Okay, I have added some more stuff to this, and feel like I will add more before class time. But this is what I have so far.
The Art & Benefits of Yoga
Author: Michele Anderson
“You want me to put my foot where???” 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). In the history of yoga, the main thing people focused on was their breathing. Even though it may sound silly, that is the hardest part, and I found this out for myself when I signed up for yoga this semester.
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.
I had practiced yoga a couple of years ago on and off, so the poses weren’t that difficult for me. The usual atmosphere for deep breathing in yoga is when the lights are dimmed with a soft melodic symphony playing in the background. In a low, monotone voice I can hear the instructor saying, "let the busy thoughts of the day float out of your mind..." One of the first things as a student I was taught this year is that 60,000 thoughts pass through your mind in one day and for that hour and fifteen minutes you have with the instructor I was suppose to let those thoughts go?!?! Sounds kind of crazy, right? This is considered the hardest thing to do in yoga. At first I found myself closing my eyes and instead of focusing on “in and out” I was thinking, “I have to write a paper for class tomorrow, “or, “did I feed the dog this morning?”That is just a snippet of the thoughts going through my head. How do you get those to stop so that you can just think about your breathing? It takes lots and lots of practice to perfect deep breathing. Many students of the past even considered the deep breathing and the moves 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.
The best part about yoga is that it’s not just for one gender in particular. There are men and women alike that practice yoga on a daily basis. These are the people that we consider yogis. In our society today, there are studios throughout the DC metropolitan area that have yoga for a broad spectrum of people, including: pregnancy, infants, toddlers, and children as well. It helps kids with active minds to calm themselves and be able to focus on a single task without their thoughts drifting off.
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 person these all might sound like moves out of a karma sutra book, they are used by many yogis in their daily routine of yoga.
From many students that have taken yoga in the past, doing 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 race to the finish line against the other students in the class, but a release from the real world. According to a previous yoga student, “Yoga is not a competition with my peers but a self check-up.”
