Category: CAS Yoga with Tampines MINDS

During season 1, we had quite a lot of sessions with our partners. I initially thought we could change the yoga program routine ourselves as a student, but it was quite sad that we cannot develop it further. But I think that Ms Veron’s words that our partners may not be able to follow the moves if we change it makes more sense. In some sessions, we did not have our partners coming so we just practiced teaching yoga as a pair. I did this practice with Christine. By doing this practice, we found many mistakes or lack of care we had as a tutor. We did not know how to help another person breathe in and out more easily using bodies. This was initially very challenging for both me and Christine. So we kept on trying different methods(for example, holding shoulders) and some of them worked!! Also, we decided to prepare for the situations where partners cannot do the postures as they are and hence we need to modify the moves for them. This wad my idea, worrying that my partner who was not as flexible as others might find some moves challenging. So for moves in which one had to bend down, we created a modified version in which one goes down with knees bent. I think I should have introduced these modified versions to other service students, but I think it was not needed for other partners. when my partner came next time, I could introduce her to the modified versions. She did not want to do some of them, but she was generally more willing to do moves than before, which I think is a progress.

Obviously, when we came back from our Chinese New Year holiday, Covid-19 situation got worse and we could not invite our partners to school anymore. This was a big change which I did not like at all. But since we all understood that health is more important than anything, I think we should find ways to keep in touch with our service partners. for the first few weeks in season 3, we had a huge conference where all the services talked about ways to continue service during covid crisis. And we also had discussions within our service on how to support our partners. I think we were not as motivated at that time as we knew that yoga activity won’t be able to be held online and that means we need to find something else to do through video calls which did not seemed so plausible. But we still worked together to come up with ideas like sending letters to them with pretty decorations which I think was a very sweet idea. I again realised the importance of adapting ourselves to the given situation which I think we could do as a group. I hope covid cases will decrease for us to continue our yoga sessions.

Most of our service partners that visit us to do yoga are people with intellectual disabilities. I initially thought that doing yog could be hard for some of our clients butI now know that our service is important to clients because it not only provides with them a mental and physical benefit but the partnership and interaction with us which guide them on how to interact with others and easily integrate into society. This service also give them an opportunity to go against the stigmas and stereotypes associated with intellectual disabilities. Majority of people treat people with intellectual disabilities differently without even noticing. This makes those with intellectual disabilities isolate themselves from social groups/ society. It is important for them to realise that there is an opportunity for them to take roles in our society and to learn how to behave when interacting with people. By taking roles as a instructor that teaches yoga to our partner, we could learn how to communicate with people with intellectual disabilities and sometimes had difficulties understanding their words and gesture. Especially my partner did not even try to listen to me at first and she kept saying she wanted to go to the restroom. I did not know what to do and it was hard to communicate with her.  After manny trials and errors of my attempt to communicate,  I realised that every single partners has different level of yoga skills and communication skills  that I shouldn’t treat all of them the same as help/support they need are all different. It was also an important learning for me as when I first started the service, I had some worries such as “what if I cannot understand what our partner is saying in the middle of the yoga sessions?” However, I learnt how to persuade them to stay and as I tried my best to do so,  they started accepting my request.

Similar as before, we had our partners coming on a regular basis. I liked how my partner always came while some other people who used to come stopped coming. I think this was a indicator that I was doing quite well. To be honest, my partner still did not want to follow some moves. To help her stretch her body and relax her body and minds, I had to tell her to participate more and be more focused on the program. But at the same time, I knew that it was not only that she did not want to do it, but I could see that her being not as flexible than others sometimes made her give up doing postures. It was rather something more like fear. I faced this internal conflict for which I had to use my moral principle wisely to solve.

I decided to make her participate more by doing what she does. When she kept staring at the wall, I did the same, waiting for her to be back to the program. I lay down on the floor when she did so. I think this trial was effective as I did not offend or hurt her by forcing her to participate but rather I waited for her to back to the yoga mode. Through this experience, I realized that I am good at reading others mind and considering the impact of my actions on them before taking actions. I think it is skill that is very important. I will continue to try my best to make my partner participate more.

The circumstances around us over the past few months have been very different from what we would normally expect our school life to look like. Our service being a local service, we couldn’t have interaction with our service partners. As face-to-face interaction is important aspect of our service, it was so sad that we could not actually do what we are usually supposed to do in our service. During quarantine life, I have been quite busy working on many internal assessments and I barely exercised to be honest. I sometimes did some stretching and that was all. After few months of life like this, I realised the importance of moving my body and staying active. Especially Yoga or pilates are important as they help our body relax. As a person who realised the importance of staying active myself, I hoped we could call our partners and have yoga sessions to help our partners stay active too, but it was hard to do so. I think changing the way things work is just really hard for both students and teachers as it is our first time experiencing online learning and lockdown. Even though we could not meet our partners and do yoga with them, I think the discussions we had online about our sessions so far on how we could support and keep in touch with our partners were very meaningful and important. If some of us continue to be part of this service and we still cannot invite our partners to school, our backup plans and ideas we discussed will be very helpful in designing our service program next year. Looking back, what I really liked about my service is the warm atmosphere that my peers, Ms Veron, and our service partners create. Some of our partners could not speak English. As a person who learned English as my second language in high school, I have experienced difficulty in communicating with people with enough clarity and  I initially thought that the language barrier might hinder the effective communication. There were some hardships when I could not clearly understand what my partner was saying, but through many interactive sessions I could understand her words by her body language and I realised that with body languages and facial expressions, we can still communicate and interact well. To conclude, I would like to talk about how my opinion on or view of people with down syndrome has changed.  I think it is now time for any people in the world to see the real superb personalities and chartacters of people with down syndrome and try to include them more into our society. To be honest, I have heard about down syndrome but I had no experience of having interacted with people with down syndrome. When we visited MINDS center at the beginning of the year, I was unsure how to approach/introduce myself to them and I just did not know how to interact. I think it was because I was too careful as I did not want to do anything that might make them unhappy or offend them. But later on during our sessions, I could see how sweet they are and I realised that they are very social and love interactions. I initially thought learning yoga to them might be a challenge for them. but now I understand how important it is for both our service students and our clients to spend time stretching our body and relaxing our mind.  when I go to university, I would like to involve in or create the same activity. Looking back, one huge challenge and pressure I had was trying to make my partner be more happy during the sessions which I think I managed to do even if the change was not that obvious. I still saw in the very last session how she did moves by herself without much guidance.