Yoga still for stress

For a time, yoga was touted as the solution for the under-pressure business professional. A way to calm down, decompress and gain focus.

In classes throughout the Corridor today, that approach to inner peace is part of sales pitch.

'Hatha yoga is the beginning of yoga,” said Cindy Hathaway, who teaches hatha yoga at Prairiewoods Spiritual Center in Hiawatha. 'It offers not only calming, meditative benefits, but is also beneficial for muscle toning as well as cardio and arthritic issues.”

Hatha yoga refers to a set of physical exercises, known as asanas or postures, and sequences of asanas, designed to align skin, muscles and bones. The postures are designed to open the many channels of the body, especially the spine, so that energy can flow freely, she said.

But the way the western culture of the United States approaches yoga is different from that of the eastern culture, where it originated.

'Here in the west,” Hathaway said, 'most people think of it only as the poses.

'In my classes, we concentrate on the poses and the breath work because I do like to touch on the spiritual end of yoga.”

She teaches approximately 60 students each week at Prairiewoods Spiritual Center in Cedar Rapids.

'The age bracket ranges between 40 and 60 years of age, with a few younger and a few older,” she added, noting that she has only one male student at this time.

Some styles of yoga are more aligned with the spiritual pursuit than others, added Andrea Franz Parks of Toula Yoga Studio in Cedar Rapids.

'Anusara yoga, which I teach, helps us remember how to reconnect to the best part of ourselves. It reminds us of how we can express our goodness into the world. We weave life-enhancing themes throughout the class along with the alignment-based yoga pose sequence,” she said.

Her studio has a variety of styles, from prenatal yoga to classes adaptable all the way to the opposite end of the age spectrum.

'Our oldest student is 75,” Franz Parks noted.

Parks said she does see a small percentage of men in her classes and has taught marathon runners.

'My runners tell me the yoga helps them breathe better and improves their running time,” she added.

But if a good sweating workout is really what you want, a one-hour session of hot yoga could be the ticket.

'We usually run the temperature around 101 degrees,” said Beth McClelland, who opened Heat Hot Yoga, also in Cedar Rapids, two years ago. 'And we also like to have it humid in there. Fifty percent humidity is always good. Sixty percent is even better.”

The humidity varies, however, depending on a lot of different factors, such as how many bodies are in the room and how dry it is outside.

'The dryer it is outside, the harder it is to keep it humid in the room,” she said. 'We are always gauging the heat index to make sure their room is in a safe operating heat index for our clients.”

She said she's never had anyone pass out in class.

McClelland noted that her regular customers are more in the 40-to-50 age range. But she has had a child as young as nine in a session, with the oldest one giving the sweat approach a try being in their 70s.

But the biggest surprise for her has been the wrestlers from Coe College that come in almost every Sunday afternoon to take a class. And high school boys.

'Many from our local high schools come in here looking to earn physical-education class credits by taking a yoga session with us,” she added.

While she maintains that people still do get a lot of mind/body benefits from yoga, whether it's heated or not, she does concede that the western view of yoga is more of an exercise-based point of view.

'Even though the class may be a little more strenuous sometimes,” she added, 'you still get that nice, calming feeling afterward because of the different postures we put you through that will have that affect on the brain.”

While the general consensus might hold to the old thought that yoga is for women, the more rigorous workouts appear to be a drawing card for male participants, and McClelland's studio enjoys a large male population in attendance.

'The guys come for the early-morning classes, over the noon hour and definitely in the evenings and for our weekend sessions,” she said.