I have been wanting to write about the Kelly Family Yoga Workshop for a full week now, but I got distracted by working on/planning a fundraiser for my brother-in-law.  Regarding the fundraiser, I decided late last night to hand the on-line fundraising setting up project over to my nephew, Adam, who can work on setting up web/fundraising pages for his dad. On line fundraising is a more effective means to get the fundraising word out to the Brechbill friends and family… and Adam is more web savvy than I am.  I helped him with all the verbage for the event.

So last Friday, I stayed in town later than usual and held an hour and a half yoga workshop/session for the Kelly Family!  Mr. and Mrs. Kelly  (Kevin and Charlotte) and their daughters, Michelle and Jennifer, gathered for the session.  It was a really special and sweet yoga experience.

Kevin and Charlotte celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary recently and the session was a gift to them from Michelle.  Talk about a great gift to give your parents! Basically, Michelle gave her parents the gift of health, love, and serenity.  It was so touching for me to see her parents, both in their 80’s, delighting in doing yoga, balancing, feeling their strength, exploring their breath, feeling calmness of mind and  flexibility.  And to see them practicing the yoga with two of their three grown children was really satisfying for me.

I saw a lot of love in their family… love and support and I was so moved by that.  Kevin and Charlotte remind me so much of my own parents, mostly because of their ages, but also because they are devout Catholics as my parents were.  I kept thinking to myself how LUCKY Michelle and Jennifer are to still have their mom and dad!  And the best part is that Michelle and Jennifer DO know just how lucky they are.  It gave me so much pleasure to see the two daughters interact with their parents, admiring them when dad had a comment or mom asked a question or when both of them giggled at their teetering trees.

I set up yoga mats in a circle and placed chairs over the mats.  This way, we were able to adapt all the poses we did and allow for Charlotte and Kevin to reap the benefits of the modified poses while their daughters were able to do a more advanced expression of the same asanas.  We also did some bar work.

Once, many years ago, I did a similar yoga gathering/session with another family: The Anschuetz family.  We had many of the family members and three generations present:  mom, dad, their adult children, their children’s spouses/partners, and their grandchildren.  On that occasion, too, I had the feeling of being surrounded by the power of family love.

After the session, Kevin asked if we could do this on a weekly basis!  His daughter, Michelle, who is also a certified yoga instructor, said she and her sister would definitely try to do yoga with their parents more often.

How lucky I am to do what I do!