Conscious Choice: Urban Yoga’s Attack on HIV

December 2006 | Yoga Chat

Urban Yoga’s Attack on HIV

By Kimberly Nichols

Every year in Palm Springs when Gay Pride weekend nears, a petite and feisty blonde named Kristin Olson prepares a dozen sexy white tank tops and t-shirts with her Urban Yoga logo blazoned across the chest for her gay, male clientele. Together with her students she rides in the annual parade, a hot woman in her fifties atop a candy colored convertible. It’s always quite a spectacle to watch her as she passionately oils up her boys who have become a beacon of hope toward living well with HIV/AIDS under the tutelage of her restorative yoga classes.

“Very early on in my career, I lost a very dear friend of mine in L.A. who was my mentor,” she describes. “When he died of AIDS, I felt hopeless but I decided to honor his memory by taking Urban Yoga, and his legacy, to the desert.”

In Palm Springs, she found the perfect place to practice. Not only did the desert boast one of the largest and most successful AIDS service organizations in the United States, the Desert AIDS Project (D.A.P.), but it was also a haven for men and women in need of healing with its near perfect year-round weather and natural desert surroundings. With the help of D.A.P.’s wellness program coordinator Mariana Duspiva, Kristin began to create restorative yoga classes fine-tuned to the needs of those living with the chronic disease with an emphasis on fighting specific ailments through the use of targeted poses. Her classes became so popular that within a year she was forced to open her own studio for the throngs of HIV patients newly turned on to the benefits of yoga.

“Imagine if with every step you took, you felt a burning sensation in your feet that crippled the mind from wanting to take the next step,” Kristin says. “This burning happens with neuropathy, a common ailment in HIV patients that is caused when the drugs one is taking begin to seek out fat resources in the body as their fuel. Sometimes the last source of fat is in the feet. By using inverted poses and a focus on the breath, we are able to alleviate this pain to a manageable level.”

Kristin tailored a program that focused on increasing circulation, stimulating the organs, and activating the weakened muscular structure through a series of seated breath work meditation, standing poses, stretches and inverted leg movements. Her restorative, mellow adaptation of classic Hatha yoga began to enhance the lives of her students, that she now considers family and friends.

“I have seen a man who lost his lung learn to live in relative comfort,” she says. “I have seen men who are dying, suddenly learn to regain their grip on life by learning to breathe again. I have seen people go from living in constant fear to embracing a sense of fearlessness. It’s miraculous!”

So miraculous, that Kristin was awarded a grant by the Southwest Karma Yoga Foundation in the fall of 2002 for her HIV restorative work.

Not only has this miracle yoga gone to great lengths in helping people with chronic pain learn to face each day with a modicum of comfort, it’s also given credence to the growing field of wellness arts.

“Yes, we help the physical ails with yoga,” she explains, “but what is more exciting is the way we are teaching these men and women to be masters over their own minds. A decade ago, it was unheard of to see AIDS service organizations receive funding for wellness programs but today we know that a major part of healing lies in a strong mind, a determined will, and a sense of camaraderie. I have seen proof of this in my class.”

One man who recently passed away was a faithful devotee to Urban Yoga. In the last throes of his disease he would make the trip to Kristin’s class so that he could sit on the perimeter of the room where he would watch his peers while cleaning up the tattered wicks from the candles in the room. This weekly sitting was his meditation and his therapy. Although he could no longer do the poses, his sense of well-being was greatly enhanced by being in the same room and focusing for an hour on his own breath. His “knowing” that yoga had become his way of deepening concentration on his own well being spurred him to make that weekly trip, one that continually prepared him to live another day.

Kimberly Nichols is a Palm Springs-based freelance writer.

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