The Yoga Boom

Americans Embrace Yoga as the Complete Mind-Body Exercise

by Eva Norlyk-Herriott

In our spiritual quest, it is required ofus that we develop our body insuch a way that it is no lnger a hundrance, but becomes our friend.
— B.K.S. Iyengar

In the old days, there used to be jokes involving pretzelsand strange tales of yogis surviving being buried alive for days on end. Today,there are superstar yoga teachers, designer yoga wear, “Om” earrings,yoga for kickboxing, prenatal yoga classes, and books with titles like Yogafor Pets and the People Who Love Them.

Yes, indeed, yoga has come of age. An estimated 18 million Americans currentlypractice yoga—a threefold increase in less than a decade. Yoga has becometo the early 21st century what jogging was to the 1960s and aerobics to the1970s. It is a staple in trendy fitness clubs alongside Pilates, Nia, and weighttraining.

It doesn’t hurt that high-profile practitioners like Madonna andChristie Turlington swear by yoga as a means to maintain a calm centerand get into “the zone.” But Hollywood glitter alone doesn’tsuffice to explain America’s newfound passion for this ancient spiritualdiscipline. A watershed event was the 1990-publication of physician DeanOrnish’s study showing that lifestyle changes, including meditation,yoga, diet, and group support, have the potential to reverse heart disease.

A long-term yoga practitioner, Ornish has since written five best-sellingbooks, introducing millions to the benefits of yoga and a healthy lifestyle.Today, yoga is taught in corporate boardrooms and in prisons, schools,and senior centers. Large corporations like HBO, Forbes, and Nike offerfree yoga classes for their employees.

“Every year over the past ten years, it’s been gaining momentum,” sayslong-time yoga teacher Sue Berkey of The Yoga Room in Fairfield. “It’slike a snowball coming down a hill. People who never would have triedyoga ten years ago are in classes several days a week now. It’sno longer considered this weird, wacky thing from India. People reallyget that this is a priceless knowledge, a gift from India.”

“I’ve tried different types of exercise, but yoga is a clearwinner,” says Ann Clifford, a realtor in Fairfield. “My postureis better after a class, and I feel really renewed. There’s a muchgreater feeling of openness and freshness.”

Just Another Fitness Fad?

Fitness fads, undeniably, come and go. At first glance, a Power Yogaclass in today’s fitness centers may not seem much different froman aerobics class of the ’70s. There’s the movement-enticingmusic, the sweating, the athletic young kids who effortlessly move inand out of each pose, and the huffing and puffing rest of us.

But if you listen more closely, the music is a kind of Bollywood rockthat mixes cool rhythms with soulful Vedic chanting. The inward focusthat you are guided into, along with the long relaxation at the end, don’tseem so Jane Fonda-ish either.

Yoga, indeed, is much more than a fitness fad conjured up by yet anotherHollywood-star-turned-health-guru. Yoga has its roots in the ancient Vedicculture of India. At its core, it is a spiritual discipline that facilitatesthe union of body, mind, and spirit as a basis for the full expressionof our human potential. The type of yoga that has gained popularity inthe U.S. is Hatha Yoga, which is part of a much larger body of knowledge.

A basic premise of Hatha Yoga is to encourage the smooth flow of prana,or life energy, throughout the body. Stress, poor lifestyle, shallow breathing,and the unavoidable wear and tear of aging cause the channels of the bodyto become blocked, cutting off the life force and leaving us with lessenergy and diminished health. The gentle stretches and deep breathingof yoga massage the muscles and internal organs, and facilitate the flowof prana through the body’s myriad channels. According to practitioners,as a result you feel and look younger and healthier, experience increasedvitality, develop a stronger immune system, and are better able to copewith stress.

“Yoga addresses every aspect of the body. It doesn’t leaveanything out, whereas in many sports you are just doing one thing,” explainsBerkey. “Yoga works on strength, flexibility, and balance. It worksnot just on the level of the body, but on the level of the mind, emotions,and spirit as well. It gives people something deeper, something that answersthe longing of their soul.”

