Lyri-caBringing Yoga to the Latino World

by Mary Paffard




In July 2011, as a follow up to our Global Exchange trip with 14 yoga teachers in 2010, Cyd and I went down to Habana. Our main mission was to see if our ongoing research and exchange project would evolve another Global exchange trip in 2012. What were our friends in yoga and health up to at this time? Was there value to them and us in sharing materials and continuing our exploration of Latino yoga? This past year has been a very challenging time communication wise and many of our friends there lost their internet access for long periods of time. It is also a tremendous amount of work and a costly process to take a group there from the US even with experts such as Global Exchange and we wanted to see if a trip could be organised to continue the discussion with more modest expenses and to focus it at what the Cubans saw as the main issues in terms of yoga’s current evolution in this fascinating country.
It was an informal trip – we had approval and papers from Global Exchange but basically found our own accommodation (a large very basic hotel on the Malecon that used to be steeped in the gambling world apparently pre revolution) and arranged our transport (Air Cubana from Cancun – which departed 9 hours later than the advertised schedule). We relied on our friends there to set up meeting places to chat, share yoga and ayurveda and touch base. It was a magical trip – July is not the time for tourists in Cuba. It’s muggy and rainy and you sweat continuously but even so, the charms of Habana and these marvelous practitioners worked their magic. A group of 40-50 yoga teachers and students met for a few days for asana and also for Ayurveda – Cyd sharing her insights from a year with Dr. Lad. We had several meetings with many of the teachers – some of whom came from Holguin to hang out with us and tell us what they are up to.

One evening at Odorico’s house – a beautiful meal was made that took him and others all day to prepare as food is hard to find, we discussed what is the best way forward for this little group. Ayurveda and meditation appear to have a very strong appeal, materials as always are in short supply; the teachers said that it would be helpful to have a web page where people could find out about who they were. We discussed the possibility of a bi-lingual newsletter where they could share some of the great work they are doing and also hear more about what is going on in other countries. A project close to my heart….
The reality of bringing Cuban people to the US or other places is simply not legally feasible although I think many of our Latino and non Latino students would love to have a classes with Cubans – they have a passionate and alive way of sharing this ancient art (see 2010 videos). At one of these meetings, Eduardo Pimentel – the president of the Cuban Yoga Association was present – an old friend of ours and he talked about some of the interesting work he is doing in prisons and in different parts of the country. In the past we have brought Eduardo here to attend conferences and meet other yoga scholars and teachers. He recently published an acclaimed yoga book there– let’s hope it gets translated for us whose Spanish won’t quite make it!

I left after five days, and Cyd stayed on and continued the dialogue with ayurveda and asana. She also attended an anusara workshop and other classes–and enjoyed a theatrical presentation that poked fun at the new licenses being given to people to get into tourism and business on their own. She interviewed several yoga folk and we have enough material for an interesting dvd if we had the funds and time to make that happen. Her impression – and mine also – is that this is a very precious connection we have with a unique group of practitioners and we need for all our sakes to preserve it and let it flourish. Right now it is still challenging to get to Cuba – this may become simpler, the embargo may simply collapse – it could also do a U-turn like it has in the past and get harder. And between the strange dance of governments, we know that coming together to practice and share our discoveries and support each other is so so important. It filters out all over the world – I bring stories back that inspire me in my teaching and I hear year after year of work that we have done together inspiring others in places that we have never been to.

We spent time with a representative of Global Exchange there to see if we could arrange a trip that would allow participants to see a little more of how the health system works and also experience the inventive ways yoga is being brought to the community. This – with the desire from the Cubans that we return on some kind of regular basis – has encouraged us to start another conversation with Global exchange in San Francisco for 2012.

