295CHAPTER 13
SCHOOL-BASED YOGA PROGRAMS:
MANUALIZED AND STRUCTURED YOGA
PROGRAMS FOR SCHOOLS
Beneath the ups and downs of everyday life
there is a profound state of balance.
By resting for brief periods in that state
we create a resilient and stable mind
even in the face of stress.Anderson & Sovik (2000, p. 197)Anderson and Sovik (2000), master yoga teacher trainers at the Himalayan Institute, speak
of three of the known outcomes of yoga research in their quote—self-regulation, equanimity,
and stress management. Their knowledge comes from practice and the traditional passing
down of the practice from teacher to student, generation after generation. As most yoga
practitioners know, the research of personal practice is a valid pathway to knowledge.
Throughout my years of yoga teacher trainings, when one of us asked how a pose should
be taught or what the effects of a particular sequence might be, answers from our teachers
did not come easily. We were given the answers in terms of what is known or understood.
Then, we were told that these experiences are so different for each of us and that we should
try to “live the question,” and “be the research.” We were told that it is in the practice and
the inquiry that we will find our answers.
Looking at things from the long-held yoga perspective that truth and knowledge come
from our inner experience, contemporary research methodologies do not necessarily pres-
ent as a good fit. Right now, researchers are working to standardize and manualize yoga
practices, measure outcomes with verbal reports and interviews, track changes using physi-
ological measures such as sleep studies and wrist watches that track heart rate and gal-
vanic skin responses, and look at brain changes using brain imaging. Researchers are doing
their best to detect inner transformation, or a different way of being, using respected and
validated tools and methods. I have sat in research conference discussions in which we all
grappled with the tension between what some saw as the art of yoga teaching and practice
and contemporary scientific methods. Collectively we understand that if we are to provide