'It’s been very healing'
Yoga teacher helps students focus on bodies and minds
By Kevin Abourezk
WINNEBAGO, Nebraska – Inside a dark classroom on the second floor of a brick building, six students lay on foam mats with their eyes closed.
Their teacher speaks quietly at the front of the room, forcing the students to listen intently.
Keely Purscell tells them to count their breaths and to be aware of their bodies and to be present in this moment.
The faint sound of relaxing Chinese flute music plays on a radio, though it’s overpowered by the sound of Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” playing on the building’s public address system outside the classroom.
Purscell addresses the musical dissonance.
“Begin to notice the sounds that are happening around you,” she tells her students. “Don’t judge those sounds. Just become aware of the sounds. Notice the sounds that are close to you and the sounds that are further away. Just simply notice them.”
Purscell is the first registered yoga teacher offering yoga on the
Winnebago Reservation in northeast Nebraska.
The 45-year-old Winnebago woman took up the practice in the early 1990s after struggling to regain movement in her right knee following surgery. She tried a six-week introductory yoga class at that time and within three weeks saw her knee regain its full range of motion.
She’s been practicing yoga ever since and has taught chair yoga at a nursing home in Sioux City, Iowa, and also has a home studio where she offers private lessons. In March, she completed her training to become a yoga instructor from Amy Machacek Shonka at HeartWork Yoga Studio in Northfield, Minnesota.
Yoga classes are now offered at the Whirling Thunder Wellness Center on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska. In addition to Tuesdays and Thursdays, teacher Keely Purscell offers Monday evening sessions. Image: Whirling Thunder
Purscell is now a 200-hour registered yoga teacher with the Yoga Alliance and teaches at the
Whirling Thunder Wellness building in Winnebago. She offers classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon and on Monday nights at 6:30 p.m. She averages 7-9 students per class.
She said teaching yoga requires deep respect for eastern Indian culture, something that comes naturally to her having been raised to respect two different religious practices.
Growing up in Winnebago, Purscell was raised by her maternal grandparents after her mother died when Purscell was young. Her grandfather was Catholic and her grandmother was a member of the Native American Church.
They taught her to respect both religions, as well as her tribe’s traditional spirituality, but they didn’t require her to choose one over another.
“I’ve tried to carry that forward in my yoga,” she said. “There’s good in all beliefs.”
She said yoga offers a lot to reservation communities and doesn't require its practitioners to ascribe to any religion.
Much like her own tribal spirituality, which often requires practitioners to focus on prayer, yoga requires its practitioners to focus on their bodies and minds. Both are a form of meditation, Purscell said.
“There are so many similarities to yoga and to traditional teachings,” she said. “For me, it’s been very healing.”
Yoga also can be effective in helping to treat those who have suffered trauma, Purscell said. She said she’s had students start crying in class because a certain pose triggered an emotional response. A woman who was a sexual abuse survivor expressed concern to Purscell once that a certain pose made her feel uncomfortable. Purscell taught her a different pose to use when others were doing the pose that made her feel uncomfortable.
“I wanted her to be safe in my class and feel like this is a place she could come and not only work out her body but also work out her mind,” Purscell said.
For those with problems with their knees or joints, Purscell teaches them to use aids, such as foam blocks and mats, to ease their pain during certain poses. And she tries not to push anyone to go beyond their abilities.
For Purscell, yoga isn’t a competition. It’s a method for connecting to one’s inner self and body, and Native communities should be willing to include it as a form of healing and exercise, she said.
As her noon class ended, Purscell told her students to listen to their bodies' needs.
“Begin to feel your body relax and as you take your next exhale, let your body relax even more,” she said.
“Now close your eyes. Allow your breath to do what it wants to do. If it wants to be short, let it be short. And if it wants to be long, let it be longer.”
As she spoke, at least one student – a reporter for Indianz.Com – drifted off to sleep.
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