Plans for 2012
Our main priority is to just continue–and of course this is really a voluntary process and can continue in anyway anyone wants it to. However without a more stable organisation with a minimal amount of paid admins hours, web hours, we will not be able to do this in an effective way.
1. Create a bilingual newsletter that goes out quarterly or three times a year which incorporates articles on meditation, asana, ayurveda, philosophy from people like you and I, and from our Latino yoga neighbors. To really allow those who do not have much coverage in the current media and yet a lot of experience, wisdom and vitality, a voice, and to be able to have interesting information to access in Spanish. This would be an email newsletter.
2. Create a web page housed here that would give information about the Cuban yoga teachers and that could be updated by them.
3. Work towards a Global Exchange trip to Cuba Dec 9-16 (approximately and to be confirmed) with another group of Spanish speaking yoga teachers and health professionals who practice yoga, to further communication and connection between our yoga worlds.
4. Use the material we have from the last two trips for further educational DVDs. Translate further requested materials. Arrange further exchange of information, books, DVDs, yoga materials through existing means.
5. And perhaps the most important to ensure the above occurs, consolidate our new relationship with Global Exchange (our fiscal agent) and implement a fundraising campaign to create this administrative support to make our little organisation sustainable and these projects manageable.

At a time when the world seems in such a period of chaos, these moments of bringing people together in the name of yoga are both small and big steps towards the peace we yearn for, the work we do daily on the mat moving into a collective tapestry of understanding and possibility. Please join us.

by Mary Paffard



In January 2010, colleague Patty Hirota Cohen and I continued our 12-year connection with the Cuban yoga community and took a group of 15 Spanish speaking American yoga teachers on a research journey with Global Exchange to Habana. This group worked with a group of teachers there to complete an experimental teacher training program that has been in process for over three years: !Yoga Va! We have never taken an American group before, so, this coming together of two countries in a teacher training intensive was full of anecdote and delight. As Gladys, one of the participants, commented: “That was quite a trip, I have no words to describe it!”
Well, I have tried to find a few.

Coinciding with this newsletter, we will have two one-hour practices in (simple) Spanish available to download for a donation to LYRI-CA , our Latino research organization. If you are financially unable to make a donation at this time, please make one later and/or pass on this work to underserved students in the Latino community.

Practica El Parque – Jorge Avila, the main Havana coordinator of the Yoga Va! Program and me teaching an Earth celebration practice in exquisite surroundings.
Practica El Corazon – Class during our course taught in Habana by Roinel Martinez, the Holguin Coordinator of the ¡Yoga Va! program based on exploring the feeling tone of the poses and observing the friend/enemy relationship.
We wish to thank Kirk Fuller of Fuller Digital Media for the preliminary filming that he volunteered to do on the trip. This little video section is a very rough collection from the participants phones and a few digital cameras. We would love to refine and edit this material further, along with the practice pieces, but we need your support to do that.

“Si no hay, inventamos…” If we don’t have it, we invent it. This is a very important word in Cuba. Most Cubans earn less than $15 a month and although basic food supplies, health care, and education are to a large extent covered, there is not a lot left to go on exotic yoga workshops or buy the latest and greatest yoga DVDs and Prana pants. And yet, their yoga hums with passion, creativity, and humor.

Most of the more experienced teachers have had a wonderful foundation with well-known teacher Eduardo Pimentel, President of the Cuban Yoga Association. However they have had to rely tremendously on their own practice and have had limited access to materials and international teachers besides occasional oddballs like me and some of my colleagues. One wonders if this is a disadvantage as one looks in awe at the $6 billion yoga industry in this country and ponders if it has helped us find the unity in mind-body that most of us seek? Watching senior teacher Odorico Dieguez work with his elderly students in restoratives, he skillfully uses any kind of material that we would normally find in a junk yard to help support students and bring them that ease. He may have a mat or two brought by internationals but bolsters? blankets? Only those things that he can invent with bits of wood and discarded pieces of foam. And the results are extraordinary. He cannot keep up with the demand for classes of this type.

As Carol McClain, a participant in the latest LYRI-Ca trip to Cuba in January, comments:
I sense that the Cuban yogis seem to practice on a deeper level than a lot of American yogis do. My take is, they practice yoga as many of us practice meditation or Vipassana. Or as I like to say... their yoga is more interior while ours tends to be more exterior. Maybe it's because they aren't exposed to the beautiful bodies featured in Yoga Journal, private studios with bamboo floors...or exposure to star-quality teachers. Luxuries that really have nothing to do with the practice of yoga and everything to do with the American marketing paradigm.

