“Downward Facing Dog,” calls out Kay Wescott, my beloved yoga teacher.
According to the statistics, as many as 12 million Americans do yoga.
Forty per cent of health and fitness centers offer hatha yoga.
A recent search on Amazon.com pulls up more than 1,350 yoga book titles.
Celebrity interest in yoga has definitely fueled the media hype.
In the ’80s Sting and David Duchovny became devotees and Ali MacGraw released her own yoga video.
During the ’90s Julia Roberts said to In Style magazine about her yoga regime, “I don’t want it to change my life. Just my butt.” And, of course, in the ’90s the one-time material girl herself, Madonna, got serious about her daily yoga practice.
Her last recording, Ray of Light, was deeply inspired by yoga teachings.
A chance to get paired with Rupert-lord gracious, that’s more than enough spiritual inspiration to take up a serious yoga practice.
Aside from the hype and the heavy breathing, Westerners find yoga one of the most accessible and profound of the Eastern disciplines.
Yoga translated from the Sanskrit means “Union” or to “Yoke” together, yoga’s goal being to “Yoke” together the body and the mind; the more spiritual, esoteric, forms of yoga emphasize clearing the mind, calming the spirit, and enhancing the body-mind connection.
As a massage therapist, for years I had heard of Lomi Work, a synthesis of rolfing, gestalt psychotherapy, polarity energy work, meditation, aikido, and yoga.
One hour of sitting meditation followed by an hour of yoga.
As the 24 students were led through a series of yoga postures that first morning, I was the only one in the room who couldn’t do the poses.
Yoga has become part of my three-part exercise program: aerobic, strength, and flexibility.
I walk, bike, and climb steps for aerobics; I weight-train for strength; and practice yoga for strength and flexibility.
In these six years, I have seen how yoga complements the body work I give to clients and that I receive myself.
Thanks to the yoga asanas, or poses, I know I’m more flexible.
The recent Yoga Journal said about flexibility: “Even if you’re active, your body will dehydrate and stiffen with age. By the time you become an adult, your tissues have lost about 15 percent of their moisture content, becoming less supple and more prone to injury. This normal aging of tissue is distressingly similar to the process that turns animal hides into leather. Unless we stretch, we dry up and tan.” Our bodies are a living matrix of tissue, which connect bones, muscles, tendons.
Yoga helps keep these connective tissues supple and vital.
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