Practising yoga during teenage years is much more than an exercise regime. Not only does yoga provide an energy outlet and help in building muscle and flexibility, it is also an entry point for a healthy and balanced life.
Kat Owens, who runs programmes for teenagers at Abu Dhabi’s newest yoga studio, YogaOne, says the practice for teenagers is basically an antidote to stress, in what has become an overscheduled world.
Owens has built her career around working with teenagers. The 28-year-old spent years providing counselling and building a supportive environment for underprivileged students between the ages of 16 to 19 in New York’s Brooklyn borough. Her background, however, has always been that of a yoga instructor.
“There is yoga for kids and there is adult yoga – I feel the formative adolescent years are not really given the proper attention they deserve,” she says. “A lot of times, teenagers need a platform to express themselves in a safe environment and be around adults they can trust in a consistent relationship. Yoga can provide that.”
Owens began teaching classes at YogaOne every other week with interest steadily growing among the teenage community.
This week, the studio is set to host a private yoga event for dozens of Emirati teenagers. “Yoga helps teenagers name their emotions, understand their bodies, move and build strength and flexibility, and feel at home in their own skin and learn to self regulate,” says Owens.
And for teenagers in the UAE, who find it difficult to find a part-time job or dedicated hangout spaces and are stuck indoors during the summer, yoga can “build a community, too”, she says.
“When they’re doing yoga, they’re hanging out with each other, with teenagers from other schools that they may not have necessarily met.”
Just as it can be for adults, yoga can help unite the body and the mind, which can make the demands of daily life easier. “Kids here are all from such different countries, with a demanding academic schedule,” says YogaOne’s co-founder Margie Cordon. “They’re so busy they find it hard making friends because people are leaving all the time. Yoga is a safe haven for them.”
Kiala Folkard, from Australia, can relate to the idea that yoga is a safe haven. The 18-year-old student, who will graduate from Raha International School this year before returning to Perth to pursue her higher education, has been doing yoga for three years.
“I exercise regularly anyway, but incorporating yoga helps me recover faster from my gym workouts, and I feel much more relaxed,” says Folkard. “It’s time you can take for yourself – it’s much more personal, focusing on yourself.”
She tends to seek out a yoga session if she needs to relax or after a busy week.
“Kat’s class is a mix between mindfulness and yoga, and makes us really feel like it’s a safe place to talk about how we’re feeling. You definitely feel like you’re getting a workout, but also feel like you’re taking time for yourself and reflecting and being mindful.”
Schools in the UAE are no strangers to yoga as a life skill – some offer an after-school option for children of all ages. In Dubai, Greenfields Community School has set up a mindfulness and well-being room to help students reduce stress, improve their mood and focus on their physical fitness.
“Practising mindfulness has profound impacts on children’s health and overall well-being,” says Rola Ghadban, the school’s mindfulness coordinator. “In my classrooms, I have seen how a daily mindfulness practice can help our students’ mental clarity, emotional intelligence, focus and overall happiness.”
The Ashtanga Yoga studio in Dubai is another place that runs regular workshops and classes for teenagers.
“Yoga gives our children emotional resilience, confidence and focus,” says Sonali Edwards, the studio’s teen yoga programme director. “They learn to reduce their stress and anxiety, and instead sharpen their focus and concentration.”
Natalie Hassanie is such a believer in the importance of teaching yoga and mindfulness to children and teenagers that she set up a company to bring exactly that to Dubai’s schools.
Posetivity, a sports service providing yoga and mindfulness curriculum programmes in schools, teaches children how to overcome their emotional challenges, discover their inner strength and develop positive thinking from an early age – all through yoga and mindfulness classes.
“Yoga and mindfulness can complement any educational curriculum,” says Hassanie. Emily Rentsch, head of the physical education department at Dubai American Academy, strongly agrees. “Students are physically, mentally and emotionally stronger after each class, and they learn the vital life lesson to live with compassion for themselves and for others,” she says.
