<body><div>After school on Tuesdays, Room 3301 is cleared of desks and filled with soothing music, dimmed lights and yoga mats.Physical education teacher Jennifer Kanwischer leads an intramural yoga class every Tuesday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. It is open to Oak Park and River Forest High School students and staff of all experience levels, and yoga mats are provided. Kanwischer said, “I just want people to show up and try it out, and they may lean into it, or they may not.”Kanwischer has been doing yoga on and off since 2001 and, along with being a teacher, is a yoga instructor at 105F in Chicago. She is certified in teaching vinyasa, yin and Core Power’s Hot Power Fusion yoga.When Kanwischer first started doing yoga as an elective class in college, she recalls that she didn’t like it and ended up with a ‘C’ in the class. She explained, “Because of that experience, I can empathize that yoga isn’t for everyone. And, sometimes it takes a few experiences to lean into the process.”After she had kids and began going to yoga classes again, Kanwischer noticed the benefits yoga had. She said, “I found myself getting healthier mentally and physically. It shifted who I am as a person for myself, how I talk to myself, and how I treat others.”Kanwischer had taught yoga after school at OPRF prior to this year but took a break from it after her children were born. She has now brought it back after James Geovanes, who runs Intramurals at OPRF, offered her a section.At the beginning of class, Kanwischer likes to “feel out people when they come in.” This helps her decide if the yoga she leads will be energetic, restorative or something in between. Kanwischer does yoga at the front of class, explains what she is doing and offers corrections to participants.Olivia Schreiner, OPRF communications coordinator, attended the first yoga class on Sept. 24. “Kanwischer is awesome, and I was unsurprised when I took the class with her that she was a good yoga instructor too,” she said.Schreiner has been doing yoga for over 20 years and spoke highly of the Intramurals class. She said, “It was very good. I would rank it high in the many classes I’ve taken, and it was cool to be in the school…like a classroom, but to still feel like it was a yoga studio.” Though Schreiner usually does yoga in the morning, she thought that doing yoga at the end of her workday was “very calming.”Kanwischer also teaches yoga in her Mind and Body Fitness class. Kanwischer and physical education teacher Cameron McLaughlin created the Mind and Body Fitness class to provide a class for students to focus on themselves, and both their physical and mental health.Senior Weston Elmer has Mind and Body Fitness as his first class of the day. He feels that yoga helps him immediately and said, “The yoga is great for kind of waking yourself up.” He added that Mind and Body Fitness has a positive effect on the rest of his school day, saying “I think that doing things like the guided meditation, the yoga, stretching…kind of hones me in to pay attention a bit more.”Elmer described Kanwischer as an “incredible” yoga teacher and said her philosophy in class is “meeting us where we’re at.” He defined this philosophy as Kanwischer learning what her students need and helping them as she can in the moment.Elmer thinks that everyone could benefit from giving Intramural yoga a chance. Similarly, Schreiner said she would “recommend it to anyone.”Kanwischer encourages everyone at OPRF to try out Intramural yoga no matter their skill level. She wants students to know that “When you come into this space, you are enough, just as you are. You could just lay on your mat and breathe, and that would be enough. I want them to feel safe, like they don’t have to come in with any level of experience.”Intramural yoga is taking a break during the month of October, but will start back up in November.</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

New club brings the joy of yoga to OPRF

After school on Tuesdays, Room 3301 is cleared of desks and filled with soothing music, dimmed lights and yoga mats. Physical education teacher Jennifer Kanwischer leads an intramural yoga class every Tuesday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. It is open to Oak Park and River Forest High School students and staff of all experience levels, and yoga mats are provided. Kanwischer said, “I just want people to show up and try it out, and they may lean into it, or they may not.”