These kids love yoga — but they call it 'Jackie Chan-ing,' and it's changing their lives.
In Liberia, hundreds of kids are using Jackie Chan to heal after trauma.
You mean the famous martial artist and actor Jackie Chan?
Well, kind of.
The kids are actually using body movement classes to rebuild trust in their bodies — but they call it "Jackie Chan-ing."
Image courtesy of Playing to Live.
The classes are yoga therapy classes, Playing to Live founder and director Alexis Decosimo explained to me.
"All our programs go through a cultural adaptation process, so ['yoga' or] even 'relaxation' didn't really stick. It ended up being 'We're going to do Jackie Chan-ing.'" Understandably, the idea of learning to be like Jackie Chan is what got the kids most excited about yoga therapy exercises.
Playing to Live is an organization that uses art, play, and yoga therapies to help children from communities affected by Ebola to process what they've been through.
Practicing tree pose. Image courtesy of Playing to Live.
Thanks to a UNICEF grant and local partner RESH, the group is currently working with 900 kids and 40 female Ebola survivors across a few of the most affected Liberian communities.
Yoga therapy helps each kid rebuild a healthy relationship with their body and gently guides them out of trauma response mode.
When you think you might have Ebola, your body is scary — it can even become your enemy, Decosimo said. The reflexive response is to try to disconnect from your body. "But then you're not in control anymore. It goes much deeper than that."
Enter yoga therapy.
Yoga — er, Jackie Chan-ing — forces the kids to focus on something other than trauma. It helps them relax, and it helps their body and brain realize they're not in the trauma anymore.
It also builds self-esteem and healthy body-mind relationships. The "Mountain Dance," for example (a favorite among the kids), is all about standing tall and proud, and being in control.
Kids in Liberia learning the mountain pose. Image courtesy of Playing to Live.
"Everything really is of course fun and playful, y'know, helps children be children," Decosimo added. "The twist that we have is that there is an evidence-based clinical aspect to it."
Playing to Live uses art, play, and yoga therapy to help kids overcome trauma worldwide.
Decosimo says, “We want to build this culturally relevant program that can be extended globally." In fact, they've already started working with kids in South Africa on issues of homelessness.
"What art therapy can do, and play therapy can do," said Decosimo, "is help the child recreate their trauma ... [and] learn how to process it through creating images about it, playing it out, and having a safe place."
Kids participating in Playing to Live art therapy programming. Image courtesy of Playing to Live.
Well, I suppose it's official: Jackie Chan really can defeat any villain. Even the trauma of Ebola.



A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 



An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.