BREATHING TECHNIQUES TRANSFORM PHYSICAL EXERCISE,
BUILD SERENITY AT THE PEACE SCHOOL
CHICAGO (August 25, 2006) â Broad, gleaming glass windows, highly polished wood floors and thriving leafy plants frame a gym-size room flooded, right into its corners, with warm, natural light. Yoga classes line up before the windows as martial art students practice disciplined moves. Meditation groups master stress-fighting clarity while massage students learn to knead out the kinks.
The exercises and the classes initially look like others of their kind, but theyâre different in the most fundamental way: breathing.
The basic Peace Breathing -- âbreathe in âworld,â breathe out âpeaceââ â is taught and practiced from the very first session of every class here. Itâs the foundation on which the Peace School has built all its practices and programs, including its Peace Day observance, taking place this year [2006] on Sept. 7.
Peace Breathing and Exercise, say instructors Jennifer Kim and Greg Garrett, is the difference between feeling good and feeling a whole lot better. More transformative than simple physical exercise, the Peace Exercise workout incorporates breathing techniques to attain a higher level of focus, relaxation and meditative clarity.
Peace Breathing and Exercise are also what place its practitioners in the peace-making process. âWe believe that the individual has the responsibility and the power to help create peace,â Jennifer says. âThatâs the basis for everything here, from every breath we take to the major undertaking of Peace Day. And our techniques give people the tools they need to help bring about that individual peace and to spread it out from themselves.â
Practitioners praise the Peace Breathing effect of reduced stress, better family and interpersonal relations, and greater effectiveness at work. âItâs not some miracle cure; youâll never see us on late-night infomercials,â Jennifer laughs. âItâs a physiologically based breathing technique that changes the bodyâs utilization of oxygen and improves circulation and balance. Plus, it makes you feel terrific!â
In the broader sense, Peace Breathing alters the way practitioners interact with the world.
âObviously, peace is facing a lot of challenges in our world these days, and that makes The Peace School more important than ever,â says Greg Garrett, head instructor at the school and a Peace Breathing practitioner since he was a high school student.
Garrett teaches a dozen classes each week, and devotes hours more to the Peace Schoolâs work with senior citizens at two North Side residential facilities. âWe began working with seniors from the earliest years of the Peace School,â he says. âWe came up with our own combination of breathing, stretching, and light massage. Right from the start, we were just amazed at how responsive people were, even the Alzheimerâs patients. So many times, theyâll tell us they donât know who we are, but they know they like us!â
The Peace Schoolâs home is a large old building at 3121 N. Lincoln Ave. that once housed the Salamander shoe store and whose second floor had to be cleared of thousands of pairs of shoes when the school moved in. The schoolâs first home was at Clark Street and Buckingham Avenue, a Korean enclave when the school started in 1972.
In the kind of serendipity that usually happens only in movies, Grand Master Kim, father of the Peace Schoolâs present Master Charles Kim, met a Clark Street businessman on a plane ride. Hearing Master Kimâs discussion of Peace Breathing and creating peace worldwide, the man offered on the spot to help house the new Peace School in a space where it thrived and eventually grew to need a new, larger home.
Today, The Peace Schoolâs serene faade looks out Lincoln Avenue not onto the shuttered delis and furniture store that were its neighbors in 1988, but on the trendy shops, ethnic restaurants and fashionable bars that have stretched Lakeviewâs reach along Lincoln and well north of Diversey Avenue.
âItâs been wonderful to help the neighborhood become so friendly to everyone,â Greg says, âand to help make it safe and easy to get here with the great public transportation we have.â Though the Peace School does offer self-defense classes for women, the communityâs prosperity has contributed to a larger student population and brought about some new classes, including parent-child exercise and classes accommodating children as young as 4 as they learn peace from the very first.
Instructors in the Peace Schoolâs all-volunteer staff undergo extensive training for at least five years before being approved to teach on their own. The thousands of students who have studied at the Peace School are considered lifelong members, welcome to return at any time to resume their studies of the Peace Breathing and Exercise system.
âGrand Master Kim believed that if peace could be established in the United States, it would spread throughout the world,â Greg explains. âWe recognize that itâs a process, and weâre proud to be part of that process, starting in Chicago and moving wherever people go as they practice Peace Breathing.â