Linda, a Californian lawyer, put it this way:
Mary and the Cuban yoga teachers inspired me to practice yoga under any circumstance, anywhere, anytime, not to await "ideal" conditions. To have integrity of practice, even with an injury. To find a way. To have the confidence and passion to go for it and to make time decisions that support the practice. I have since practiced outside, in an abandoned office cubicle, with restoratives through bronchitis and also in front of a mountain of dirty laundry.
These are the reasons that Patty Hirota Cohen, an Oakland teacher, and I continue to go back year after year and meet each obstacle that comes in the way of these extraordinary exchanges with as much alegria and inventiveness as we can.

For me as a teacher-trainer, it is very rare to work with a group of teachers that has so much connection to meditation and to the inner body. Where in the US can I find people who have done so many Vipassna retreats and have a sense of their inner wellbeing? In Cuba, in a world where its hard to find a moment of silence with the traffic, music, busyness of life, one perhaps is forced inwards to cultivate this.Juan Carlos, an enthusiastic student and potential teacher, talks about the silence that permeates his practice: In yoga I have begun to find silence, to listen to myself, not only in meditation but during the asana practice and little by little I have carried this into my daily life…in moments when I am walking, talking with someone, I am aware of the sensations in my body, I begin to truly feel “awake”. Maybe all our yoga paraphernalia helps more to deaden us than bring us to life. We also don’t have a culture that is so rich with the arts. Cubans are very well educated and the literacy rate is phenomenal. The emphasis placed on the creative arts seems to grow rather than diminish with economic hardship—the opposite of what happens in the US. Many of the participants in these workshops are artists, musicians, singers, writers and, who doesn’t dance in Cuba?! When music wafted up from the street in the middle of our recent teacher training project, I turned around to see the lovely Felicia, a Habana yoga teacher, doing ustrasana salsasana and leading all of us into a series of undulating backbends. None could resist!

One doesn’t need to over-romanticize the Cuban reality--life is tough. Made doubly tough by the embargo. Not only can they not afford to travel, the US government prevents US folk going down there unless they are on a legally restricted research project like ours. And yet in January, the group of 15 Americans found ourselves, despite material and logistical obstacles encountered, deeply touched by the way the Cubans supported this exchange as it has evolved over the 12 years. Sofi Milani expressed it this way: It is really difficult to put accurately into words what this trip meant. In one word: transformative. Practicing yoga with the Cubanos made all the difference, so much more of a connection to them, the country of Cuba and to yoga. Friendships were formed that were different from other retreats/yoga trips that I have experienced. I actually was depressed upon returning home, missing people and Cuba. Yes, I think international trips like this one should continue.

Roynel Martinez, teacher in Puerto Padre and one of our main program coordinators, agrees and values this thread that we have all cultivated over the years:
An exchange of this magnitude and quality is without doubt super necessary. It helps us understand each other’s differences and allows us to merge in that which unites us all. This is no mere exchange of knowledge or experiences in yoga teaching or an entry-point to some particular style/school of yoga. The word “exchange” or intercambio in Spanish says it all. “Inter” meaning inner and “cambio meaning the transmutation of something old into something new. This exchange transforms from inside, from the soul to form a more genuine family beyond culture and frontiers. We cant really explain all that we have been through in these first steps their personal and collective story….we have so many people to thank and so much to offer everyone. This is one of the realizations of our meetings. And so now the most important intention in my yoga practice, is that the roots of it lie deeper and deeper in the heart, each time ever more so.

Yornel, a young artist and serious practitioner, the one in elbow balance pictured here, asks an important question of us all:
I don’t want to talk about these days that we spent together as if it was all over...I am absolutely sure that I am living in a continuing sense of presence. I know that these exchanges/intercambios are important for the yoga in Cuba and can widen our understanding and personal connection around the yoga practice and create an atmosphere to share who each of us is....something that is sometimes missing in yoga classes. The mechanical practice of an asana can kill the spontaneity. And this environment of togetherness that we experienced is Yoga where there are no differences of race, or belief systems, or borders. It goes farther than any ideology. To be one and to cultivate love towards all beings. I believe it is possible to evolve a warm-hearted yoga that is inclusive of our tropical climate and psychology, a natural practice that can evolve and adapt with the needs of our time and place. I would like you to send me suggestions about how we can evolve with grace here and avoid so many errors*

