NYer Of The Week: Teacher Brings Yoga To The Deaf
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The latest New Yorker of the Week started doing yoga more than 10 years ago to help with epilepsy but has now found another way to use yoga to help others. NY1's Michael Scotto filed the following report.Lila Lolling uses a wave of a fan, a pound on the floor and sign language to teach deaf students in her yoga class at Cosm in East West Galleries Yoga at Manhattan's Union Square.
"She is an incredible advocate. She knows hearing and deaf, knows how to connect people, she has a vision. She's wonderful," says deaf student Kat Burland.
In 2000, Lolling became a certified yoga instructor. She got involved with the deaf community after being inspired by a book she read about Helen Keller and went on to get a degree in sign language interpretation. Five years ago, she decided to combine the two.
"When I researched it there was really nothing, I couldn't find one thing on how to teach yoga to the deaf. And that's when I knew what I needed to do," says Lolling.
Starting the Deaf Yoga Foundation, Lolling teaches both hearing and deaf participants, instructing her students through voice and sign language.
"Communication is there, the eye contact. They hit the floor when we need to wake up or use a fan or use lights. It's just totally visual, it's wonderful," says Burland. "And because of that I have relaxed and my total health has improved tremendously."
Lolling says she is one of only 20 teachers in the world who teaches deaf yoga, and she is helping to create a unique sign language for the different yoga poses.
"One of our goals is to create a standardized dictionary so that people around the world can have access to a yoga-signed vocabulary," says Lolling.
The Deaf Yoga Foundation also provides scholarships for teacher training for the deaf.
"They help many of us who need assistance with finances, and I think the Deaf Yoga Foundation is great," says deaf scholarship student Don Miller.
Lolling has inspired other yoga teachers to learn sign language.
"She's really an amazing gift for a lot of people. Not only the deaf community, but just an inspiration for other teachers that want to branch out and open yoga up to a wider community and really be able to share it with all of humanity, regardless of what things they're not capable of," says yoga instructor Tammy Lynne Humphrey.
So, for opening yoga to the deaf community, Lila Lolling is the latest New Yorker of the Week.
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