Yoga For Peace: Montclair Yoga Teacher Joins Dalai Lama

Debby Kaminsky is a yoga instructor and a mother of two, but she likes to be known as something else.

“I call myself the ‘Peace Igniter,” she said.

Kaminsky teaches yoga at workshops around Essex County, but she is also proud of teaching yoga at Newark’s public schools and of her participation in the upcoming Newark Peace Education Summit from May 13-15.

“I’m incredibly excited,” says Kaminsky. “They asked me to be on the advisory committee and oversee the yoga component.”

She said the peace summit will have such honored guests as The Dalai Lama, Nobel Laureates and local celebrities, including Mayor Cory A. Booker.

But Kaminsky isn’t the only suburban yoga instructor taking her practice to work for peace. Jennifer Kohl, founder of “Lotus in Action” yoga studio in Montclair, will also be taking part in the summit. Both Kohl and Kaminsky are visiting instructors in the Newark public school system and both teach privately at their own studios.

“Through yoga, I can create positive change in my life and community,” says Kohl. “It’s all fine and well for Debby and I to go into Newark and teach yoga, but the way to really help people is to contribute to a sustainable practice within their communities.” Kohl said her goal is to help Newark residents learn to teach yoga themselves, which in turn helps spread the message of yoga.

“In yoga, the word 'shantih' means peace,” explains Kaminsky. “The first shantih is for peace within, the second shantih is for peace with others and the third shantih is for peace in the world/universe. One can't have peace with others unless one has peace with oneself. Yoga is an incredible way of getting you there."

Kaminsky and Kohl work with children in Newark’s public and charter schools but are looking for ways to expand their outreach. Kohl will be working with the Tiki Barber Opportunity League to bring yoga into Newark’s city parks this summer. (The Opportunity League, in conjunction with “Let’s Move! Newark,” is part of Michelle Obama’s campaign to end childhood obesity.)

 As part of their philosophical approach to their work, both Kohl and Kaminsky practice yoga with low income, special needs and underserved portions of the population.

“Lotus Studio in Montclair opened six years ago,” says Kohl. “It served people who wouldn’t otherwise be doing yoga, like women in shelters recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. We went into schools, hospitals and detention centers, where people could use yoga to improve the quality of their health and well-being.”

She said Lotus Yoga teaches at an orphanage in Ecuador every year. “It’s an honor to teach someone from a different cultural environment,” says Kohl. “It helps you understand people better.”

Kohl said there is an emotional component to yoga beyond the physical and spiritual elements associated with yoga, “Of course, when you’re doing work with veterans at a VA hospital, it gets intense. Part of yoga is learning how to deal with uncomfortable emotions.”

Kaminsky believes in the mind-body connection, which she says is a cornerstone of yoga. “Yoga actually shifts the chemical in the brain that affects mood,” she said, referring to a 2010 medical study at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. “To me, that’s why people suffering from depression, for example, can actually feel relief, a shift, when practicing yoga.”

Besides her work within the Newark school system, Kaminsky is a member of the Executive Board of Kula for Karma, an initiative she describes in her website as “bringing yoga to less fortunate populations at little or no cost.  We teach yoga to abused teens, battered women, vietnam vets, HIV/AIDS patients, cancer patients, inner city kids and more.”

"Practicing true yoga is much more than carrying around a purple yoga mat and wearing Patchouli,” quips Kohl. “Teaching from your heart, coming from an authentic place – that’s how you connect with another human being ... Making your life an offering as best as you can. That’s what yoga is all about.” 

For more about the Newark Peace Summit, check out the website at:  www.newarkpeace.org

Other upcoming events include:

April 3:  Kaminsky’s workshop, “Powerful Prana Flow to Ignite your Inner Fire” will take place at Ignite Yoga, in Livingston, NJ from 1:00-3:00 p.m.   http://www.debbyoga.com

May 13-15:  Newark Peace Education Summit, to be held in Newark at NJPAC, Newark Museum, Newark Historical Society and the Robert Treat Hotel. For more information go to: http://www.newarkpeace.org/explore-program

September 18: Global Mala Yoga for Peace Project

http://www.yoga-for-peace.org/

For more information on Lotus Yoga: http://www.lotusyogamontclair.com/

For more information on Tiki Barbers Opportunity League/ Let’s Move! Newark:

http://www.letsmove.gov/blog/2010/11/29/let’s-move-newark