*I believe from previous conversations that Yornel is talking about the crass materialism and the divisions between yoga factions that the Cubans witness from places in the West where yoga has had this rapid recent development.
So we will continue the dialogue, constantly learning from each other and looking for the union between people that transcends boundaries of all sorts.
We have a good deal of video material we would like to edit and share with everyone; including a couple of practice sessions in Spanish with me and Cuban teachers. We hope people who download these practices will make donations to the project to make more editing and distribution possible. We also need financial help with the process of completing the experimental teachers program (Yoga Va! – see web site) with the materials and even with the sister projects that are evolving in Spanish locally through Yoga Mendocino. In the future when the legal situation opens up on the US side, and with financial sponsorship, we want to bring Cuban teachers here and bring them to projects in Mexico and Costa Rica. For this we need help. Please read our web site, try out these little practices and be inspired by the Cuban energy and their love of yoga.
a post script to this article……

I wrote some of this on a flight from Chicago to Nashville where United managed to lose my suitcase. And now I get to practice what I preach as I head off to teach in Chatanooga without my prana pants and my poetry books, my Yoga Mendocino T-shirts. Who am I without these attachments?? o well, no hay pero inventare. I just hope I can buy a toothbrush and some knickers along the way.
wishing you well and much passionate, creative yoga!

by Patty Hirota-Cohen

It was two years since our last yoga research trip to Cuba. Plans for our 2009 travel fell through…a common experience with Cuba travel! But with perseverance and ingenuity, we finally got our trip organized through our friends at Global Exchange. This time was very different…we took 13 other professional yoga teachers with us to share in the exchange of teaching methods and approaches…a truly multi cultural adventure for those lucky enough to go!
The process began with applications for the trip. Everyone had to speak Spanish, as all yoga classes would be taught in Spanish! Secondly, everyone had to be able to accommodate to potential ups and downs in the tour plans and be culturally sensitive to the particularities of yoga life in Cuba. There are fewer resources for yoga, but more need and more creativity and passion for yoga!

All 13 who came met the requirements. It was a great group and they had to deal with craziness even before they arrived in Havana! Six weeks before the flight, we were told that the flight we were all going TOGETHER on to Havana had been cancelled and that we were going to be put on three different flights! Okay, that wasn’t TOO bad, however, one of the flight groups arrived in Cancun only to be told that there were no ticket reservations in their names! They had to buy new tickets even though they had already paid for their tickets. Anyway, the last of us arrived after midnight on Sunday in Havana.

Weather was COLD. Yes, cold in Havana! It was so strange to be bundled up in sweaters and jackets, shoes and socks, walking down Calle Obispo in Old Havana. With no heat in our hotel rooms…it’s never needed in Cuba! It took three days before the normal tropical weather returned and boy were we (and the Cubans) happy!

Classes and exchanges went on as planned, first at Hotel Florida, where classes were held in the open court hallway on the 3rd floor! After that, classes were at Hotel Ambos Mundos, a historical building, in a luxurious large conference room overlooking picturesque Havana Vieja. Thirty Cuban teachers and students joined us and each day one of the senior Cuban teachers taught a seminar/workshop in their own special way. For instance, Roynel asked us to consider whether each asana was a “friend, acquaintance or enemy?” (This practice will be available soon for a donation to Lyri-ca). Maybe it was just being in Cuba, the American teachers were hooked from day one on the Cuban teachers teaching, with their strong heart focus, and self reflection (Svadyaya). Taquechel, who is in his 60’s and has an intense home practice, gave a demonstration which included squeezing shoulder blades in arm balances that we will never forget – his demonstration in uttanasana is in the Cuba 2010 Video Collage.

We had an amazingly attentive and resourceful tour guide from Havanatur Agency. His name was Eric. Did Eric take good care of us! In exchange, we taught him yoga. He was a natural, twisting and pushing his body into all kinds of shapes. A new yoga convert! Leslie Blalog of Global Exchange checked in on us to make sure our tour plans were being executed.
In addition to the six hours of yoga a day, we took a city tour of Havana. We also visited:

A seniors health and activities center housed in a large former convent.
El Jardin Botanico on the outskirts of Havana, with an amazing vegetarian restaurant, and Japanese bamboo
A museum of Afro Cuban Santeria history and culture.
A sustainable organic urban gardening project run by one of the yoga students and his mother in a poorer area of Havana- See Cyd’s article
An afternoon music “Pena” at UNEAC, the union of writers and artists.

