Health & Fitness
Survivor Gives Back With Online Yoga Amid Coronavirus: RivCo
Her solution: help people weather the storm with yoga, and hopefully, she said, replace panic with reflection.
COACHELLA VALLEY, CA — On a normal Friday, Shay Moraga could be teaching yoga to cancer patients at the Eisenhower Medical Center, or giving private lessons out of state.
She began working with people suffering from breast cancer nearly three years ago after defeating it herself. But due to the current coronavirus pandemic, the 43-year-old yoga instructor remains in her Coachella Valley home Friday, teaching yoga to anybody who wants to tune in online.
"It's something I can give back to my community," said Moraga, who is livestreaming a class online Friday. "Something to give pause, to break and work through the emotions this is bringing up."
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It's been more than two-and-a half weeks since the first cases of COVID-19 popped up in Riverside County on March 8.
Since then, Moraga, a 20-year yoga practitioner, has taught classes from her living room, alongside her daughter, also a yoga teacher, who is a junior in high school.
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Moraga says she cannot get risk getting sick. "I don't know how my immune system would act," she said.
Doctors diagnosed Moraga with breast cancer on Feb. 11, 2016. To defeat the aggressive cancer, she undertook 20 rounds of heavy chemotherapy, surgery and then 38 rounds of radiation. The following December, she was pronounced cancer-free, and has been teaching yoga to cancer patients, especially those with breast cancer, ever since.
With the coronavirus, her love of yoga has moved indoors, and online.
"People are quarantined in negativity," Moraga said. Her solution: help people weather the storm with yoga, and hopefully, she said, replace panic with reflection.
"This is an opportunity to kind of look at myself," she said, "and see what I want out of life."
Moraga used to lead weekly yoga sessions at Sunnylands Center & Gardens in Rancho Mirage outside on the grass. The 200-acre estate is owned by the Annenberg Foundation Trust, which announced last week those classes would return on Fridays online. She will livestream on Friday at 10:30 a.m. at https://www.facebook.com/namastewithshay
