Lori Pierce and Yoga for Scleroderma
In June 2017 Lori and I were introduced on social media by Misty Rushing in the Scleroderma and Functional Medicine Facebook group. We had a phone conversation while she was on a train heading north, and two weeks later she arrived in Reno to film Yoga for Scleroderma videos for YouTube. A few weeks later we presented Yoga for Scleroderma at the Scleroderma Foundation National Conference in Chandler AZ. Lori was a yoga teacher living with scleroderma, and as Patty Varty said “You took away all my excuses”. With Lori teaching, Yoga for Scleroderma exploded, presenting at national conferences, patient education days, support groups all over the country, and the Accessible Yoga Conference, then annual video shoots for the YouTube channel, and the Yoga for Scleroderma Teacher Training now co-taught by Lori, a yoga teacher living with scleroderma.
Then the pandemic hit, and in-person events were gone. Lori wanted to continue to serve the scleroderma community, so in June 2020 she started our Wednesday Wind-down, a weekly live zoom offering guided relaxations, meditations, and breathwork. In July we added a second live Zoom on India Standard Time, with the third Wednesday of the month in Hindi language. In August we presented our first Zoom webinar with Scleroderma India, in both English and Hindi, and then published it on our YouTube channel. In September Lori launched our podcast channel to offer the episodes for free to the world, also available as free videos on our YouTube channel. On December 30, 2020, just three months later, we hit 1,000 downloads of Lori’s Wednesday Wind-down podcasts.
Today we have 144 podcast episodes published, with 22,274 downloads in 112 countries and 2,894 cities. Our YouTube channel has 200 videos, with 23,823 views, offered in four languages plus English Closed Captions.
Lori continued teaching on Zoom throughout the pandemic, to her own support group, at the Scleroderma Foundation National Conferences, and offered webinars to support groups in the US, Canada, and India which are also available on our YouTube channel. In September of last year, she drove to Niagara Falls to teach in person at the Scleroderma Canada National Conference. She hosted her last webinar in January of this year for the Scleroderma Association of British Columbia, teaching flat on her back with her video off because she wasn’t feeling “perky”, living proof of what she always said, that “Yoga is for Every Scleroderma Body!”
We are honored to carry on Lori’s work with Yoga for Scleroderma, we will “Persevere and Rock On!”
Kathy Randolph, 4/16/23
Enjoy photos of Lori, listen to Pink singing “Cover Me with Sunshine” while you watch.
https://youtu.be/sPNJRclSB78