After five days we flew on to Holguin, on the eastern side of Cuba, where our Yoga Va participants live. After 3-4 days of classes/exchanges at our hotel conference room overlooking the swimming pool, we celebrated completion of five Cubans of the teacher training curriculum we have been participating in, and the qualification of 5 more senior Cuban teachers for an advanced certification. We all packed into a bus and headed to one of the most beautiful beaches in Cuba…Guadalavaca! We were crazy yoga people on the beach! Forming a circle and doing yoga poses on the sand; others doing handstands under the water in the gorgeous blue ocean.

Back to Havana for two days. One of the most impressive, and different, things about the way the Cubans are practicing their yoga is the development of circles of friends who practice at each others homes (those who have large enough space!). They gather once or twice a week, practice yoga, then share food and conversation, perhaps discussing/sharing readings or things coming up in their lives. Basically creating small communities around yoga. We also met other yoga teachers who have created yoga centers in the small spaces of their homes. The good news is that yoga is definitely growing, and it’s developing in a very Cuban way.

by Cyd Bernstein


As we wandered (and wondered) through beautifully ordered rows of carrots and coriander,

orchids and cactus it was hard to believe this bountiful garden had once been a neglected trash heap. Junior, our friend and dedicated Havana yogi had invited us to observe his permaculture lesson. A group of middle school students gathered around the table as Junior earnestly explained the intricacies of composting. Junior practices yoga as well as tai chi and has sat several Vipassana retreats. An avid cyclist, gardener and backpacker (without the sophisticated REI gear) Junior is all about merging his spiritual practice and with his love of nature.

The garden we were visiting was created by Junior’s mother Arelia, who at 70, is a serious force of nature. In a little pamphet entitled “Bibliografia de Mi Patio” Arelia describes her various adventures and misadventures in urban agriculture. Upon retiring in 1992, Arelia redirected her energy into cleaning up the little rectangle of land behind her 15-story apartment building. Without official permission or government recognition, she began raising animals, installed her own electricity(from which she suffered a serious electric shock) and invented all sorts of schemes to bring in water--mostly by convincing her neighbors to let her run hoses through their apartments!
After much persistence, many visits to many different government offices and even a letter to Raul Castro, in 2004 Arelia’s garden was finally recognized as a municipal garden and she was given the adjacent lot to extend her project. She insists “effort, hard work, and good spirits can overcome all problems.” Donde no hay, inventamos.

Every week Arelia and Junior teach groups of neighborhood kids to grow their own vegetables and medicinal plants. They hope the children leave with a greater understanding about the connections between the food we eat and our health, between our health and the health of the environment. To celebrate Mother’s day and Arelia’s 70th (!) birthday, everyone came to a party in the garden and the kids gave their mothers plants they had grown with their very own manitos. The little school’s motto is written proudly across the blackboard “We, the seeds of the future, learn to work the land so all may breath fresh air.”



As we left Junior gave us all one of his haikus, written on one of his many treks in the Sierra Maestra, on paper he made himself:

Paciente espero,
por la mariposa
del mar pacifico

by Mary Paffard

In January 2008, LYRI-CA was invited by yoga centers in Sayulito Mexico and Madrid Spain to participate in an International Latino Yoga Conference in Cuba. We had a successful trip, adjusting our itinerary to accommodate the Cuban visa requirements.

Mary Paffard, Patty Hirota-Cohen, and Kirk Fuller (video producer and president of Yoga Mendocino), spent three weeks traveling to Holguin, Santiago, and Havana to engage in research, teaching, and dialogue: To deepen ties with existing yoga teachers and students, and to deepen our understanding of the very special character of yoga in Latino communities and countries.

This trip followed on the heels of our 2007 trip to Holguin with a one-week vipassana research retreat led by renowned Buddhist teacher Christina Feldman from England. Working in advance with our expert immigration lawyer in San Francisco California, we were able to comply with all U.S. travel regulations.

With Kirk at our side, we managed to get some very good video and photographs of our work, including interviews of the senior Cuban yoga teachers. In Holguin, we worked with a core group of Cuban teachers who are involved in our two-year, pilot international yoga teacher certification: Yoga Va! We participated in a training series called How to Teach A Basic Beginners, often having sessions in beautiful settings such as the top of a mountain…or at the seaside.

