On June 26, 2015, Eri Golden and Chie Tanaka taught a special yoga class to participants in the Proyecta 100,000 program hosted by WKU and and ESLI.  Their students also included other faculty, staff, and students who worked with that month-long program.

Proyecta 100,000 is designed by the Mexican government to support the studies of Mexican students in the United States, and Dr. Alison Youngblood brought the program to WKU and had the idea to include a yoga class during its closing-night celebration. Eri and Chie volunteered to team-teach that class, which was held in Tate Page Hall on campus and drew approximately 15 participants, including the program’s 7 engineering scholars from Mexico.

Eri notes that she offered to teach the class because, as someone for whom English is a second language, she felt a connection to the participants; she also wanted to share the “power of yoga” with them and to remind students that they need to engage in physical activities as well as mental ones in order to remain healthy.  Teaching the class as a team allowed Eri and Chie to give more individual attention to each student.