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educators to practise it as well and he admitted, "Yes, I'm breathing better". So I said, "If you are breathing better, these people will also."
The third stage was when we began slow and brief practices of relaxation, just iwo to five minutes of yoga nidra. Relaxation in such situations is not like an ordinary class; everybody is moving, everybody is jumping! It takes twenty minutes just to get everybody lying down for two minutes. During these two minutes, on the basis of the technique of yoga nidra, with some extra innovations and with some imagination, we devised a way to practise. So I used to say, "Right arm" and I used to ask them to move the arm, not just think of the arm, but move the arm. I would say, "Right arm. Raise the arm." Over a period of two months, they were able to recognize their right arm and right hand. Not all of them, of course, but the majority.
Then we moved into mental relaxation, where they did not have to move the part of the body, but just think of and create a mental picture of it. At that stage I discovered that they had a very good capacity for imagination and visualization. I have met many yoga practitioners who have ten, fifteen, twenty years of yoga practice and yet cannot visualize, but I have met many people whom we call 'retarded' or 'disabled', who can immediately visualize anything that you tell them to.
Tradually, yoga nidra was extended from two minutes to five and even ten minutes.
After this three month course, I decided to carry on in the same neighborhood. But due to local administration and political games, these poor people were not permitted to receive yoga classes there. We tried to move into other areas but we found that it was the same. When administrations change, then the activities designed to cure and heal suffer. So, at that time, together with the people who were helping us in Torino, we decided to open our center to groups who could bring handicapped persons to us in buses and cars.
We have two of our teachers plus two assistants for classes of one or one and a half hours. We practise and play a little bit, then, in a quiet yogic environment, we can very easily introduce all the other techniques of yoga, a few more asanas, static asanas, all the asymmetric asanas, balancing asanas, and then carry on with explanations of breathing, using charts and posters for deeper understanding.
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