The key, insists Owens, is to take it slow and build a common rapport with teenagers in a non-judgemental environment where they feel no pressure.
There’s no end to providing teenagers with a safe place that’s also constructive, and really the foundation of yoga’s benefit.
“In our first workshops with teenagers, it was me getting to know them, what their strengths are, what they struggle with, what their biggest stresses are,” says Owens.
She was surprised to find that in the UAE, relationship stress, family stress and behavioural issues are not at the forefront of teenagers’ worries. “It’s academic stress that they worry the most about – they’re not sleeping, they’re overwhelmed,” she says. “They put a lot of pressure on themselves to excel at school.”
Through a combination of yoga, meditation and mindfulness, it is Owens’s aim to teach her students how to handle stress so they aren’t just reacting to what’s happening to them.
“I want them to feel like they have a choice so they can learn to manage time,” says Owens. “They need a safe space to kind of just move their body and breath and notice what comes up – a place without any judgement.”
A yoga class, says Owens, must not be another thing that a teenager has to check off of an endless to-do list. Instead, it’s where they come to get away from it all, “have fun and build a beautiful practice for themselves”.
• YogaOne’s Lighten the Load Teen Yoga classes, which teach mindfulness for boys and girls, ages 13 to 18, are usually held on Saturdays at 3pm. Go to www.yogaone.ae for more details
Let the light within you shine
Laura-Helene Kopinski set up the lifestyle consultancy firm Inner Seed in Abu Dhabi about three years ago. The firm provides activities, training, workshops, classes, events and retreats with one thing in mind – nurturing and enhancing inner growth.
Kopinski works closely with children and teenagers – the 30-year-old’s yoga classes combine breathing, meditation, mindfulness and provide space for non-judgemental, open chats.
“The teenage years are a challenging time for kids, as they try to understand their bodies, their emotions, what they can do and achieve,” says Kopinski, who is French-Lebanese. “There’s a lot of pressure for them to contend with.”
Teen yoga, she says, helps alleviate that pressure, and is quite different from children’s yoga. “For kids, yoga is a non-competitive activity for them to explore their body awareness.” “But for teenagers,” says Kopinski, “it’s more about opening up, feeling good, building self-confidence, opening the shoulders and focusing on posture because they tend to close up from all the piled-up emotions”.
Particularly important in teen yoga, stresses Kopinski, is an understanding of mindfulness.
“Mindfulness is a day-to-day thing, not just something to practice in yoga. I want them thinking about mindful eating, mindful choice, disciplining their minds.”
Kopinski also offers private classes for teenagers based on a family’s needs, and hosts teen workshops at the Bodytree Studio in Abu Dhabi.“If I knew there was such a thing as teen yoga for myself as a teenager, it would have been a game changer, definitely,” she says.
artslife@thenational.ae
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Croatia v Hungary, Thursday, 10.45pm, UAE
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
FIGHT CARD
Welterweight Mostafa Radi (PAL) v Tohir Zhuraev (TJK)
Catchweight 75kg Leandro Martins (BRA) v Anas Siraj Mounir (MAR)
Flyweight Corinne Laframboise (CAN) v Manon Fiorot (FRA)
Featherweight Ahmed Al Darmaki (UAE) v Bogdan Kirilenko (UZB)
Lightweight Izzedine Al Derabani (JOR) v Atabek Abdimitalipov (KYG)
Featherweight Yousef Al Housani (UAE) v Mohamed Arsharq Ali (SLA)
Catchweight 69kg Jung Han-gook (KOR) v Elias Boudegzdame (ALG)
Catchweight 71kg Usman Nurmagomedov (RUS) v Jerry Kvarnstrom (FIN)
Featherweight title Lee Do-gyeom (KOR) v Alexandru Chitoran (ROU)
Lightweight title Bruno Machado (BRA) v Mike Santiago (USA)
PROFILE
Name: Enhance Fitness
Year started: 2018
Based: UAE
Employees: 200
Amount raised: $3m
Investors: Global Ventures and angel investors
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
The%20specs
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
