Gaza-Gaza post
A 26-year-old Palestinian Amal Khayal, began practicing yoga out of curiosity, but it quickly became a vital part of her daily life, allowing her to pursue her ambition of directing yoga instruction at a specialist center in Gaza.
Khayal said her enthusiasm for the sport started in 2008, and she began developing herself and meeting a number of international trainers while working with a foreign institution outside the Gaza Strip, highlighting how she had passed the sport to a group of girls and women in the restricted Gaza Strip.
She earned a B.A in English in 2014, but that didn’t stop her from working as a training supervisor at a specialist yoga facility, where she claimed she needed to be desirable, capable, and perceptive.
Amal Khayal, a coordinator at an Italian institution, says she learnt yoga on YouTube and that sport has become an integral part of Palestinian girls’ lives to help them cope with the bad energy and psychological stress that the Gaza Strip is experiencing.
Khayal is the director of the Gaza Strip’s first yoga, aerobics, and social circus education center, which was established under the auspices of the Aisha Association for the Protection of Women and Children.
Yoga, as Khayal said, had an effect on her body because it was firmly stretched and helped her to improve her abilities, and it taught her patience since yoga requires attention, softens the body, and enables movement.
The center has a team of several trainers, and the team is divided into two parts: a 13-female aerobics and social circus section and a yoga department with 16 trainers.
According to Amal, that it took her 200 hours to master yoga. Khayal collaborated with overseas trainers to provide experience to the center’s trainers.
Amal expresses her hope that the sport will be effectively mainstreamed without restrictions and supported in Palestinian society, as yoga is not limited to the youth group alone.
BY: Dina Mukhaimar
