Blind yoga helps stroke survivor deal with sudden sight loss

The group’s instructor Tamas Danyi-Nagy says he started practicing yoga seven years ago after suffering from serious neck, shoulder and spinal injuries.

“I decided I wanted to know how the body works and how to manage my anxiety and energies around the body,” he says.

While completing his yoga instructor training, he started to volunteer for Sight Scotland as a befriender, where he would visit a blind woman and help her with her errands.

Tamas, who is now a community activity worker for the charity, says he was inspired to work with visually impaired people by a friend he had as a teenager who was blind.

“He was very dependant on others and always needed to be guided everywhere,” Tamas says.

“Everyone was very gentle with him, but I would always take him to the beach and we would do crazy things together.

“We would go to the cinema and I would audio-describe to him what was happening on the screen.”

It was while reflecting on how yoga helped him to heal after his injuries that Tamas realised he wanted to bring this practice to the blind community to promote mindfulness.

“If I had back pain, I would go on to YouTube and search ‘yoga for back pain’, then watch a video and copy what I’m seeing, while my very good friend wouldn’t have that option.

“That’s when I decided that this knowledge needs to be accessible for everyone, not just people who see.”