Local yoga instructor Amy Likins recently participated in a yoga seminar in Cuba, where she and her group sought to bridge the gap between yoga and Cuban culture. Sponsored by Vaya Sojourns and Altruvistas, this holistic care and cultural exchange is part of an educational venture that is seeking to make training and certification for yoga instructors in Cuba economically available and acceptable by Cuban healthcare standards. This seminar and others like it mark a historical cultural exchange between the Cuban people and the Americans that participated in the seminar. 

How did you discover this program?

I was led by a teacher I’ve been working and training with for the last five to seven years, Mary Paffard. She’s been involved in the Cuban yoga community for the last 13 years through a group called Lyri-CA, the Latino Yoga Research Institute of California and the Americas. I’ve really admired her and I was invited to attend the yoga retreat and cultural exchange. 

What were some of the group’s opportunities and goals during the exchange? 

On this particular trip, our goal was to help make yoga more acceptable in Cuban culture, exploring how yoga would fit into the Cuban healthcare system. We had the opportunity to go to clinics and meet with doctors who began to integrate yoga as part of their therapies to rehabilitate some diseases. In Cuba, yoga certification is highly regulated, requiring that you must have a previous medical background. This is because every modality under Cuban healthcare must be scientifically accepted and proven. 

Yoga certification and training has been a challenge so far for the Cuban Yogis, partly due to restrictions placed on who can teach, based on having a background in the medical field or a degree in physical education. It is very important for there to be studies and hard evidence of the practices having certain benefits. There are also very limited resources as far as yoga training and materials such as books, yoga props and space for classes to be held, which is what makes the group’s work so important. Our goal was to bring some training to the teachers who have started teaching over there and give them access to resources and information that hasn’t been available. 

Who was included in the exchange? 

This was an international group, several people were from the UK, a women from Mexico, a farmer from California, a few from Spain; really quite a diverse group of people. Some people were in the healthcare profession, but we also had some younger political activists that came with us.

What obstacles or challenges did you face? 

One of the problems we encountered was a limited access to healthy food. There is a movement trying to create a resurgence of growing vegetables in Cuba—most people can’t afford the vegetables when a head of lettuce costs $2 and a family lives on $20 a month. Our group helped to participate in providing information on nutrition for the Cubans. 

How does inclusion of yoga practice work within the Cuban healthcare system? 

Their healthcare system is very different than America’s. They have a primary, secondary and tertiary care system. Their primary care is dependent upon prevention: acupuncture, nutritional therapy, electromagnetic therapy, aromatherapy; helping the population prevent disease in the first place. This is due to the fact that the medicine is very expensive. Doctors don’t typically prescribe medication because it’s so hard to come by, due to the embargo. The secondary care concerns hospitals, where a patient is referred by a primary care physician to the hospital after a diagnosis has been made. The tertiary system contains all of the specialists—oncology, cardiology, gynecology, etc. All three of these tiers are free to Cubans. 

In a community, however, there may be 31 family doctors, and they would share about 37,000 patients. This makes their healthcare system a huge team effort between local doctors and specialists and requires a large amount of integration between the fields. Yoga, once thought of as only an exercise or spiritual practice, has become free to Cubans based on the scientific findings and data recently produced by Maria Gonzalez, a woman who was on Castro’s cabinet for many years, and her colleagues. 

Did you observe yoga firsthand working within their healthcare system?

We got to visit one clinic called, Ataxia Clinic, a neurotherapy clinic. Many Cubans have a genetic defect that attacks people’s nervous systems which affects their ability to concentrate, induces muscle cramps and causes problems with speech, much like Parkinson’s or other nervous system disorders. These patients received two hours of yoga therapy every day. We actually got a chance to meet with many of these yoga patients and ask about their experience. The patients reported an increased ability to see obstacles in their path, handle stairs, better quality sleep, increased balance and were able to achieve an increase in focus. Some of these patients had been bed-ridden or unable to function in their daily life. It was pretty awesome to see how the doctors were implementing simple yoga poses and techniques that the students and patients were able to take home and repeat every day that had long-term positive effects on their health.  

What was the largest impact of the experience for you personally? 

Over the last 13 years, these teachers have accumulated a huge yoga community—we were in two areas; Holguin and Havana. The first night, I was expecting maybe 15, 20, students to come to class—when we got there, they had arranged it to be an outdoor area and 150 Cubans arrived! None of them had yoga mats, no yoga clothes, most practicing on cardboard or towels. The class was completely in Spanish and in almost total darkness. 

In our American yoga practices, we become so concerned with our props, our mat, our incense —all the materials we use to make the practice perfect. In Cuba, I found it amazing how simple they’ve kept the yoga, and as a teacher, it reminded me about why I teach yoga in the first place. It’s about connecting with people, helping people become in tune with their own needs, with their bodies and their minds. We’re really seeing that in Cuba, where we have all generations practicing yoga together, a 10-year-old next to a couple in their 80s. Cuban culture is very family-oriented, with whole families living under the same roof, sharing businesses and childcare, building family-based communities.

What are the upcoming plans of groups like yours? 

We are hoping that next spring, there will be a training program to become certified through the Yoga Alliance. This is really important in order for Cuban yoga instructors to receive recognition by the government; they really need to have these types of certification to show the authenticity to the work that they are doing to be held in a high regard and taken seriously by the medical community and the healthcare system.

 

For more information, visit Lyri-Ca.org or contact Amy Likins at [email protected].

 

Kyla Stevens is a staff writer for NWF Natural Awakenings magazine.