Many people think yoga is only for the young and flexible. Actually, people of all ages and fitness levels can benefit from yoga practice, and it's never too late to start.Yoga keeps the body and mind young in a number of ways. First, it has been shown to keep the joints and spine lubricated and flexible, preventing and easing arthritis.

It also lengthens muscles, developing flexibility, which is the key to mobility. It is said that if you practice yoga, you will still be able to bend over and tie your shoes when you're 80.Balance is another benefit of yoga practice. Older people tend to fall more easily as the natural sense of balance decreases. Yoga challenges that and redevelops a sense of balance.

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A local children's yoga teacher was among a coalition of instructors statewide that successfully fought state efforts to license schools that train yoga instructors.It all started when New York state informed yoga teachers they would have to be licensed by the state or face fines up to $50,000.

Yoga instructors organized and successfully fought the rule. Then they went one step further and got legislators to write a bill — just passed by the Senate and Assembly — that specifically exempts yoga instructors from state licensing requirements.

Doreen Foxwell, owner of The Children's School of Yoga, based in Monroe, got involved, she said, because while the initial rules wouldn't affect her because she teaches children's yoga, she worried that requirements would ultimately be expanded to affect her.

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Women struggling to overcome grief may want to consider donning their ladies fitness wear, as yoga can help people to cope with the death of a loved one, according to a meditation guru.Heather Whittington, a certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner, runs Yoga for Grief classes, group relaxation workshops and private yoga therapy sessions in the eastern American city of Frederick, the Frederick News Post reports.

She explained that grief is a physical reaction to loss and it causes emotional, physical and behavioural responses which create great levels of stress."Losing a loved one is hard on the heart and hard on the body, but there are easy-to-learn techniques that can at least relive some of the physical complaints and even calm the mind," she told the newspaper.

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I had an exercise-induced epiphany this week. I realized that while silence is the moments between our words, peace is the moments between our thoughts. It's why exercise is as important for our minds as it is for our bodies.

To drive your body so hard that you know nothing but the beating of your heart in your chest and the gasping of the air in your lungs is a form of meditation. If you don't know what your body is capable of, you will never really be able to push the boundaries of your mind.

Granted, I came to this understanding while I was depleted of oxygen, my shorts and shirt shrink-wrapped to my body in an envelope of humidity, and lying in a litre of my own sweat, but it remains a completely valid point. At the end of the session, I was at peace, relaxed and feeling six-foot-two in my five-foot-seven body.

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In the last issue of this column two weeks ago, I talked about back pain and how yoga can help. Here I demonstrated a yoga sequence to help strengthen your lower back – the most vulnerable part of the spine – to protect the sacrum, and improve the stability and flexibility of the hips. As I’ve mentioned in the previous article, when done regularly and correctly, this therapy can help reduce pain and inflammation, increase circulation, improve function and increase a sense of self-confidence and well-being.

Before you start, always be mindful of breathing. Inhale deeply and freely and exhale completely through the nostrils. In the practice of yoga, inhalation and exhalation are used to integrate the spinal movement. We breathe in to lengthen the spine, creating space in our vertebrae, and we breathe out to move or to go deeper into the posture. Last but not least, follow the order of the sequence. It starts with gentle warm-ups before going further. These hatha yoga poses have been modified to meet therapeutic needs. In this part, we cover poses on
the floor and standing, while the next column will cover those lying on the belly and on the back. You can do just these poses, but make sure you end with a nice relaxing corpse pose (savasana), lying on your back for a few minutes. You may place a pillow under your knees if you feel discomfort lying on your back.

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Doga, the latest craze for Zen-seeking dog lovers, is a bonding experience, not an obedience class, says Leta Koontz, certified yoga instructor. Dogs are natural yogis, living in the moment, always looking for the next nibble.

I'm wondering how many treats it will take to get my gregarious lab in a downward dog?

The Schoolhouse Yoga instructor is bringing dog yoga to Animal Friends, 562 Camp Horne Road, for three sessions on March 14, April 11 and May 9th. Classes will begin with human and canine stretching and strengthening exercises and move into doggie massage and meditation. No prior doga or yoga experience is required, but you may want to bring a mat, towel, leash and lots of treats.

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With mega following in several countries, Iyengar yoga may be one of India’s more significant exports to the world, but this stream of yoga with brilliant healing properties still gets condescending ratings from purists.‘The gymnast’s yoga’, as detractors term it for its emphasis on the use of props like ropes, belts and wooden gadgets for asanas (postures) and physical exercises, does not impress Norway-based Are Holen much. Holen, an internationally-acclaimed researcher in disaster psychiatry and founder of Norway’s first yoga school as well as the Acem School of Meditation, believes it’s not the best form of yoga.

“The Iyengar tradition has been quite popular in the West as ‘sports yoga’. I personally don’t think that it is the best kind of yoga,” Holen told DNA. He was in Trichy as a guest lecturer in the National Institute of Technology’s international technical consortium, Pragyan.

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If anyone had asked me if there was such a thing as aerobics for yogis, I'd send them packing with a lecture about dippy oxymorons. But that was before last month, when I tried Lisa Van Ahn's IntenSati class at the Calhoun Beach Club in Minneapolis. The New York hit is just reaching Minnesota. In fact, there are only two instructors teaching it in the state. So when my buddy Lynn Nelson invited me, I pounced. Nelson's been going since September and swore it was fun. Then she warned me that there would be lots of yelling. Yelling?

Sure enough, Van Ahn belted out positive affirmations that we echoed throughout the class, which proved to be part aerobics, part yoga, part martial arts, balance work and crunchy-granola feel-good talk. According to IntenSati creator Patricia Moreno, Sati is designed to be a high-energy cardio workout threaded with themes for mindfulness, positive psychology and the law of attraction. Moreno invented this mind/body/cardio blend after struggling to control her weight. Now she's teaching other instructors nationwide. At full intensity, participants burn 600 to 800 calories per class. Want to know how? Check out satilife.

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I worked at Sea World when I was in my twenties as a performer on Cast Away Island. My character's name was China Dawn - a fitness infomercial star who was stranded on an island, desperate for a way back home to her fans. Every hour I worked a twenty-minute segment delivering my monologue of distress to Sea World attendees. I was off for the remaining forty-minute segment of each hour. During those times in which I wasn't working, I liked to sit with "Shamu" and the dolphins. I often spoke with the trainers, always expressing concern for the mammals being kept in such small quarters. They reassured me that Sea World takes great care of them, and that they are better off in captivity than in the wild. I wanted to believe them, but watching the whales and dolphins repeatedly hitting their nozzles against their underwater doors, I couldn't help but disagree.

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BIKRAM Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga - a popular form of Hatha yoga that sees practitioners doing postures for 90 minutes in a room heated to about 40 deg C - has one big ambition: to turn yoga into an Olympic sport.

He and his wife, Rajashree, both recognised yoga champions from India, set up the International Yoga Asana Championships - a United States-based worldwide competition that got its start in 2003. The competition has now seen seven instalments, and is the first step towards Olympic recognition.

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