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Stretching limits: Yoga fans find fitness on the floor

Stretching limits: Yoga fans find fitness on the floor

Author: Jerry Fink
Publication: Las Vegas Sun
Date: January 31, 2002
URL: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/do/2002/jan/31/512969207.html

Angeline Garbett was a 4-year-old child when she first was introduced to yoga.

The 27-year-old Las Vegas resident was living in Salt Lake City at the time. Her mother had Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer, and took up yoga as a means of relieving the stress brought about by her terminal illness.

Garbett spent six years in yoga classes with her mother. "I took it 'til I was 10," Garbett said. "It didn't quite catch on with me, I just wanted to kick around with Mom."

Yoga was a source of relaxation, meditation and spiritual awakening for Garbett's late mother, as it was for most practitioners until recently.

Today much of the mysticism of the ancient philosophy, which has its roots in India, has been stripped away. Yoga's intricate system of posturing, posing, bending and twisting is one of the hottest fitness programs offered across the country.

According to the Yoga Research and Education Center in Santa Rosa, Calif., more than 20 million people in the United States practice yoga, compared to about 5 million almost 10 years ago.

So many schools and instructors have cropped up that Yoga Alliance, based in West Reading, Pa., was created four years ago to help maintain high standards in the profession.

There are yoga classes for all ages -- from children to the elderly -- and for all purposes -- from gaining serenity to total physical fitness.

Hot yoga, or Bikram yoga, is an increasingly popular form for extremists who go through a series of 26 postures in rooms where the thermostat is set at between 100 and 112 degrees.

One of the latest fads is "woga," which is yoga in water.

There are hundreds of forms of yoga, including Karma, Bhakti, Kriya, Siddha, Raja, Sahaja and Tantra, to name a few.

The most popular yoga is Hatha, which emphasizes the physical benefits (although it does not totally ignore the spiritual aspects). It stresses proper breathing in conjunction with a series of postures that are said to affect the entire body, inside and out.

Garbett, who practices Hatha at the Black Mountain Recreation Center in Henderson, rediscovered yoga about a month ago.

"I don't have a greatly demanding lifestyle," said Garbett, who works in the administrative department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas law school. "I have access to the UNLV gym, but I would much rather do yoga than lift weights."

Mind, body, spirit

Garbett is one of about 50 people who attend one of several yoga classes led by Debra Stefan.

"Yoga means 'yoke,' or 'union,' " Stefan explained. "It creates a union of body, mind and spirit. It started in a Hindu-based culture and was integrated with some religious beliefs.

"Some branches of yoga lend themselves to religion, but the fitness industry has gleaned Hatha from that. We have come up with different styles that we feel benefit our participants -- everything from gentle yoga to power yoga."

"Traditional yoga can be done at any level of intensity or difficulty," Stefan said. "You start with the basic, classic postures or poses and go through progressions that lead to some rather complicated and advanced movements."

The 49-year-old Stefan was schooled in traditional yoga, which emphasizes the spiritual aspect of the person. "Over the years I have modified my traditional yoga to be a blend with modern exercises, leaving out some of the higher-risk traditional yoga poses and adding on some modern-day variations," she said.

Stefan said yoga first gained widespread popularity in this country when The Beatles went to India in 1968 and became aligned with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

"Having a guru and practicing yoga became the 'in' thing," she said. "The meditation aspect of yoga was stressed, sitting cross-legged in a position for an extreme period of time without movement."

As Stefan became more interested in physical fitness she began adapting yoga postures and creating movement sequences, all designed to bring about the optimum in physical fitness for each individual.

Lifting weights, running and other forms of exercise often turn into friendly forms of competition among participants. That is not the case for yoga.

"This is noncompetitive," she said.

Which is why the room in which her class takes place is almost dark.

"There is an inward focus," she said. "You should not be watching other people. I verbally guide you through the process. I do very little demonstrating because the practitioners may think they are not doing it right if they can't do it like me."

Everyone is different, Stefan said, so everyone does each movement a little differently.

