Om Yoga Magazine — January 2018

om spirit

questions and the resulting answers. I found that the more I was
in touch with my body and breathing, and the more focused my
mind, the more I was able to discern what was being said and to
go beyond the words to understand meaning through tone, body
language and emotional expression. I discovered that I did not just
hear through my ears but through my body and feeling the vibration
of another’s voice. The better the quality of my yoga practice
became, the better my understanding of Italian.
In those days I was teaching English at a bank and asked if I could
introduce yoga and meditation exercises. They agreed, and did
some simple exercises. They found it was a way of disconnecting
from whatever they had been doing before they came to class; it
made their minds clearer and more relaxed, and created a warm
friendly atmosphere in the classroom where people were more
accepting of themselves and others. We did this for one year with
great results. Then in Rome I became part of a school called Lingua
Viva which studied the creative application of yoga principles to
language learning and communication.
Here we worked on a variety of ways of embodying learning
and using breathing to improve acquisition of languages as well
as communication. We saw how meditation could be applied to
consciously link imagination to what was being learnt. We did not
need pictures in books or videos as the text book became the self!
The students learnt very well. They learnt English and simultaneously
more about themselves, felt healthier and more connected.
Our school was asked to do workshops around the country and
in Pescara we had a group of beginners writing poetry in English.

They just observed their stream of consciousness with meditation

and then looked up words in a dictionary.

One poem started like this:

Sun cover the face of my father

Love shouts behind the rocks

Smiling through the forest clearing

The language was already in them; it just needed to find a way to

come out.

From this, a seed was sown for a school. It has taken a long time

to get here. I had to get the right qualifications, get experience

working in an English secondary school, get experience setting up a

school, lose my attachment to a regular good salary, find the right

town for this school to exist. Then find a team with whom to do this.

I put an advertisement in the local paper with a link to a blog

containing 10 principles on which the school would be based.

Amongst them are:

n Yoga and meditation are integrated into the curriculum to

support and develop mental, physical, and spiritual health;

self-awareness and the capacity for learning.

n Classes have no more than 20 students.

n The natural world forms an extension of the classroom.

n A peaceful inclusive environment is created, where everybody may

develop their uniqueness in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

I asked people to get in touch if they were interested in setting

up such a school. I received countless emails from teachers,

parents, artists, therapists and well-wishers. We invited them to a

meeting and then organised a public meeting where people heard a

presentation about the school and participated in a discussion.

We set up a website to showcase our project and proceeded to

advertise for teachers and trustees. Some truly excellent people

came forward and now form the nucleus of our team. Our trustee

meetings and staff meetings begin with a short meditation and we

have all seen how this allows communication to flow and creativity

to flourish.

Going forward

In our school everything is developing wonderfully; parents and

children are showing growing interest in our work and all that we do.

However our big hurdle is finance. The government will not support

a small school such as ours. They say we need to have at least

120 students per year group to qualify for state support while our

maximum is 100 children in the whole school. We hope one day the

government sees the value of what we are offering and agrees to

fund it. In the meantime we have to try and fund it as best as we

can which means inevitably asking for fees and looking for external

funding too. We are looking for sponsors who will contribute to

bursaries for our students to study, and patrons who endorse us

and contribute in a variety of ways to school life. Our first patron

is George Monbiot, a British writer known for his environmental and

political activism.

Our world needs new ways of learning to deal with the problems

we face today. Our school offers a paradigm-changing, stress-free,

learning environment where children and teachers can learn to live

in harmony with themselves, with others and with nature.

To find out more about Hebden Bridge School or to get involved

visit: hebdenbridgeschool.co.uk

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