From Pretzel to Practical

Hatha Yoga was first introduced in the U.S. almost a century ago. Butit is contemporary yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar who really made yoga palatableto flexibility-challenged Westerners. He showed how using props like pillowsand chairs can enable the body to reach and stretch in ways it otherwisecould not and stay in poses for longer periods of time. From an art masteredonly by the athletic few, Iyengar turned yoga into a practical, enjoyablemethod for increasing physical fitness, mental clarity, and emotionalstability.

Types of Yoga

With the growing popularity of yoga has come a proliferation of “yogastyles” that can be confusing to navigate. There are vigorous, aerobicforms of yoga like Power Yoga, Jivamukti Yoga, White Lotus Yoga, and AshtangaYoga; so-called Vinyasa-style practices, in which one pose flows intoanother. There is “hot yoga,” a form of yoga developed byBikram Choudhury, which is practiced in a room heated up to 104 degreesFahrenheit to facilitate the removal of toxins from the body. There arecalming, restorative forms of yoga, like Yin Yoga and Svaroopa Yoga, inwhich poses are held for long periods of time to promote healing and deepenthe inner experience. Then there are styles that fall in between, likeIyengar, Anusara, and Kripalu Yoga, which are characterized by their attentionto detail, and in which a focus on the subtleties of each posture is usedto create greater body awareness and guide attention inward. There arealso numerous types of yoga linked to the teachings of spiritual teachers,including Integral yoga and Kundalini yoga, in which yoga typically isjust one of a range of spiritual practices offered.

Yoga’s increasing popularity is not just among the fitness minded.Nationwide, interest is growing in yoga as a therapeutic modality, andyoga therapy is becoming increasingly accepted in medical and wellnesscenters across the country. The first symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research,to be held in January 2007 in Los Angeles, was sold out six months beforehand,with more than 800 registrants. The website of the International Associationof Yoga Therapists references more than a thousand studies on the effectsof yoga. Yoga has proven helpful in the management of numerous healthconditions, including chronic pain, arthritis, back and neck pain, headaches,osteoporosis, depression, insomnia, asthma, fibromyalgia, PMS and menopause,digestive disorders, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, andweight concerns.

A basic tenet of yoga therapy is that healing happens through connectionwith the deepest part of who we are. Yoga therapists typically designa specific yoga program to a client’s skill level and to guide himor her into a deeper experience of the subtleties of each pose, linkingmovement to deep rhythmic breathing. The goal is to give students thetools they need to feel connected to their own healing process.

With yoga’s growing popularity comes pros and cons. Many experiencedteachers fear that the flood of new teachers with little training mightturn yoga into a mere physical-fitness tool and obscure the spiritualbenefits of yoga. Others feel that yoga is simply evolving to meet differentcultural needs.

“Many long-term teachers feel that yoga has become like a style,a fashion statement,” says Iyengar teacher Nancy Footner of IowaCity’s Friendship Studio. “But that’s America—fashiontrends come and go. But there are enough serious and qualified teacherswith a deep personal experience of yoga to carry on the tradition. Yogahas been around for a long time, and it will continue to be with us.”

Tips on Finding a Teacher

Yoga postures can be demanding and, if not performed precisely and correctly,may cause injury. There are no legally mandated national certificationor licensing standards for yoga teachers, and long-term yoga teachersvoice concern that poorly trained teachers may not have the ability tosafely supervise large classes. Particularly if you a condition that requiresknowledge of the body, like back pain or arthritis, you want to look fora teacher with substantial training. Your best bet is to go with teacherswho have a long-term solid yoga practice themselves or who have takena 200-hour yoga teacher training course from a school recognized by theYoga Alliance, which ensures that they have basic training in anatomyand know how to assist you in the proper alignment of the postures.

Eva Norlyk-Herriott, Ph.D., LMT, is a licensed massage therapistwith advanced training in cranio-sacral work and Thai massage. Visit YogaForAllSeasons.com.

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