Toronto Timeline No yoga no peace
November 25, 2009 |16:59 | Exercise | Tips By : Team X
As part of its international Peace Week, YMCA locations across the Greater Toronto Area opened their doors today and invited the public in for a free yoga class. The Post’s Matthew Coutts attended the West End YMCA’s Yoga for Peace.11:45 Arriving at the Y at College St. and Dovercourt Ave., I ask a woman at the counter about the Yoga for Peace event and receive a blank stare. I try again, and someone points me to the basketball court in the back.11:46 Two tall men are leaving the basketball court, temporarily displaced by the yoga session. I’m actually carrying my basketball gear in my backpack, for a game later tonight. Maybe I should stick around after my assignment.
11:48 The gym is almost completely empty. The instructor, Alex Belcourt, is doing some pre-stretches and a television camera crew is interviewing the one participant I can see. No one is here to Yoga for Peace? Is that not still a hot-button issue?11:51 An organizer, Stephanie, tells me she is disappointed by the turnout. It’s the event’s first year. She’s hoping the seven other GTA locations are faring better. For the sake of peace, so do I.11:58 I ask the Y’s Celecia Partap if there is anything special added to a yoga session to focus it on today’s peace theme.That is basically the essence of what yoga is,” she says. I have just outed myself as a yoga noob.
It could go a little like this, we're guessing.Om, chanti, om, in your face! Namaste, om, chanti.Traditionally as in for thousands of years yoga has been used for finding harmony and peace within one's self. That you streamlined your legs, abs and arms in the process was seen as a joyful perk along the way to enlightenment. But now, one of yoga's bold-faced names, Bikram Choudhury he of the Bikram style of yoga which employs 26 asanas (poses) in a heated room and his wife, Rajashree, are setting into momentum the world of competitive yoga, reports the New York Times.With yoga gaining in popularity so rapidly, maybe creating a space for it competition-wise, was just a matter a time, though one has to wonder how the news will be received by the thousands upon thousands of yogis and yoginis who are attracted to yoga for its non-competitive (i.e. zen-like) nature. The Choudhurys have high hopes for this direction: they hope yoga will one day be at the Olympics.The yoga community will have to think about this one. Is this what we mean by pretzal logic? 
I hadn't even arrived at my first hot yoga class before I started sweating. All day at work my fearful anticipation had been building. How hot was "hot"? Would the room smell? Would we have to get naked? As it was, clothing was minimal. Men went topless; women stuck with stretch shorts and sports bras. There's a good reason: the studio is heated to 37 degrees Celsius. There was no stench though - the polished wooden floors prevented it from lingering. The 75-minute session began with breathing exercises and some standing postures, which are based on Bikram yoga poses.
Harvard - When Jen Sundeen opened her yoga studio at Fruitlands Museums recently, something clicked. Practicing what she describes as transcendental yoga, Sundeen feels the connection to all the people who fell under the spell of Fruitlands’ natural beauty and she is excited to teach in such beautiful surroundings. Bringing yoga to the grounds where Bronson Alcott and his now-famous family attempted a Utopian community in the mid-1800s and where the great thinkers of the day visited, said Sundeen, just feels right.
Everyone's doing it, and we're not just talking about twin tips and après-ski Hefeweizen. Olympic athletes and neophytes alike are taking to the mat to unwind, get loose and build balance with yoga. But the limbering moves don't just boost your body, they can energize your mind, too. Here are three poses guaranteed to get you going on cold, grey mornings, so you can hit the slopes with gusto.
In just over a year, the owners of North Shore Yoga have doubled the size of their studio. Jessica Jollie and Sara Mingus, co-owners of the studio at Two North Shore on Manufacturers Road, added about 2,600 square feet of space during an expansion that includes a new 1,100-square-foot yoga studio to accommodate four new practitioners, changing rooms and a larger boutique. The success of the 14-month-old studio is the result of a lot of hard work, Ms. Jollie said. “I think we are amazed and really grateful,” she said. “I think there is a great sense of community here, and people have fun.” The new studio is specially equipped for hot yoga, where students do yoga poses in temperatures of 100 degrees and up. The floor is antimicrobial and softer than a wood floor so it is easier on students’ knees, Ms. Jollie said.
New York, November 11 A new study finds that regularly practicing yoga, the traditional art involving physical and mental exercises, may help in keeping the heart healthy by regulating its beat. Findings of the study suggest that yogic exercises like breathing exercises, stretching, postures, relaxation, and meditation may boost heart’s health which is very essential for the proper functioning of the body.
Yoga and Pilates classes are the latest victims of a state’s dwindling revenue according to this story in the Kansas City Star. Missouri has slapped a 4% sales tax on yoga classes, according to the story, which notes that Missourians could previously take yoga classes tax free because studios argued the stretching and breathing discipline is as spiritual as it is physical. Missouri argues yoga is merely exercise, and therefore subject to taxation.
