not felt since before she was injured…just over ten years ago.
The pinnacle moment is a simple, shared adjustment. Chelsea is on her back. Another one of our teachers Chris sits on the floor and puts her feet into Chelsea’s feet. Chelsea describes this moment in her own blog, http://chelseamarley.com/2013/07/24/embody-wellness/
“While lying on my back she’d apply alternating pressure on my feet but I’ve become unfamiliar at discerning this sensation within my paralysis. Within a few minutes, I’d acquire a very real, very tangible awareness of when this pressure was being applied and then its absence. It was sensation that coursed through the soles of my feet, through my legs, thighs, and into my pelvis. As being in a glider was the closest I’d ever felt to being a bird and flying, this was the closest I’ve been to walking since I’ve been paralyzed.” (emphasis added)
Chelsea and Chris (above) after a class that changed both of them.
At Mind Body Solutions, we do all sorts of outreach work. We teach all levels of students living with trauma, loss, and disability, including vets and battered women. We train yoga teachers from around the world how to teach adaptive yoga. We also train healthcare professionals and organizations in the fields of acute medical care and medical rehabilitation, in the fields of eating disorders and chemical dependency, and in the fields of developmental disabilities, and in elderly care.
In our on-going effort to expand our work, it is easy for our team to lose the forest for the trees. Sometimes it takes a traveler coming through our midst to remember who we are and what we are for. Thank you Chelsea.