The Truth is In Your Body
By africayogaproject
Posted in Africa Yoga Project Blog, on April 23, 2012
Soon after community yoga class on Saturday, Don approaches me. He asks whether my project on telling people’s stories is still on. I am excited but I wasn’t quite prepared for what he was going to say next. It turns out he is a 24 year old male who could easily pass for an 18 year old. He has sickle cell anaemia.
His story reads like a medical miracle. On a routine visit to the doctor, he was told he needed to do some form of exercise. Lucky for him, he had just been to AYP and had learnt about yoga. He told this to his doctor who encouraged him to take it up.
Sickle cell anaemia, as a hereditary disease, prevents someone from doing what other ‘normal’ people do. Tasks that we take for granted, such as running, are a tad more difficult for him.
When I ask him how yoga has helped him, he responds that he enjoys it because it is a personal experience, it his practice. His friends and family have noticed the change in his health and outlook. He has endurance, and can do the whole two hour sequence comfortably.
Thanks to yoga, he feels ‘normal’ again.
That is the miracle of yoga.
Brenda Orata
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