UCF students provide individual evaluations and therapy sessions. Then the student therapists work with the participants to sharpen their cognitive skills by playing games on the Wii, along with ping-pong, pool, Scrabble and other games.

“I’d be at home doing nothing,” said Tombros, a former glassmaker who has been coming to the program at First United Methodist Church in Winter Park for two years who wholesale yoga mats. “Here I learn some things, help out the students and enjoy myself. I can’t complain about a thing.”Eighty-nine-year-old Fred Tombros calls the therapy sessions he attends with University of Central Florida graduate students a “godsend.”

Tombros is one of 12 people who attends sessions of Brain Fitness, a program aimed at helping those with early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia keep their cognitive skills sharp. Read the rest of this entry »

“Laughter yoga isn’t about comedy,” said club founder Sammi Travis, a senior planned studies major and a certified Laughter Yoga Teacher. “You don’t need to be funny or have a sense of humor to do laughter yoga. Even if you’re faking the giggles, you still reap the benefits.”

Those benefits started coming to light in 1995, when a cardiologist in India began doing research on the therapeutic value of laughing. What he found was that laughing — either real or fake — could be combined with the breathing exercises of yoga to enhance the immune system; strengthen cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive functions; improve circulation; tone muscles; and release the same endorphins that produce the sense of well being referred to as “runner’s high.” The doctor, Madan Kataria, decided to explore the practical side of his research by meeting daily in a city park with five other people to do nothing but laugh spontaneously in public. From that effort came Laughter Yoga.

At a recent session of the Ithaca College Laughter Yoga Club, members paired off, bowed to each other, and started delivering fake karate kicks. Before long, everyone in the room was laughing for no good reason, thereby fulfilling the club’s only membership requirement — you have to chuckle, giggle, or guffaw for 35 straight minutes, even if you have to fake it.

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Krishnamacharya’s own son, T K V Desikachar, now a world-renowned yogi himself, initially had no interest whatsoever in the ancient art. He used to run away when his celebrated father called him for a session of asanas and pranayama.

After graduating from college with an engineering degree, Desikachar once came home for a short visit on his way to Delhi, where he had a job offer from reputed European firm. One morning, as Desikachar sat on the front step reading a newspaper, he saw a huge American gas-guzzler sweeping up into the narrow street in front of his father’s home. Krishnamacharya, who used to teach in the Mysore Palace before Independence and then in Chennai. Read the rest of this entry »

“It makes sense to have a membership at a place where you can get all your wellness needs,” YMCA senior program director Sandra Franks said.In 2000, Brooke Boon opened Studio Om on Mountain Parkway and Chandler Boulevard with the former Foothills Athletic Club owner. Two years later, she said, she left the studio for personal reasons. The studio later closed.

Boon said it was hard attracting students in Ahwatukee, where many “extremely active” athletes don’t have time for it.Several Ahwatukee Foothills freestanding yoga studios have closed after fewer than five years in business.

Some teachers and students say it’s because yoga is free at area churches or included in local health club memberships that also offer residents other classes and services. Several Valley yoga studios charge $10 to $25 per class with discounts for monthly memberships. An adult membership at the Ahwatukee YMCA is $48 a month.

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The council only gave its views and coordinated them before the matter was forwarded to the Conference of Rulers for verification, he added cheap yoga mat.

The furore over yoga arose after a lecturer at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Faculty of Islamic Studies, Prof Zakaria Stapa, said that the exercise contained elements of Hinduism and advised Muslims who had taken up yoga to stop practising it as it could deviate them from their faith.

The National Fatwa Council will announce the ruling on the practice of yoga this week, its chairman, Prof Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor Husin, said today. Read the rest of this entry »

During the two-hour class, Rea encouraged her students to use their own energy to maintain difficult moves and poses. One’s yoga practice is reflective of challenges in other areas of life, she said, and through yoga one can “create a transformation” to face those challenges.

