It's a moment Jillian Troth recalls whenever she's having a bad day at school, not getting along with a friend or simply not feeling her best.

Earlier this year, the 10-year-old stood in the Warrior II pose, arms outstretched parallel to the floor, one thigh extended outward, the other leg bent at the knee, with her mother, Johanna Frank, behind her. As Frank placed her hands on her daughter's upper arms, Marianne Impal's words floated around them, conjuring up a day where Jillian woke up and didn't feel like going to school. She'd done badly on a test the day before, none of the clothes she tried on fit well, and her friends were being mean to her. ... As Impal layered one challenging scenario atop another, she encouraged Jillian to feel how much she disliked herself in those moments, then asked her mom to push down on her arms. They collapsed effortlessly at Jillian's side.

Impal, a certified yoga instructor, then created a different scenario as Jillian again adopted the pose: This time, she woke up excited for school with just the right outfit to wear. As the day wore on, everything kept going right, from the many friends who made her feel included to the good reviews she got from her teacher. When her mom finally pushed down on her arms, they wouldn't budge, lowering only slightly the more pressure Frank applied.

"I usually think about that class and how good I felt and I just feel good about myself," says Jillian, of the lessons she took from the mother-daughter empowerment workshop taught by Impal.

"It was amazing how much strength it took to push down on her arms when she had a positive outlook as opposed to a demoralizing outlook," says Frank, of Doylestown. "It really enforced the idea of what a powerful outlook can do in terms of strength and self-esteem."

The message is part of a broader mission that Impal, a yoga teacher for more than 12 years, says she wishes she could bring to girls everywhere.

For now, the Doylestown resident is starting in her backyard. On Saturday, she will launch Y.E.S. Yoga, a training she developed specifically for teens and pre-teens to give them tools to live a positive and healthier lifestyle through the mind-body discipline.

While she has been teaching workshops incorporating empowerment themes and tools for years, Y.E.S. (Youth Empowerment 4 Self-esteem) is now her exclusive program. Impal will offer a Y.E.S. Yoga workshop for girls ages 10 through 15 at Cornerstone's TreeHouse Studio in New Hope on Saturday, the first of several she plans to bring to the area, while also certifying other yoga instructors to teach the confidence-boosting class.

"Yoga itself is known as a practice. When you practice something over and over, when you start to get it, when you feel like you're finally achieving something, that's where the empowerment comes from," says Impal, who also teaches vinyasa and hatha yoga at Cornerstone in Doylestown. "This is about practice makes possible. I want girls to get rid of practice makes perfect ... to know instead that practice makes anything possible."

Beyond incorporating strategic yoga poses with Fierce Pose, for instance, one of the more strenuous postures, she encourages girls to think of a particular challenge in their lives as they go deeper into the pose, using their ability to hold it for longer than they imagined as a metaphor for the strength to take on life's struggles rather than run from them Impal also includes self-esteem activities, journaling and stress-relief tactics. And she sends each girl home with her signature Y.E.S. Kit, a red keepsake box featuring a meditation CD for kids and teens, positive affirmation cards and a gratitude journal, among other items, that she initially designed for her own daughters, Nicole, now 13, and Renee, 15, as they approached their teenage years.

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Using yoga as a gift of empowerment