Here's a story about our first Wellness Workshop --Spa Day at SMYRC. Our Spa Day's were pioneered during yoga classes last summer by Mara and Amy with the girls at White Shield. They loved it. We wanted to build on that and offer it to a larger audience. The SMYRC Spa Day was the first that was part of our Wellness Workshop series.
We had about 20+ youth, lots of good fun and.... Well, please read for yourself Katie's firsthand account:
Spa Day at SMYRC (3/16/2006)
Our regular Wednesday evening yoga class at SMYRC, the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center is winding down. Five youth and one staff lay on their backs breathing deeply. A melodic Indian raga streams out of the stereo while the teacher sits in an armchair, calmly talking students through a guided relaxation. From the kitchen, Mandy and I catch glimpses of the students as we prepare for Street Yoga’s first Spa Day.
I am pulling delicate ceramic teacups out of their boxes when Max, a young woman with dark curly hair, comes in and asks to help. I tell her she can drape a red tapestry over an old cardboard box and fill it with the fun socks we have brought for kids to take after learning how to care for their feet. Max quickly gets to work. Ashley comes in as well, and soon the two of them are happily arranging colored socks.
The yoga students roll up their mats and clear the space. We move couches to the center of the room, cover them in bright cloths, and light candles. Slowly kids trickle in, and soon we have over twenty people piled on couches and armchairs, waiting to hear about Spa Day. I introduce myself and explain Street Yoga, telling them that we understand being young and queer isn’t always easy and can actually put some youth at risk for becoming homeless. I tell them that SMYRC invited us to participate in their LGBTQ health week, and our workshop is designed to teach basic self-care techniques in a safe and calm environment.
Mandy then explains the course of the evening: foot baths, followed by salt scrubs, followed by rinses, then creams, then foot massages, and finally pedicures and new socks. They seem eager, but Hakim asks with some anxiety, “Do we have to be quiet?” “No,” I tell him, “you need to be comfortable.” “Good!” says Angel, tossing long strands of pink and blonde hair out of her eyes, “Because you two are so quiet and relaxed, and I’m just not!”
We bring out individual tubs of steaming water mixed with Epsom salts and essential oils of rosemary and lavender. The water slowly turns red as we sprinkle in dried rose petals. For a few youth, the water feels too hot. For others, their big feet make for a tight squeeze in the small bins. But the only complaints we hear are polite requests for more cool water. Mostly we hear a chorus of one pleasurable “ahh” after another.
I begin a tea service, handing out small ceramic cups and filling each one carefully with Shakti tea, a blend of red tea and anise. Everyone wants tea. “This is so good!” they exclaim.
After an hour, the SMYRC staff speak up, “Hey everyone, it’s time for steering committee. Do you want to meet or do you want to keep doing this?” Immediately, the kids respond that they prefer to continue receiving the spa treatment. Mandy begins circling the room, scrubbing each person’s feet with salt and cold oil. I come around behind her with a large pitcher, rinsing kids’ feet with cold water and toweling them dry. We are running low on time, so we encourage kids to pick up the foot cream and apply it themselves. Kids begin going through the sock box, searching through argyle knee highs, woolen hiking socks, and novelty socks with skulls, cherries, and cows. No one fights over who will get which socks. They pad around shoeless on the carpet showing off their socks. “Look! I love these. They have a cow jumping into a pond, and they say ‘dive right in!’”
The atmosphere is easeful: each kid with a teacup, talking to a neighbor, feet in a plastic bin or enveloped in pink or black or orange socks. Many kids generously allow me to snap photographs of their feet. We begin to wrap up and have kids fill out surveys as the relaxation time transitions back into a meeting.
Reading over the surveys at home that evening, I laugh out loud at comments such as “I learned that my feet are a bitch to take care of,” “salt = good for feet,” and “I never thought to pamper my FEET, but in actuality, they are so worth it!” On a stress scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest), the surveys show an average of a 5-point drop for each youth. All youth emphatically respond that they feel “very satisfied” with the workshop and would definitely recommend Street Yoga to a friend. Responding to the last question of the survey, “What is the number one reason that you attend Street Yoga events?” one particularly self-aware youth wrote, “learning to love me…I need to do it more.”
Comments
great job