Rea practices and teaches several other forms of yoga and Yoga Trance Dance, a more free-form movement, at her home base in southern California. She also travels internationally to teach classes and lead yoga-centered retreats.Spokes of students stretched out from a center point adorned with flowers, candles and incense. Nearly 120 students of all abilities gathered to practice with a master of their art.

Their instructor was Shiva Rea. In her 20 years of teaching experience, she developed and popularized Prana flow, an energetic form of yoga that helps students build power and stamina but does not create tension, she said. Prana revolves around the natural pulse of the human breath and the body’s inner flow, Rea said. Read the rest of this entry »

With the usually hectic holiday season kicking off, a brand new yoga sanctuary and studio has opened up in Phoenix. Health and wellness is an important part of life, especially in stressful times.

Doug Edgelow, owner of Urban Yoga, has these tips to help maintain a peaceful mind, all while getting a poweful workout:Be kind to yourself by accepting where you are.  Rest sometimes.  “Do what you can, with what you have, with where you are.”  You will be delighted at the results of your consistent and mindful practice. In time, the benefits extend well beyond your body to give you a calmer mind and more enlightened spirit.Remember:  wherever, whenever in our life we begin yoga, is perfect.  Yoga is non-competitive. The benefits of yoga and Pilates go beyond the positive effect on your body.

An introduction to this programme is being held on Saturday November 29 from 11am to 2pm at Phoenix Yoga Studio, Medical Park, Mullingar. Visit www.phoenixyogastudio.net for location and further information.

For those interested in the teacher training programme or curious about Vinyasa yoga this will help provide an understanding of what to expect from combining intensity and integrity in your practice. This also brings an opportunity to meet the faculty/director of the training and ask any relevant questions.

The induction will explore what it takes to contain the body and breathe with integrity; learn to keep bodies safe and open the channels to yoga sequentially and patiently; work from the safest and most effective principles of awareness and alignment establishing the mind, body and breath in union (yoga); and learn that to flourish in yoga and find freedom we must integrate yoga philosophy with a dynamic practice. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right. You can cause serious injuries if you don’t know what you are doing. Yoga involves rigorous positions your body may not be used to and you can pull muscles and even hurt your spine by doing these positions incorrectly.

Instructors are trained to teach the fundamentals of yoga in a way that is safe and comfortable for the students. Most yoga classes offer introductory classes for free. There are even yoga classes designed specifically for pregnant women and children. If you still want to practice yoga at home, Baptiste suggests that you check in with an instructor from time-to-time. “A lot of what goes on in a yoga class or a lot of what we say; you’ve got all these other bodies around, mirroring what the instructor is saying.”

At first glance, yoga may look hard, even painful. And if you are not careful, you could really hurt yourself. Studies show that yoga can help you gain strength, lose weight and manage stress. However, experts say you need to begin your yoga training at a studio with the help of an instructor; not at home with the help of a DVD or book. “I would highly recommend getting into an introduction class,” says yoga instructor Dana Baptiste. “I think one of the biggest problems is when you are in down dog position and you are looking up to find out what they are doing on the screen, even that might harm your neck.”

“The thing about yoga is it’s such a vast system, there’s a million variations you can do,” said Dayna Macy, spokeswoman for Yoga Journal, a monthly magazine. “Like any other pursuit in any other area, you can make lots of different judgments on what’s good, what’s not good, who knows, who doesn’t know.”

Macy has been a practitioner for two decades, but says the practice has grown into a fad over the past few years, thanks to its popularity among stars like Madonna and Sting. Indeed, yoga - the ancient Hindu practice for the mind, body and spirit - has evolved from breathing exercises and meditative poses to physical therapy, aerial choreography to a new way to firm your face, calm your child or limber up while pregnant.

Sting’s wife, Trudie Styler, will be among a host of yoga enthusiasts and experts who descended upon South Florida last weekend, for Yoga Journal’s South Florida Conference. With that in mind, we tried out some of the more unusual yoga classes out there: Read the rest of this entry »