A personal article on my experiences in Cuba in December 2000
By Mary Paffard

"Yoga is the one thing in my life that I can do to help myself and when life is very difficult and you feel helpless and dependent, this is very empowering. Sometimes it is the only thing that will get me out of bed in the morning and give me a reason to live" This was a comment from an elderly Cuban gentleman in a Yoga class I observed at one of the Psychiatric Clinics in Habana that include Yoga as part of their program. Patients with severe psychiatric conditions but not so severe that they are in hospital attend this day hospital and have a full program of therapy, medical intervention and now daily Yoga.

I had met the doctors responsible for this innovative form of therapy at a teacher training seminar that Rama Jyoti Vernon, Rodney Yee, Chris Hoskins and myself were invited to teach for the Cuba Yoga Associations teachers in December 2000. These psychiatrists who have introduced the Yoga are also avid students themselves and attended a series of beginning classes at our seminar, where Rodney, Chris and I were showing the teachers we were working with how we teach beginners. The Cuban teachers studied asana with us in the morning, philosophy in the afternoon with Rama Jyoti Vernnon and after a pranayama and inverted practice, we taught a class with a wide range of beginners. The beginners class grew to be 80 participants, more than half of whom were doctors and many others were involved in healthcare in some capacity. And although it made a very long day for us as teachers, we were all in awe of the hearttfelt enthusiasm for yoga in general and the many things they have to teach us about bringing yoga into the bigger health picture.

Yoga in the clinics

Our psychiatrist friends claim that Yoga has made a tremendous difference to the work they do not only in this day hospital but also in monthly courses they run for clients who are having milder psychiatric problems eg depression and stress related disorders. This particular gentleman in the day hospital was not alone in his appreciation of what Yoga has done for him; several echoed his comments and when I asked if any resented or resisted the fact that it was a compulsory part of the program, they smiled at my naivety..."at first, some may be resistant but the power of the group and the willingness and enjoyment of the participants doesnt take long to infect them and soon enougth they feel the benefits for themsleves!" Even though the Yoga hasnt been long in the clinics the doctors are finding that they are able to considerably reduce the prescribing of the regular psychiatric drugs that are also an integral part of their practice and they credit Yoga with developping a sense of self reliance in the client and increased self motivation to heal. They also use acupuncture, acupressure, bach flower remedies and other relaxation techniques in the programs they offer people. This clinic to the US eye was in an ancient crumbling building, the line to the elevators went way out onto the street. We staggered up many flights of dingy steps to enter office space that was crowded with people waiting paitiently for services with the most rudimentary furniture and no decor to speak of. There were no props for the yoga and as you can see from the photos, students use towels or rugs to stand on ...in our seminar classes, there were many complaints when we advised students to work on the cold floor with bare feet. Cubans do not like the cold! The lack of props means that resorative yoga is not feasible. The doctors are highly trained in their medical expeertise but anxious to supplement their limited yoga training. As I surveyed the scene and marvelled at their tenacity and their openness to alternative ways ("we dont like to call it alternative medicine because we feel its for everybody!" said one of the doctors), I also considered the ways that we might be able to assist them in their Yoga development.

Priorities differ here

On leaving the clinic, I had a most instructive lesson! I was late for another meeting but nobody was in any hurry (except me!). When we finally got into the elevator to descend, I could feel the angst rising as the jovial elevator attendant sent the elevator up instead of down! They were talking too rapidly and idiomatically for me to understand why everyone was smiling and laughing ...we got to a higher floor, the door opens and a fellow worker is standing there with a cup of sizzling hot coffee for the elevator man. He beams his delight grabbing the coffee,& turns to me and says " sometimes you just have to get your priorities right -- i need my breakfast! " and we laughed all the way down, thankful that the ancient sign that indicated maximum capacity had disintegrated as more and more of us jammed in around the coffee and the jokes.....& of course I arrived at the next meeting half an hour late to find that the other part of the meeting was running even later. No pasa nada!

