**Ok, for some reason Blogger was not letting me load any photos on here, so you get just the writing part of it. My group will get the original one I did on Word with the pictures through e-mail.**
“You want me to do what???” This is usually the first reaction to yoga by many people. What they don’t know is that yoga is not about tying yourself into a pretzel and trying to outdo the person sitting next to you (if you do you might find yourself in the Emergency Room). Yoga is about finding your inner peace with yourself, and yes, it also help to strengthen your core as well.
When I walked into yoga class in March, I didn’t think I would come out feeling like I have accomplished something. I was thinking, “Oh, this will be an easy A to help boost my GPA.” The reality is, I was completely wrong. Yoga is the one activity in my life that I actually look forward to. For me yoga gives me a sense of relaxation and at the same time energizes me for the rest of my day. That is just my story, yoga affects the lives of many throughout the world, and some even find it therapeutic.
According to Dr. Judith Balk from the University of Pittsburgh, “Osteoporosis is one of the most common skeletal disorders… and 34 million more have low bone mass, or osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporosis” (Balk 63). Studies were done by Balk and associates to test the results of a 12 week yoga program on women with osteopenia. Out of the few that completed the study, 3 of them showed, “As Yoga duration increased, bone formation markers increased” (Balk et. al. 66).
Some people even use yoga as a form of stress relief. The breathing exercises help to lengthen your breathing and slow down your heart rate. This decreases the amount of tension and stress that runs through your body. So far I have focused on the positives for the women that take yoga, what about the guys?
In my current yoga class there are a few guys that play baseball and use yoga as a strengthen tool for their games. Some of them also just use it for the stretches.
We all find ourselves sneaking a peak at the people surrounding us and giggling at how they are doing with downward dog, warrior pose, and happy baby. And to the average these all might sound like moves out of a karma sutra book, they are used by many yogi’s in a daily routine of yoga.
From many students that have taken it in the past it has changed their lives. Some students have (anonymously) reported, “I have been dealing with back pain for more than 5 years, and doing the standing poses has certainly reduced my back ache.” Some even liked yoga for the breathing exercises. One person wrote how yoga made them, “feel that my stress level has gone down and the breathing techniques allow more oxygen and have longer and deeper breaths.”
So for many people yoga is not just a way to get an easy A on their record. “Yoga is not a competition with my peers but a self check-up.”
Word Count: 505
