2009
Robert C. Parker School
Endorsement from head of the school
‘Focusing on breathing’ was introduced to children of all classes from Pre K 4 to Grade 8 in 15 to 30 minutes sessions in Oct, Nov 09. Now the Director of the school Meg Taylor has given an official stamp of approval with this note in her school blog (see Dec 1, 09 under the title ‘Children and Anxiety’) while on the subject of anxiety and stress in children.
“One of the ways we help children cope with stress at Parker is by practicing the simple mindful breathing taught us by C.S., the grandfather of Veda in 4-5. It is one of his life’s missions to spread this easy and effective way to reduce anxiety. The breathing technique is practiced regularly by almost all the children in the school”.
Mail from the business manager
” Hi CS…….. I wanted to thank you for teaching the children here at Parker School how to use breathing to relax….. one of our students had fallen and gotten a big bump on his head…. he was having a difficult time catching his breath, but when I said ” think of CS and the breathing” he immediately understood, started breathing and then was able to relax… this is a wonderful life skill you are teaching….” Beth Engster Business Manager.
Click the above link.
Workshop for Indian Dance Students
Conducted a free introductory meditation workshop on ‘focusing on breathing’ to 34 students their mothers and a few fathers of the dance school of Mrs. Bindiya Prasad on her request. She made this class mandatory for her students for getting their course completion certificates. The feedback from them is summarized below. Total feedback forms received x 68 (from both children and parents, as the forms were same)
Assessment of the seminar
Excellent x 34, Very Good x 28, Good x 6
How do they wish to use this technique?
To sleep x 42
On Waking up x 14
In my daily life/ activities x 13
Relax x 7
Focus/ Concentrate x 6
Using my time when bored x 2
At School x 2
Calming my mind x 2
Others x 1 each (gain more energy, breathing, before a test, when mad, for peaceful mind, stressful morning times, Put kids to bed, Studies and dance)
Testimonial From a Scientist
I have experienced some magical effect of the “Count your breath exercise”, which I started only recently, say 3-4 months ago. Though I had heard about such a technique many years ago, I was literally introduced to this by a good friend of mine, Mr. C.S. Rao. Initially, I was skeptical as anyone would be, but then thought, if I don’t gain much from it, I am definitely not going to lose anything. So, I started practicing this technique for a few minutes (10-15 minutes) without a particular goal in mind. I chose morning hours, immediately after coming out of the bed. In the initial couple of weeks, which included few gaps, I felt a very slight change in my attitude. The most important has been a sharp decline in frequency of getting panic on work not being completed according to target dates (set by me), which sometimes can be considered as unrealistic by my colleagues. At this point, I do not know for sure if this positive change in myself is due to “Counting your breath exercise”, but must be it , because I haven’t made any other change in my daily routine recently. I hope to increase the duration of this exercise in the near future.”
Rajendra Agrawal Ph. D Research Scientist, Wadsworth Center, NYS Dept of Health, Albany NY and Associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Public Health of the University at Albany NY.
DEC 2009
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