Parrish Science Teacher In Yoga Competition Vying For $10K Prize

PARRISH, FL — A biology teacher at Parrish Community High School is a quarterfinalist in an online yoga competition.

If Kayla McCarthy brings home the $10,000 cash prize in the Yoga Warrior contest, which will be decided by a public vote, she plans on using the money in her classroom.

Voting for this round of the competition is open through Thursday. Those who want to support McCarthy can vote for her here.

A graduate of Braden River Middle School and Braden River High School, she discovered yoga as a college student on a pre-med track at the University of South Florida.

“With all the stress of being a pre-med student, it brought a lot of peace to my life,” McCarthy told Patch.

She later discovered a passion for teaching when she took a substitute gig in Manatee County. After that, she refocused her career on education.

It wasn’t long before she realized she could use her yoga techniques in the classroom to help her students relax and focus.

“I loved what it did for me, and I saw so many kids struggling the way I did. Many kids don’t know about these breathing techniques and ways of moving,” she said. “They think it’s some monk dudes in a temple somewhere, but it’s so much more than that. A lot of people just assume yoga is the postures or the asanas. It’s more a way of life than just the movement. Breathing is part of it. Being mindful is part of it. I bring the mental components into the classroom.”

Before exams, McCarthy leads her students through affirmation work. One pose she frequently teaches them is the mountain pose, which has them standing with their arms overhead.

“Standing in a confident posture like that can give you a boost on your test scores,” she said.

She also has them do deep breathing exercises and smaller movements.

McCarthy, who teaches at A Little Twisted Yoga Studio in Palmetto, oversees the yoga club at school, as well, offering free yoga classes to students.

She has a mix of students, boys and girls ages 15 to 18, who regularly attend her classes, she said. “The kids that are there are hardcore there.”

What’s surprised her most about the club is how many boys — many of them athletes — attend her classes, especially since there’s a stereotype that yoga “is not a ‘manly’ thing to do,” McCarthy said. “I have football players, these big tough guys, come up and tell me, ‘Wow, that was really good.'”

She added, “Putting yourself in a mindset of calm and peace is for everybody and everyone, regardless of gender, deserves a chance to experience peace.”

If she wins the Yoga Warrior cash price, she’ll use the funds in her classroom. In the 2021-22 school year alone, she’s already spent nearly $5,000 on snacks, school supplies and lab materials.

Though students in need are offered free lunches at school, there are still many teens that enter McCarthy’s classroom hungry.

“I know I can’t focus when I’m hungry,” she said. “I constantly have hungry kids in my room, so I’m always feeding them.”

And while the district offers her students dry labs and computerized lab simulations, she pays out of pocket so they can have a more hands-on lab experience.

These simulations don’t “give them the chance to experience what inquiry-based learning is supposed to be,” she said.

And since she teaches mostly AP courses, she wants her students to have the most college-like experience, as well.

Many people don’t realize how much teachers pay for out of their own pocket, she added. She hopes that anyone who sees her Yoga Warrior contest submission might recognize exactly how much teachers give to their students.

She’s also been amazed by the community support she’s received, so far.

“Even if it doesn’t go as far as I want it to, in a way it’s validating,” McCarthy said. “A lot of people don’t take yoga seriously. ‘Oh yeah, yoga. You just stretch.’ But it’s really so much more to me. And for the community — the kids and their parents — to see this and recognize my passion, it’s inspiring.”