Priorities are different here. One of the psychiatrists had attended a class at our seminar, where I had read a very short poem by Neruda. As I left the clinic, she handed me a sheef of poetry some from LatinAmerican authors that she had translated for me and some of her own creation. They were superb. Another student from that class appeared the next day with a book of Mario Bendetti's work as a gift. At the end of the course all of us were showered with poetry books and art. Many of the teachers were also artists or musicians and while our course washappning the Art Biennale was also in full swing in the entire city. Every gallery, museum, plaza was filled with art from all over the world, especially Latin America and in the little time we had free, we sought out the Cuban work which confronted us with its aliveness. In a country where political expresion has been limited, these underground channels of the human spirit become very powerful. Charlie, one of the teachers we worked with, is a comedian and confirmed something I've been surprised by on each trip. Humor like art is a way people can maintain their sanity and their "honesty"; much of the work you see is quite critical of aspects of life in Cuba but its permitted to exist alongside the growing tourist schlock because the censors that exist dont understand it! This "autocracy" has an endearing bumbling quality to it -- when you enter the airport and often have to face intense interrogation as to your purpose here etc, the police dogs of the guards are nothing other than adorable bassett hounds!

Alternative health is big!

There is a very interesting phenomenon going on right now in Cuba whereby the medical world is taking a serious look at health from a more wholistic stand point. Every hospital has a doctor/s specialising in alternative medicine. Many doctors continue their 8 year education with 2 year specialties in an alternative modailty; in Habana 60% of the regular doctors have this extra qualification. In each district of Habana (15) there are Traditional (non allopathic medicine) Clinics which offer a wide array of services like acupuncture, homeopathy, massage, physical therapy, fango( a local technique of using minerals in mud and applying to parts of the body!), and other modalities. These clinics, like the Psychiatric Clinic I visited, are now introducing yoga along with Tai Chi and Chi Kung and are incredibly enthused by what its doing not only to the health of their patients but also for themselves as hardworking practitioners. We were invited by several such clinics to visit their centers and see how much energy there is in alternative medicine in general and yoga specifically.

Rod Chris and myself met with Marta Perez, the Director of the Traditional Health Clinics in Habana. She explained that alternative medicine is not just a response to the embargo and the difficulty of getting medical supplies and drugs. "We have our own sutra" she said..."Traditional (meaning to us alternative) medicine is not a solution to poverty but essential to the wealth of everyone". She has worked very hard to convince the non-believers (& there are a good number there, as in the US) of the efficacy of these other modalities of care and is now committed to bringing Yoga into this arena. In Cuba 100% of the people can chose whether to have alternative/allopathic care. Many studies and research programs are being done through hospitals and universities to test these approaches and she believes that this is something that Cuba can offer the rest of the world. Training & information may be limited here right now but there is tremendous energy and resources available to study the impact of yoga on health. "Its so logical", says Marta "perhaps 40% of the population have kyphosis or hypo/hyper lordosis...which doctor or government official would deny yoga to all the school children if there were studies to prove that Yoga could reduce this by 20% ??? and what about repetitive Stress Injuries? how comprehensive are the studies being done in the US on this? We know Yoga can help prevent and ease these kind of situations. We just need more evidence to convince some of our community and we have the facilities and the motivation to do this and share this information with you".

In one of our beginners classes, a young woman, Lirio Santana, was working on her doctorate which involved an extensive study with 40 people just in the control group!, on the impact of different Yogic breathing techniques on musculo-skeletal conditions. The more she explained , the more we realised how vast this project was and the kind of thing only a drug company would finance in the US and what motivation would they have for that? Lirio asked me to ask others for any information that US Yogis might have about this research. If you have articles or web sites, please send them to us.

But yoga isnt official?

YET In spite of Marta's enthusiasm and support of our work and Yoga in her clinics, Yoga is not offical in Cuba. This may not mean much to gringos and europeans,. Who wants to be official in this crazy climate of red tape, certification controversy, liability considerations??? However in Cuba it means a great deal. The Self Realization Society has been official since the mid 50's and this means that they can operate a small studio space and advertise their classes etc. But this is a particular group and perhaps an anomaly in a culture where religious practice has not been encouraged and anything that looks cult like has been very much discouraged. The Sai Baba society has repeatedly been asked to close down their centers.

