Yoga saved my life and my health physically, mentally and spiritually. I started to practice after a back injury from weight-lifting and after a traumatic breakup of a relationship. I began teaching almost 7 years ago and I have felt like I have gotten younger every year from my practice. Three and a half years ago I opened my own studio which employs 12 teachers and has 25 classes a week.

I have taken workshops with Seane Corn and she is amazing, inspiring and challenging. Thank you for the program!

Yoga guided me from a life lived entirely in my head — one in which I felt restless, lonely, and unsure of myself — to a life where I follow my heart, no matter how scary that may seem.

I found yoga in 2001, when I was a law school professor — a profession lived entirely in the head if ever there was one. My entire life I had been pushed toward academic achievement and away from any physical or emotional activity. I literally had never thought of following my heart. I was 35 years old, hadn't had a satisfying relationship in years, and didn't feel close to my family. Suddenly, through yoga, I began to feel close to myself.

Within a year of starting to practice, I trained to become a teacher, at the same time putting into motion my dream of being a writer. I quit my job, taught yoga, and, in one of my classes, met the man I married. And here we are, living in Asheville, North Carolina, where I work at home, take care of our 20-month-old boy, and keep writing.

In fact, at 42 years of age, I'm pregnant with our second child, conceived without the aid of anything but yoga and love. I now use yoga to approach all the changes of middle age and motherhood — and write about it on my website.

Although I started doing fitness-style yoga 10 years ago, I started practicing in a Viniyoga studio in January 2007. The differences in these two types of yoga have been very striking for me.

I have never been an athletic person and found yoga helpful because I was just too clumsy to keep up with Pilates, Jazzercise or other fitness classes. I consider myself a spiritual person but the spiritual aspect was not a factor in my decision to pursue yoga. I started taking classes at a Viniyoga studio to get back in shape after my 2nd child was born. Because I have small children I try to fit yoga in to my regular routine both at home and in classes, but sometimes only practice 1-2 times per week. I did not expect that combining yoga, meditation and a focus on balance would have such a dramatic impact on my physical and mental well being. Now I am in much better shape than I ever expected to be and can feel the impact of a focus on balance in my own sense of well-being. Some of the things that I have learned fall into the following categories.

Trust: trusting my body to learn what I am asking, and trusting that sometimes my body doesn't do what I want it to — even if a pose came easily the day before. That doesn't mean failure, but rather that each day is different. Tomorrow is different too.

Confidence: that I can be strong and that through practice I will learn what I need to learn. That I have the power to help myself and do not need to be a victim of circumstances, people or my own body.

Humility: that I am an eternal student and it doesn't really matter to anyone (including myself) how good I am at yoga.

Community: that the community of like-minded people has an energy and healing power valuable in itself.

When described in this way, yoga seems very spiritual and like religion. Thank you for giving me the chance to share my views. Namaste.

My first yoga experience was the first week of August, 2008 when I joined some friends for a daily "beginner's yoga" session as part of a week-long retreat with church friends at the YMCA camp in Estes Park, CO. Through the windows, I could see Ypsilon Mountain as I first learned of "mountain pose." Learning to breathing deeply in the late summer air of the Rocky Mountains was a spiritual experience.

Within the week, I discovered that I could get out of bed in the morning without back pain. I could stand on one foot for the first time in years. (I'm 61 years old.) I could bend over to tie my shoes without thinking about it first. All this in six days!

Then I heard your podcast (which I download every week because no station in Kansas City carries your show — yet). What Seane Corn shared makes SO much sense. I took the podcast to my weekly Yoga class and shared it with everyone there. Now even my wife is interested in trying Yoga to improve flexibility. Thank you so much!

What I love about yoga is its ability to open the heart and mind. After practicing yoga for about two years, I was led to start reading the Bible. It wasn't until I truly opened my heart and my mind and rid myself of ALL prejudice, including my preconceived notions of Christianity, that I found Jesus. Now that I understand His plan for salvation, my 'yoga' comes by reading His Word.

Anyone seeking enlightenment should read the Bible. There is nothing like the peace that comes from knowing that through Jesus, God sees you as a saint. I don't have to do anything to earn His favor — all I have to do is believe. My soul has been set free!

In my practice, I like to share the gospel message of Jesus Christ. But when I've shared this with others in the yoga community I don't seem to receive the same gentle openness that is preached. Why is that?

I started practicing about 7 years ago, while I was a 43 year old pregnant woman. I was so worried about the health of my baby, I could barely sleep some nights. I was a very anxious and controlling person back then. I thought I could handle, and should handle, everything and everyone in my life. The absurdity of that mind pattern caught up with me. I started Yoga then because I thought it was physically gentle enough to handle and that it might help me to relax. I had no idea how Yoga would lead me on a spiritual journey that I am still on.

