Lynne Patterson, a long-time yoga teacher at the college, sees the opportunity to take yoga courses as a way to “support everything that every student is already doing.” According to Patterson, who has been practicing yoga for 20 years and teaches Thursday’s Hatha yoga class, “The yoga teaches you what’s the best of you, and how to bring that forth. I think that when you’re at Smith鈥ou’re looking to find that piece of yourself and bring it out in the fullest expression if [you] can.”

Despite, or perhaps due to, the high academic standards to which Smith holds itself, the Get Fit Smith program has rocketed to popularity since its inception. Awesome Abs, taught by Joan Griswold, fills one of the Ainsworth gym’s largest studio spaces, causing a line to snake past the ellipticals on a yoga mat, treadmills and weight machines each Monday and Wednesday. Other classes, like pilates and cardio kickboxing, consistently receive high turnout and student satisfaction. Ostensibly, the program serves as a way for non-athletes to augment their personal fitness routines. To each of the four yoga instructors in the program, the courses not only serve as a side dish to academic study, but also promote an intensely richer experience at Smith.

Four different instructors teach the hour-long yoga courses, which start at 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Perhaps the largest shock comes in the intense variation of the yoga instructors themselves. On Monday, students who attend Amy Reed’s Anusara class will be warmly referred to as “friends” and will begin their practice with a story each week.

Reed is a recent Smith graduate herself, who turned fully to yoga after majoring in geology. “Yoga literally saved my life at Smith,” she says, recalling her own journey through for-credit yoga courses in the exercise and sports studies department and eventually as a trained instructor downtown.

Rachel Besserman, in her Tuesday Ashtanga Flow class, offers handpicked flowers to her students and touches each student with a tuning fork, set to the vibration of “ohm.” Besserman has been practicing yoga for her entire life; she even remembers being a child when she, without instruction, “would do this funny thing with [her] belly, an organ massage for the intestines.” She reflects a true awe for the powers of yoga, calling it “the ultimate revolution.”

“Going on the mat is the most amazing therapy I’ve found so far. It’s like me giving myself a massage. You can do it anywhere,” she reasons. A student of Get Fit Smith for several years while a grad student in the education program, Besserman sees herself coming “as a therapist, not so much as a structured teacher鈥?Sacredness, a place of reflection and pause - that’s also a big part of it for me. Growing up Jewish, in a very patriarchal system, I find this really freeing spiritually.”

Wednesdays offer Hatha yoga with Rosalie Peri, an energetic instructor whose experience as a nurse, physical trainer and general dynamo resonates through the room with a booming laugh and more semantics-based alignment. As she frequently says at the start of her class, “an instructor teaches you what they’re going through in their life.” Her wisdom becomes most evident in her deep knowledge of the body, as it should interact with each pose.

Lynne Patterson heartily agrees: “Your body will get stronger; you’ll get more flexible. All of these things are sort of a given if you practice regularly, but you’ll get yourself. You’ll get the grace of learning to just be yourself and to be authentic鈥?The whole practice is like a mirror for the self.”

At the start of each class, Rosalie asks the students what they need to focus on, leaving space for individual concern. One week, students experiment with holding poses for extended periods of time. Another day, Rosalie leads students through the healthy way to flow between downward-facing dog and warrior pose as well as progressive body relaxation. “You’ll get flexibility,” she tells the class one day. “But you also get a whole lot more.”