Evidence of Yoga has existed since the mid 1800's in Habana ; in fact the first Hispanic translation of the Bhagavad Gita was written in Cuba. But the small groups and odd teachers later in 20thcentury is nothing to the current burgeoning level of interest. There are over 8000 students in Habana alone. Yoga is taught at official centers like the National Theater and the TV and teachers are asked to give advice on stress reduction by government officials. And in the last few years, appearing in Health Clinics. Despite all this the government has still not officially blessed Yoga and the yoga population awaits the time when they can rent studio space, open centers and have more freedom to do this important work.

Eduardo Pimentel - A man with a vision

Marta Perez's involvement and the recognition of Yoga on many strata of society is recent. The growth of Yoga in Cuba is largely the work of one man and his colleagues -- Eduardo Pimentel and the Cuban Yoga Association. My personal connection with Yoga in Cuba began in 98 teaching some informal classes for Eduardo Pimentel, the President of CYA. Eduardo is a remarkable man who began his yoga life in the early 70's and has worked with the strategy of a chessplayer (which he is!) and as his students and colleagues say with great patience "como un hormigo un pequeno paso y despues otro" (like an ant one little step and then another..). He has educated government agencies about Yoga and its health benefits and appears occasionally on TV and symposiums to de mystify this ancient art and science. And has had great success.

Lifting the Embargo on our Hearts -- Yoga Festival Extraordinaire!

In 98, I asked Eduardo what I could do to help Yoga become official in Cuba and he asked me to work with Purusha Hickson, the organiser of the Festival of Yoga and Cuban Music that occurred in Habana in November 99. This festival was brought together by the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers and CYA. It was difficult to get sponsorship for this event from an official agency in Cuba because of Yoga's ambiguous status and eventually the Traditional Health Clinics agreed to partially sponsor the event. This proved to be very significant because many doctors and medical people came to the Festival and this in turn encouraged the relationship between the Yoga Association and the Clinics which has blossomed in the last year.

Ignorance isnt bliss -- It means you miss good salsa!

This festival brought together 80 US and international students and over 200 Cuban students for 5 days of Yoga classes with 10 respected teachers of different styles and a full program of speeches, meditations, meetings and Music, Music, Music! It was a magical event where noone was paid to teach/present and the volunteer spirit of Yoga was Humming!... That is an article in itself (See A#2). It was the most international Yoga event that had occurred in Cuba upto this time but an extremely challenging event to organise due to Yoga's strange status in Cuba and the general ignorance on the US side as to the Cuban scene. IABYT and CYA wethered many wild storms but manged to pull it off.

In 99 Cuba still wasnt as chic as it is now and we faced a lot of fear and ignorance around going to Cuba. The ignorance and fear was noticeable in the US and although Europeans and Canadians werent totally in alignment with what goes on down there, there was a much less patronising, less fearful better informed attitude among students and teachers I met outside of the US. Clearly the embargo has worked onmany levels. It was like pulling teeth to get people to sign up for what turned out to be beyond doubt a most transformative event . During that time, someone actually asked me if Cuba was part of the US..!!!!!Another -- a leading figure in the Yoga world -- asked "Why would anyone be interested in such an oppressive place as Cuba ?" I sent 60 personal letters to colleagues in the yoga world about the festival and the magnificent work of IABYT and had one response. Now due to the Elian crisis and the Buena Vista Social Club, I get a call almost every week with someone begging to go down with me.

Chuck Miller, wellknown Ashtangi of Yoga Works,participating teacher in the Festival , said that it was hard to know who was teaching who in this extraordinary cultural exchange. Its true that information about Yoga has been limited to books, occasional teachers and to intrepid individuals like Eduardo. But people like myself who get caught by the Cuba bug go there because one receives a 100% more than one brings. There is an energy and aliveness and thirst for yoga that makes our home territories seem lethargic and overcommercialised. Someone told me never to expect Cubans to be grateful for anything you bring because they feel thats just how it shoud be...those with more, giving to those with less. But I have never found this to be so. They are a very appreciative, heart filled people with a serious sense of humour. How else do you cope with the hardships many have faced? On our recent trip in 2000, the amount of students who referred to the Festival as a very powerful collective gathering and its impact on their Yoga and the yoga scene was phenomenal. Their gratitude to IABYT and its cohorts was very touching. '

Cuba us yoga exchange -- Bringing us, there and them, here!