Yoga has led me into a new phase of life. It has helped me to awaken and it has brought me closer to my true nature. There were times when I would just start crying in the middle of a pose. I believe it was the release of some repressed emotion that I was holding inside. There were plenty of those and there probably still are.

I could go on and on, but let me just say that I feel like a more humble and grateful person than I was before I started my practice. Yoga has led me to read spiritual books, listen to calming sacred music and to sound meditation. It all helps me feel more alive and comfortable in my own body. I can experience the wonder of life that I remember having as a small child. It is amazing.

I practice both Vinyasa and Kundalini yoga. I know that this will be a part of my life for the duration.

I started practicing Ashtanga yoga occasionally 1 1/2 years ago, primarily because it made me feel better physically. This spring I committed to more regular practice to help with healing from child sexual abuse.

This spring, at age 49, I finally came to understand that what I had considered my grand romance, was really sexual abuse. When my married "lover" started grooming me, I was 10 and he was 55. He started kissing me inappropriately when I was 14 and our relationship continued in different ways until he died an ugly death of Shy-Drager Syndrome when I was 28.

Shifting my perception of the relationship and understanding it damaged me has been a painful process. Yoga, along with the support of a great therapist, has helped me immensely! I start most yoga sessions with the intention of seeking healing, and have found it to be both a calming and strengthening experience. As a result of yoga, therapy, and hard work, I am reclaiming peace and joy in my life!

I am re-committing to my Christian faith, and re-claiming the "New Age" philosophies shared with me by my abuser throughout our relationship. It is wonderful to have found some balance in my feelings about my abuser — I can now see him as damaged and acknowledge how he hurt me, yet still love the good things about him and incorporate them into my life.

Now I look forward to turning 50, to strengthening my marriage, and discovering what comes next in my life! I will be sticking with my yoga practice!

I have been a big fan of Seane Corn for 3 years. She said two things, however, that disturbed me very much. First, she mentioned that when teaching in the Bible Belt, she always mentions Jesus Christ. I think that makes the false assumption that everyone in the class is Christian.

Politicians of both major parties do the same thing, and frankly I find such pandering offensive. peaking of politics, that brings me to my second concern. She said she had a roll at the Democratic convention. Seems to me, that runs the risk of "politicizing" yoga. Christianity and Islam have had strong political components since 325 AD, and we can easily the pitfalls. Can't Republicans be yogis? We can all benefit from the practice of yoga. My practice has benefited me greatly in the last 3-1/2 years, but to make it a part of the political process is dangerous.

For four decades I studied the public-broadcasting-and-ink-on-wood-pulp forms of yoga and meditation. Started in 1972 at age 19 with Lilias Folan on KQED in San Francisco. Later there were the odd paperbacks of varying quality and rare snippets from other TV broadcasts, podcasts and unplanned face-to-face encounters with formally trained people.

Seane Corn's broadcast was another wholly accidental catch, and a strangely irritating one for its brevity. Never ever have I heard the benefits of yoga so efficiently, powerfully, and humbly explained. Almost the first words out of her mouth were "I am not an educated woman."

I fell in love with her humility and was a total goner after that.

As a classic born-again Christian, I always kept a vigilant eye cocked for signs of the satanic during these questionable explorations into mysticism. This focused attention produced (and continues to produce) its own unexpected rewards in the yoga/meditation realms. I am wholly confident that there is zero conflict between the two practices.

This Christian-Yoga issue is one of vocabulary only. The only dissonant note I heard from Seane was that her attempts to speak in the language of the Bible Belt, when she works there, was viewed as controversial by some of her narrower(?) non-Christian peers.

I had a near-fatal motorcycle accident 5 years ago. My goals thereafter were to be able to walk, run, kayak and do my yoga poses again. Recovery came, with compound interest, through the gentle discipline of yoga; and especially through those soft, decades-old admonishments from Lilias to persist, but not to over-do.

The rewards of yoga and meditation are great and thoroughgoing. They are also far more that restorative.

Seane Corn has it right. She is clear. She does not over-state the case for yoga and meditation. Her bona fides are the hard knocks she so honestly revealed about her life & limitations during the broadcast. Her humbling experiences of trying to teach before she reached some troubled youth resonates strongly with my own experiences in that field.

This woman is remarkable and balanced. I hope to accidentally encounter her again.

I think your shows are intelligent and entertaining — however it was painful to me that in your show on Yoga, you equate Yoga with physical exercises.

In the Yoga Sutras there are eight limbs of Yoga:

1. Yama: Universal morality
2. Niyama: Personal observances
3. Asanas: Body postures
4. Pranayama: Breathing exercises, and control of prana
5. Pratyahara: Control of the senses
6. Dharana: Concentration and cultivating inner perceptual awareness
7. Dhyana: Devotion, Meditation on the Divine
8. Samadhi: Union with the Divine Yoga is the meaning of my life.

