“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.

Nancy Gerrity founded Brain Fitness in 2007 for a very personal reason. Her husband Tom, in his early 50s, was diagnosed with early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. At the time, there were no local day facilities that provided appropriate stimulation for persons with early onset dementia, so she began advocating for one.

“What I found was a real gap in what was provided and what was needed,” said Gerrity, who works full time at an engineering firm. “So, with the help of a few people, we created Brain Fitness.”

Peggy Bargmann, a registered nurse and the director of a support group Gerrity attended, directs the two-day-a-week program. Clinical Instructor Janet Whiteside at the UCF Communication Disorders Clinic supervises the graduate students, who are studying speech therapy, during the weekly visits to Brain Fitness.

“Each game, everything we do here has a purpose,” Bargmann said. “It’s not just entertainment; it helps keep certain cognitive skills sharp.”

Tombros, for example, loves to play pool. So, as part of his therapy, he teaches others the game. Another participant is learning to play ping-pong, which is helping her process new information and coordination. Group activities include yoga, drawing and walking.

Tonia LaTesta, a UCF graduate student, said she is learning as much or more than some of the clients.

“I had no idea what to expect,” LaTesta said. “I had these ideas of what dementia patients were like –that they stayed at home and couldn’t do much. Now I know better. Consistency can help maintain and even improve their abilities.”

Nancy Slay, another graduate student, said she finds the experience invaluable.

“It really prepares you because there’s one thing to learn it in a book and then there’s real practice when you have a real client and you have to specialize what you are doing to meet that person’s need,” she said.

The cost for participants is $35 per day. Because UCF students provide the therapy sessions, the program is run on a semester basis and takes breaks during the holidays.

“I’m so grateful for all the help we’ve received,” Gerrity said. “The church has been supportive, and the partnership with UCF is great. It has benefited our family personally, and to know this helps so many others, it’s so rewarding.”

The UCF Communication Disorders Clinic maintains many partnerships with community groups to benefit local residents and give students practical experience.

The program is funded through grants and private donations. First United Methodist Church provides the space for free and recently agreed to take on the program as one of its ministries. Still, the program can always use financial support, Gerrity said.

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.

“There’s no such thing as a typical session, but generally, a Laughter Yoga meeting lasts from 35 minutes to an hour, with 20 to 30 people present,” Travis said. “We often begin with yoga breathing and stretches to open our diaphragms and relax, but the mood soon turns wonderfully silly and ridiculous. We’re not thinking, we’re not processing, we’re simply getting out of the rational brain.”

In addition to leading the club’s weekly Tuesday meeting at 12:15 p.m. on campus, Travis will conduct sessions throughout the community for the residents of the Beechtree Care Center, Longview, Lakeside Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Oak Hill Manor, and McGraw House as well as for the staff at the Caroline Elementary School and for various classes on the Ithaca College campus.

There are currently some 6,000 Laughter Yoga clubs located in 60 countries, and many American employers, including the University of Michigan’s U-M Health System, offer Laughter Yoga sessions as a fitness benefit to their employees. New York has 14 registered Laughter Yoga Clubs in Buffalo, Rochester, the Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island, but the Ithaca College club is the only one in central New York.

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.

Just then, Krishnamacharya stepped out of the house, wearing only a dhoti and the sacred markings that signified his lifelong devotion to the god Vishnu. The car stopped and a middle-aged, European-looking woman sprang from the backseat, shouting “Professor, Professor!” She dashed up to Krishnamacharya, threw her arms around him, and hugged him.

Thanks to Krishnamacharya’s help, she had managed to fall asleep the previous evening without drugs for the first time in 20 years. Perhaps Desikachar’s reaction to this revelation was providence or karma; certainly, this evidence of the power of yoga provided a curious epiphany that changed his life forever. In an instant, he resolved to learn what his father knew.” “The blood must have drained from Desikachar’s face as his father hugged her right back,” Ruiz writes. “In those days, western ladies and Brahmins just did not hug, especially not in the middle of the street, and especially not a Brahmin as observant as Krishnamacharya. When the woman left, “Why?!?” was all Desikachar could stammer. Krishnamacharya explained that the woman had been studying yoga with him.

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.

Tom Patrick said owning Chi Yoga Institute on Mountain Parkway and Chandler Boulevard was a “labor of love.” The studio, in existence almost four years, offered a blend of yoga and the chi kung energy practice.

Attendance dropped greatly when yoga classes became available at the YMCA and area health clubs, Patrick said.

Yoga Euphoria, on Chandler Boulevard and 40th Street, opened in 2005 and closed recently. A previous yoga studio there also had closed. Yoga Euphoria’s owner could not be reached for comment.

Josh Rothman, who taught at Yoga Euphoria, said with “the right teachers, the right marketing” he thought a studio could succeed in Ahwatukee.

“I would rather have a studio with 50 people paying $5 or $6″ than one with three or four people paying $20 each, she said. Her Monday night class draws as many as 60 people.

Ahwatukee resident Bob Doehnert said he started taking yoga at the YMCA, but he prefers the ambiance at Mountain Park Community Church’s Christ Centered Yoga program.

In 2005, Boon started the international Holy Yoga ministry, offering a Christian worship-based practice. In Ahwatukee, Holy Yoga is now taught at the YMCA, Mountain Park Community, Esperanza Lutheran, Horizon Presbyterian and Foothills Baptist churches. The classes are free with donations accepted at some sites.

Mountain Park Community Church Yoga Ministry leader Elena Porter said she believes yoga studios charge too much.

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.

He said the draft on the matter was ready last week, but that he had to examine it first before sending it to the Islamic Development Department.

Speaking to reporters after a law seminar here today, Abdul Shukor said the issuance of fatwa (edicts) was the jurisdiction of the state governments, and not that of the fatwa council.

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.

“Yoga is natural to human beings, it’s not so much something you’re learning,” she said.

Rea said Tuesday’s visit was her first to Frederick, and that she found the town charming, but a bit chilly.

Garre said she wanted to open Ananda Shala eight years ago, but this year, the timing and market for yoga in Frederick was perfect.

“It’s great to see Frederick evolve into a place that still has its charm but is also cosmopolitan,” she said.

Yoga’s popularity, as well as Rea’s, showed in Tuesday’s crowd.

Though she’s not a regular visitor to Frederick, Rea’s ties to the city are growing. Many yoga instructors at downtown Frederick studios have trained with her, and Frederick native Maria Garre coordinates her international teacher training program.

Garre opened the Ananda Shala studio on West Patrick Street with owner Aimee Firor McBride this spring.

Garre said she met Rea at a yoga conference in 2000, and since then has regularly traveled to take Rea’s classes. She eventually became Rea’s teaching assistant and then coordinator of the teacher training program.

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.

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.

Based out of Dublin, Vinyasa Flow Yoga’s foundation course is recognised by the Yoga Alliance and known as an intense transformative process. This 200 hour course offers seasoned practitioners an in-depth exploration of the primary techniques and principles of hatha yoga.

This knowledge has passed through generations of renowned teachers and leads the trainee to a self-sufficient practice of integrity and intelligence.

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.”