"Even by seeing a picture of a yoga pose in a book, a person may feel he has to compete with that," she said. "That is why the room is dimly lit and the eyes are closed. There is no need to watch a demonstration. By listening to the guided instruction, a person can put their body through what is appropriate for them to be doing without being influenced in a competitive way, and without feeling any negative attitude about their physical performance."

Stefan said the surge in popularity of yoga may have a lot to do with the aging population.

"I'm a (Baby) Boomer," she said. "I can attest to the fact that (older people) are at a pivotal point, a point where they need to be doing something physical.

"The exercise industry in general has gained a lot of momentum, especially since the Surgeon General's report in 1996 that called for every man, woman and child to engage in physical activity. Inactivity is hazardous to your health."

Students of yoga

Stefan said most yoga fans are women, but more men are discovering its health benefits.

Charles Waldron, one of Stefan's students, has been practicing yoga for 10 months.

"I started because of age and health reasons," said 47-year-old Waldron, who sells real estate and remodels houses. "I didn't want the aerobics, I didn't like the pounding. A girlfriend did yoga for a little while and got me interested.

"The classes motivate me. The rewards are wonderful. I'm lazy at heart and I don't look forward to exercising, but when I leave class I'm pleased with the way I feel. I feel wonderful."

Chiropractor Robin Huhn is one of Waldron's classmates. She said when she started taking yoga to relieve stress she discovered that some of the poses are similar to stretching exercises she gives her patients.

"As I do it more and more, I see the benefits of yoga and how it relates to chiropractic -- stretching muscles to give flexibility, movement in all of the joints to keep the joints lubricated -- overall, it's very beneficial."

Student Ramona Trahan is a good example of how beneficial yoga can be. Trahan is a 59-year-old housewife who began studying with Stefan three years ago.

"In the last three years, since starting yoga, I have begun walking 3 1/2 miles a day, five days a week," Trahan said.

Teachers of yoga

Catherine Corbeaga, 56, has been practicing yoga for 14 years and teaching it for eight. Her inspiration was actress Katharine Hepburn, who is 94 and suffers from Parkinson's disease.

"Several years ago I saw an interview on television with her in her home," Corbeaga recalled. "She already was showing signs of Parkinson's, but she was still very vigorous and flexible and strong -- which she attributed to yoga."

Corbeaga said when she first began looking for yoga teachers in 1987 she was living in the Florida panhandle and couldn't find any. She practiced on her own for a year, ended up teaching a class and finally decided that was what she wanted to do professionally.

She trained under Joseph LePage, founder of the Integrative Yoga Therapy school in Hudson, Ohio.

"I liked his program" Corbeaga said. "He has a very balanced approach to yoga -- body, mind and spirit, not just the body."

Corbeaga moved to Las Vegas almost six years ago and began conducting yoga classes for the Las Vegas Athletic Club, which has four locations around the valley, each of which offer free yoga classes to members.

"When I first started there were three teachers at the club, each offering maybe two classes a week," Corbeaga said. "Now I'm one of 13 instructors, and I personally teach eight classes a week."

Her first classes had five or six students. Now they have about 30.

Connie Johnson, who also is a yoga instructor for Las Vegas Athletic Club, began doing yoga exercises 20 years ago after suffering a whiplash injury in a car accident in Connecticut.

"I couldn't lift my head to look up at the ceiling," Johnson recalled.

When the exercises helped her, she said she became hooked on yoga.

Johnson, 48, moved to Las Vegas in 1985 and practiced yoga at health clubs, but didn't start teaching until two years ago.

"Yoga is a personal journey," Johnson said. "Everyone has their own style, you learn from this one and that one, from videos and books."

Carol Cravens' journey, which began a year ago, has lead her to a healthier life.

"I feel more flexible. My muscles are firmer, and I'm more aware of what I eat," Cravens, a counselor at the Community College of Southern Nevada, said. " My circulation is better and I have better sleeping habits.

"I don't like doctors and I don't like medicine. Yoga is the best and healthiest medicine in the world. It's the best thing you can do for yourself."
 


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