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Mr Gray stressed that his bill would allow schools and students to make their own decisions about whether to offer or participate in yoga classes. He also says that public school teachers cannot say “namaste,” a greeting often used in yoga, or any other type of chanting.
“You have to make compromises to get this bipartisan support,” he said.
Mr. Gray came across the problem largely by accident. In a speech at a public high school in Auburn, Ala, in 2019, he mentioned that yoga has helped him stay grounded while juggling responsibilities.
After her remarks, the teachers told her that they had not been able to organize exercises for their students. “That’s how I learned it was banned,” Gray said.
At the time of the ban in 1993, parents in the state raised concerns not only about yoga, but also hypnotism and “psychotherapeutic techniques”. According to an April 1993 article in The Anniston Star, a Birmingham mother said her child brought home a relaxation tape from school that made a boy “visibly tall,” reported The Montgomery Advertiser.
But for Mr. Gray, a former football player, yoga has long been a useful part of his exercise program. The gentle stretches helped him calm down after workouts, he said, while the breathing exercises strengthened his lungs. (This, he added, may have helped him recover quickly from a bout of Covid-19 last year.)
He introduced his first bill to challenge the yoga ban in 2019, but it quickly failed. His second attempt passed the House in 2020 but was put on hold due to the pandemic.
This time, Mr. Gray is optimistic about the prospects of the bill. He said a Republican senator, Tom Whatley, had agreed to push legislation forward in the Senate, where, like the House, Republicans have a majority. (Mr Whatley did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Friday.)
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