Since the Festival a small group has come together to help facilitate bring our Yoga communities together. The most active members of this group are part of the Advanced Studies 18 month Course at Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, California. Patty Hirota-Cohen, a Cuban enthusiast and student teacher, has taken on much of the work of bringing this volunteer group together. Along with support from IABYT & AYC, this group helped fund raise for administrative expenses for our trip in December 2000 and is working hard to bring 2 women teachers over to the US in fall of 2001. Our objective is to help Eduardo and the Cuban Yoga Association, create a dialogue between our yoga communities & assist in making Yoga "official" in Cuba.

This most recent trip, 12/2000, arose out of a desire to work intensely with the core group of Eduardo's teachers. Previous classes had been fun but piecemeal at best. I and colleague Rodney Yee decided we'd be best put to use by working with the teachers. Chris Hoskins from IABYT came to help us and Rama Jyoti Vernon from the American Yoga College asked to come and teach the philosophy section. Unlike the Festival, it was a small group working just with the 20 Cubans and a larger group of beginners in the evening. We still needed sponsorship but this time it was more readily given by Marta Perez and her Traditional Medical group. We worked our proverbial"butts" off and at one point in the week, Rod turned to me and said "Who's responsible for this schedule?" We both were and laughed. In Cuba you learn not to sleep much -- the street noise never ends, if you're a vegetarian you can forget about eating too, but we did try and do the "when in rome" bit and when our students forced us to go out dancing with them on the last night, we reluctantly agreed. We had no idea what a cuba libre and those damned cigars (when in rome...) could do to your pranayama practice. But we suffered for the sake of our bigger purpose. It was a blast. As some of you know, Chris and Rod are professional dancers and every cuban has dance in their blood. This made teaching the belly work and 1st and 2nd chakra stuff a piece of cake -- they knew it already and had great fun mocking our attempts to do salsa.

Contradictions

In the middle of the evening at the Casa de Musica, where we were forced to enjoy ourselves so much, I remember thinking how many contradictions there are in all this. While at one end of the table, the rum and coke was being tested and some wily student was threatening to send pictures of us all to Yoga Journal, I was having a very intense conversatiion with a student and his wife. They had had a baby 5 months before and this was their first night out together. To the strands of loud salsa, the man was telling me how unbearable life had been on a sexual level because of the outrageous episiotomy policy that the doctors employ right now. Because Cuba's health statistics are very respected in the world -- lower infant mortality rate than some parts of the US, life expectancy is 73 whereas in Mexico its 48, vaccination policies and doctor/patient ratios that are the envy of many other Latin & Central American countries -- the doctors are under a lot of pressure not to let anything go wrong at the birth. and so the women are tested ad nauseam during pregnancy and usually have to endure a butchery of an episiotomy to make sure the baby is on the right side of the statistics. This reminded me of how many unnecessary caesareanns there are in this country mainly because of the litigation factor and the policy of insurance companies. Hmmm it made me wonder how we are all victims of politics and the $, as the music blasted to a crescendo and the couple ran off to dance and enjoy this special evening without babe.

