North Bend yoga instructor Carla Orellana will turn 60 next year, but she’s younger than most people half her age.

Orellana shares what she’s learned about the health-promoting aspects of yoga and dance with Valley youth in a set of summer classes and camps for teens and children.

Yoga helps improve posture and breathing, and increases physical fitness and energy. It also eases stress and helps teach teens how to be calm.

“When you’re happy in your own body, you’re a lot happier with other people,” Orellana said.

Too often, adults come to yoga later in life to help remedy everything from headaches to back pain.

Introducing yoga and dance to young people can help make them build healthy habits early on, instead of trying to fix problems down the road.

Children haven’t developed their preconceptions about the world — yoga isn’t “weird” to them, according to Orellana.

Dance moves

Orellana may be best known in the Valley as the leader of the Veils of the Nile belly dance troop.

Her dance classes for younger children help them explore movement.

Dance helped her break out of her shell.

“I used to be so shy that I fainted,” Orellana said. “That was my way to escape having to talk to anybody.”

“Dance is a universal language,” Orellana said. “It’s a form of communication.”

“In other cultures, they dance for every single event you can imagine,” she added. “In our culture, we lose that.”

Find peace

In her work, Orellana emphasizes compassion, tolerance and peace.

“The kids are learning tools that will help them be more peaceful in the world,” she said.

Orellana’s work is aimed to prevent things problems like bullying and school violence. Classes reference the Buddha, Ghandi, the Dali Lama and others.

“If people can have more self-confidence and respect for one another, we won’t have to deal with those issues,” she said.

Classes start with breathing lessons. For Orellana, all of life begins and ends with breathing.

Breathing exercises can raise and lower the heart rate, calm the body or reduce blood pressure.

With proper breathing also comes proper posture. Teens and adults who spend their days hunched over a desk or on a couch aren’t getting enough oxygen to their body.

“You start to get stagnant and overweight,” Orellana said.

When classes begin, Orellana asks the teens what they want to learn. If they don’t have energy to study or work, she helps then find exercises to do what they need to do.

Her hope, through working with the libraries, is to inspire a core group of students to work on poses and meditation, read and discuss yoga books. She wants to see students apply yoga principles to their lives.

“Discipline is a good thing,” Orellana said. Better posture and a stronger body core give young people the energy to pursue their interests — work, sports, academics.

“It’s teaching them tools that work, and are applicable to what they need, no matter what they choose to do.”

Youth yoga

• Yoga for Teens, Asana: Poses for Stability, Strength and Flexibility is 3 p.m. Monday, July 27 at the North Bend Library, 115 E. 4th St., and 3 p.m. Monday, Aug. 3 at the Snoqualmie Library, 7824 Center Blvd. S.E.

Yoga sessions help teach strength, flexibility and balance, and help teens deal with stressful situations and conflict.

• Li’l Jasmine Dance Camp is July 20 to 24 and August 3 to 7, for ages 6 to 12 at Si View Community Center in North Bend. Girls have an opportunity to perform in the Festival at Mount Si parade with Veils of the Nile.

• Yoga camp for teens is July 27 to 31 and August 10 to 14 at Si View Community Cener.

• For adults, Orellana will hold an outdoor yoga workshop, 2 p.m. Sunday, July 26 at Rattlesnake Lake, weather permitting.

• To register, call (425) 445-2299 or e-mail to carla.orellana@comcast.net.