I rarely do Yoga Asanas, the physical exercises that sadly define Yoga in the US with its emphasis on the physical body. Yes the Asanas are helpful, but they are only a small part of what Yoga is. Perhaps you could contact George Feuerstein or Swami Jnaneshvara at for more information about a full definition of Yoga. Also the yoga sutras would give some insight.

I was blessed to be introduced to Yoga forty years ago, by one of the first gurus to bring the Eastern teachers to the West. I met Swami Satchidananda when I was 15 years old. I started teaching Hatha classes at the Integral Yoga Institute in NY a year later.

I began the practice as a way of controlling my body — I had been taking a lot of modern dance classes. But while I was in Yoga class, I had a profound experience of peace during the Deep Relaxation. I realized that this was unlike anything I had been taught and that it would profoundly change my outlook on life and the lives of others. It was a prophetic notion.

I started attending talks by Swami Satchidananda and found that he directly addressed issues with which I had been struggling as an adolescent. He clearly expressed answers to my questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Is there a God? What is life about? How can I find peace?

I learned that the physical practices of Hatha Yoga was like the tip of an iceberg. Yoga was so much more. Integral Yoga, as taught by Swami Satchidananda, could be approached through many paths: For someone of who was intellectual in nature, there is Jnana Yoga (the study of self-analysis and scripture); for someone of action there is Karma Yoga (doing selfless service as a way of righting wrong action); for someone drawn to self discipline there is Raja Yoga (which contains Hatha Yoga, meditation and breathing techniques), and for the person with an emotional persuasion there is Bhakti Yoga (a devotional practice, which encompasses all religions). I enjoyed learning a blend of all these paths, but found that I leaned toward Bhakti, for it helped me to direct my emotional nature in a positive direction.

Yoga helped me cope with a life-long tendency toward depression. It taught me that happiness is my true nature and that it is the mind that misidentifies with my thoughts and with material possessions that causes distress and stress.

I had been born in a Jewish family that was minimally observant and that approached religion as a tradition more than a faith. I never found spiritual balm from religion — until I learned a Yoga. Swami Satchidananda taught that "truth is one, paths are many." Through Yoga, I was introduced to other religions: Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and more — and I found a deeply spiritual balance that sustains me to this day. His teachings of interfaith are epitomized in a temple he designed called LOTUS, which stands for the Light Of Truth Universal Shrine.

(The image is of me driving Swami Satchidananda in my car.)

With the greatest respect I humbly dare to inform you that the picture of the young lady (Seane Corn?) in the stunning Yoga pose in front of the Tadj Mahal reflects quite some lack of sensitivity towards local customs.

In India bare shoulders are considered to be highly sexually arousing.

I don't really know why but I would have expected such an experienced Yoga practitioner to know about that and to treat with more humble respect. Maybe I should even expect that from someone in the SoF staff?

For the sake of honesty: I am not personally offended; I am a male, Caucasian German of 69 years who has traveled in India and lives now in the USA.

Restoration begins when I step over the threshold into The Studio, where my friend and I opened a yoga studio at the beginning of this year. It begins with the space because when the space functions as a "container" as the Jungians call it, it allows you to step out of your running around self for 90 minutes and sink into a restorative experience.

We opened the yoga studio after my co-owner, Paulette, had created a fairly die-hard group of yoga students who followed her around from church basements, a former empty restaurant space and a third floor walk-up with no fire exit. We had a community and needed an aesthetic, safe space (with a bathroom). We invited other teachers to join us and have created a schedule that offers Hatha yoga, Svaroopa yoga, Kundalini yoga workshops, Yin/Yang yoga workshops, dance, movement, t'ai chi and breathing meditation classes.

The restoration comes from the teachers sharing their knowledge, enthusiasm and experience with us and the 90 minutes we get to experience their teachings. The balance comes from the physical and spiritual feeling that even though our poses are not ready for Yoga Journal, that the practice itself can inoculate us against the worst effects of stress. I get comments all the time from people (men and women) who come to take classes like "you have no idea, you're saving my life" or "our community really needed a place like this, thanks so much." It's simple, drop-in, inexpensive and adds a sense of well-being and friendship for anyone who want the experience. That's restoration and balance.

Having struggled for nearly 2 decades with a tenacious, insufferable eating disorder that included adherence to a rigid fitness regimen and strict control of my activities, I had nearly lost all sense of spontaneity, joy, and inner peace. A good friend suggested that yoga might complement the various physical activities I was pursuing, though I suspect that she — a seasoned teacher — also knew that the deeper aspects of the practice would address the internal and external freneticism that characterized my days.