Women

There are very few women yoga teachers. Only 3 in the group of 20 that we taught and only 2 of those were actually teaching. This is why our Cuba US Yoga Exchange group feel its very important to help encourage the women and the feminine aspect of yoga. The 2 women who are coming in the Fall were originally offered full scholarships by attend Angela Farmer to attend her Womens Retreat at Harbin, California and now we have invitations for almost 2 months of study. The process of requesting a visa from the US government is lengthy and very complex. Its very difficult for a Cuban to come here as a visitor or student. We brought Eduardo Pimentel here in April 2000 and it took many months and the patience and skills of the lawyer who brought the Buena Vista musicians here to do it. He had been denied visas twice to come to attend trainings in the US in recent years for no obvious reason. Getting out of Cuba is not usually a problem. and of course the expenses involved in doing this are tremendous. We need at least 2000 per person just for lawyers fees and flights. Eduardo's application got mired in the confusion of the Elian crisis and we had to redo all his flights at the last minute. This is not untypical of the way things go. We have presented to the governments involved a great package of invitations which includes one from Spirit Rock and Jack Kornfield for the women to attend a 10 day sit. There have been 2 (semi-clandestine) Goenka vipassna retreats in Cuba but no insight mediation retreats as yet. Wez Nisker may be teaching one this year. This was a special request of the women, Elsa Hermida and Margarita Fonseca. These 2 also bring much to share with us. Elsa is a very fine musician and Margarita has worked in the traditional Health Clinics and has valuable information about working with women of the "Tercer Edad". We need all the donations we can get to help this project off the ground.

I will be going down in March (future article will be available on this trip later on) and working with a group of women, some of them medical people that we met in December. This will be an informal weekend workshop where I hope to pass on information re menstruation, menopause and pregnancy that may be helpful to them and hear their stories. I will also see what research programs are beng conducted there and visit as many classes and clinics as I can. All the previous articles I have brought down have been translated and passed around teachers and clinics. We sent Christine Northrups book Womens Bodies Womens Wisdom down and I have been told it is in several of the hospitals now. A little information can go a long way in this climate. The role of women here is complex and changing. They have many responsiblities. Some appear very strong -- there are impressive numbers of women in government and in high positions and yet we noted a deep fatigue in some of the women attending the beginners class. When I taught a womens class at the festival, I heard stories that would break your heart and sitr your deep admiration for the crossroads that many -- like many of us in the US -- find themselves at right now.

Future projects:

If the bigger Yoga community supports us, we would like to bring a Cuban teacher to 2 months of the Advanced Studies Course at Piedmont Yoga Studio; Rodney Yee and Donna Fone have offered full scholarship for the 2 months but we need much work and finance for all the other expenses. We would also like to bring Eduardo back here in 2002. He is like a beacon for yoga and as he is the one that everyone turns to for help, all the visiting spiritual dignitaries call him first, he is an overly busy man. Marta Perez said that she and Eduardo have to pursue this work for the sake of yoga in cuba and for the sake of humanity. We need to support this man on this vast journey and bring him here to inform us but to also have the opportunity to do a long retreat.

We are working with Global Exchange who have been very supportive of all these projects and were responsible for all the travel and details of accommodation etc in the Festival. Our next group trip will be a small teaching group going down in fall of 2001. It will include myself and Chris Hoskins who will continue the dialogue with the teachers and the clinics from last year . We will be assisted by Patty Hirota-Cohen and Baxter Bell MD, who will help us develop a program for the clinics to introduce restorative work and also work with the connections that Eduardo is creating in the Sports world. In the future we hope that Global Exchange will help continue this work. Teachers like Eduardo's first teacher in Miami -- Bobbi Goldin, Angela Farmer and Victor van Kooten and many others have offered to go share their work. This next trip is to consolidate the work we did last year and also to grease the wheels of future larger events. It is very complex bringing larger groups to Cuba at this time. Until Yoga is official, this may always be precarious. But the signs look good for the future of Yoga in Cuba. Let the CubaUS Yoga Exchange know if you are interested in future happenings and contact Eduardo for upto date information about the current situation.

All of us pay our own way down there, we pay all our accommodation expenses and many things besides. We seek assistance in payment of Yoga room rentals, providing a midday meal for the students ( most cubans earn between $10-15 a month) and in logistical expenses. What I am trying to say is that your donated dollar goes very far because of the huge amount of volunteerism that is occurring. And if you wanted to throw in a dollar for my- one and only!- cuba libre, be my guest or see you down there!

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact the Cuba US Yoga Exchange c/o www.maryYoga.com