In Santiago, we were joined by yoga teachers Tias Little of New Mexico and Traci Joy Burleigh. Santiago is on the eastern side of the island in Oriente province and is the home both of Cuban son (a precursor of salsa music) and to the Cuban revolutionary movement of the late 1950s. In Santiago, yoga classes are few and far between.

To assist in our analysis, we held meetings with other experts and attended a panel discussion at INDER the national sports university.

Tias Little spoke about yoga and athletes, Mary about why yoga works, and Patty about yoga for people with disabilities to the rapt attention of the entire INDER faculty! We produced a mini yoga course with DVD and handouts—specifically for INDER students—to be included in their regular curriculum!

Also in Santiago, we met with a former basketball star, Mario Seliu, who spends his own money to teach yoga to children with cancer and asthma. He has been doing this work for many years, completely free for all the children. He says he can cure a child of asthma within six months. His work, which involves art, drama, and water therapy, is an example of the creative way Cubans use yoga. Their success and experimentation has much to offer countries with seemingly more information and training in yoga.

In Havana, we participated in an Encuentro called Rio de La Vida (Rivers of Life) for an advanced practice intensive workshop: a week of incredible yoga taught by Mary Paffard and Tias Little, assisted by Traci Burleigh and Patty Hirota-Cohen, and Kirk Fuller. All the Cuban students, many of whom are teachers, tried even the most difficult poses! The Encuentro covered meditation, philosophy, asana, and breathing. Also included were many discussions with Cubans about their educational and cultural systems and how they are trying to introduce and integrate yoga into a Latino culture when there are few Latinos in yoga books, articles, or DVDs and even fewer materials available Spanish.
The Encuentro was held in a breathtakingly beautiful space above a river in the Parque Metropolitano at the edge of Havana and was part of a larger international ecological project celebrating reclaiming the river and park.

Over 50 experienced yoga students and teachers attended the main sessions, and a special course for medical professional ended each day.

We finished the course Cuban style, with a dance party at the river organized by the students. Tias got down with the Cuban rumba to the delight of all the Cubans!

We also visited onsite classes in churches and homes. One Cuban yoga instructor teaches seniors in his little apartment and improvises hand-made yoga props. He even made meditation cushions after seeing photos of them in Yoga Journal!

As a result of our trip, our teacher training group, Yoga Va!, became even more tightly knit and the bonds between the two countries even stronger.
¡Somos familia! ¡Viva Yoga Va! ¡Viva Cuba!

Kirsten Turner teaches mothers and infants in a lively yoga class taught entirely in Spanish. This class is currently held Wednesdays 10.45–11.45 am at Yoga Mendocino. It is free to participants and is supported by Lyri-ca, Dana Foundation and First Five Mendocino.

We are seeking further funding for Mama y Yo! For more information on the program and our plans for 2010, contact Marcie Ley, 510.387.0767.

This year we had a Family Day at Yoga Mendocino for friends and family members of the Mama y Yo! group to come and share some yoga and celebrate.

Marcos Pereda, a “local” Cuban musician, shared some songs with the group after movement and refreshments. This was an idea that came from the original group of Mama y Yo! women to get more people in the Latin community introduced to yoga.

Nuestra Casa is an important local organization supporting the Latino population. Over the years, Yoga Mendocino has worked with volunteer yoga classes but until Lyri-ca and the ¡Yoga VA! California project, it has been challenging to sustain these projects.

This year, two of our trainee teachers, Marcie Ley and Cyd Bernstein, brought yoga to the special kids camp that is held at Nuestra Casa during the summer months.The camp is entirely in Spanish and special teachers are brought from Mexico to help the children re-connect to their tradition and culture. Marcie and Cyd taught all age levels through the sessions and the feedback from teachers, participants and parents was very powerful.

Plans for 2009-2010
This fall 2009, Yoga Va! Ca will be part of the after school program at Nuestra Casa. We will be offering two 45 minute sessions to two different age groups as a way for the children to stretch, de-stress and cultivate an enjoyment and ease in their bodies. This pilot session is partly run on volunteer efforts and we are hoping to find more permanent funding in 2010.

We would also like to introduce a pain management class and a stress reduction/meditation class for adults in the near future, when funding permits.