At first, I skipped out of class before Svasana, unable to still my mind and quiet my body for that precious 5 minutes of rest and relaxed awareness. I found a class that exhausted me to the extent that I had to take Svasana and, in time, began to re-inhabit the body I had left behind at age 18. In Svasana, I began to feel the very molecules of my being zinging around within me, offering not only a new, more pure energy, but also a lightness and sense of being bathed in a protective peace. My practice grew to 3 - 4 classes weekly. In July of 2006, I committed to a residential Teacher Training program and nearby Mount Madonna Center. I had the opportunity to study and practice all 8 limbs of the classical yogic system put forth by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. I came to a very embodied understanding of the effects of the practice on my own body-mind. In the same way that Matthew Sanford had to journey back into his body, passing through all of the layers of pain and grief, I too have been able to use my yoga practice as a means of reintegration. This reintegration involves not only my small self — my own mind, body, and heart — but also a sort of more real, tangible sense of union with the Divine.

As the guru at Mount Madonna, Baba Hari Dass, is given to say: "If you work on yoga, yoga works on you." I feel richly blessed to be able to practice and teach this extraordinary system aimed to bring transformation of suffering into profound experiences of peace, well-being, and Union. In my very privileged role of teacher to elders in their 70's and 80's, I have also seen the power of the practice to breathe a sense of new life and greater ease during the sometimes arduous, painful process of aging. I've found that in "coming home" to one's body and greeting the home that one finds with a heartful of compassion, one taps into an unlimited reservoir of love and generosity and kindness. In celebration of all of these gifts, I cannot say enough about the rich blessing inherent in this ancient art.

I have practiced yoga for about 10 years and become more serious about it in the last few years. I belong to the Marsh Fitness Center in Minnetonka, MN and take a range of classes there: Iyengar, Vinyasa, Hatha, etc. Below is an article I wrote about how yoga has influenced my work as a history professor at the College of St. Catherine. It originally appeared in the on-campus publication, COLLEAGUES,(February 2008).

For the past year or so, I have begun to approach my work in the classroom more as a yogi and less as an academician. This technique evolved partly out of desperation as I contracted to teach three courses a year in Weekend College. The WEC format takes a standard semester-long class and condenses it into eight lessons that each last three and a half hours. The old school model of history education would dictate a lecture-based course that would be deadly long and tiring for professor and students alike.

I do not ask the class members to balance on one leg and to assume the "tree" posture or stick their backsides in the air with "downward dog." Yoga enhances my teaching style more in terms of the meaning behind the class activities and the attitude that I bring to the lesson.

These days, I attend two to five yoga classes a week, which help me function in the rest of my life as a professor, as a parent, as a person. I have studied yoga —intermittently— for the past ten years, and gradually I have become more serious and meditative in my practice. Nonetheless, when it comes to yoga I am, first and foremost, a student. This experience reminds me regularly what it is like to learn something difficult and worthwhile in a classroom setting. This is especially true now that I am more than ten years out of graduate school and have become accustomed to enjoying some expertise in my field.

I appreciate that my yoga instructors are engaged in teaching and consider them in collegial terms. While the subject matter is different, their example offers me lessons on pedagogy which I now consciously appropriate and adapt for my history classes. Instead of a series of physical postures and breathing exercises, I take my students through a multi-sensory exploration of a given class topic. The technique invites them to engage, actively and passively, with the past through consideration of demographic data, visual and literary records, music, court cases, and whatever other means I find to add flesh and blood to history's names and dates.

A typical yoga class leads students through a process that involves four main elements: 1) a period of meditation to quiet the mind; 2) a series of sun salutations, a sequence of movements to warm up the body and loosen the muscles and joints; 3) a few asana (special postures) that are the focal point for that specific lesson; and 4) a final meditation. This way of guiding the class along a series of experiences and sensations leaves me and my classmates energized rather than spent. Feeling renewed after the class is something I treasure about yoga and part of what I seek for my students.

So, when my Twentieth Century U.S. history course studied the Great Depression, for example, the above elements from yoga translated into the following. For the opening exercise (meditation), students are shown a half dozen Dorothea Lange photographs documenting the Dust Bowl migration from Oklahoma to California. Quietly, they study the black and white images and write informally about what they reveal about this time period (1930s) and the people who experienced it (migrant farm laborers). The exercise offers an entry point into the topic that is visual and emotional and unfiltered by historians. It asks students to settle in for class and to focus on the topic at hand. After about ten minutes, I ask if anyone wants to share their observations. Several volunteer eloquent, poignant remarks about the desolation and abject poverty depicted.

The second element (sun salutations) is the lecture. This is the callisthenic part of the class, which provides a coherent context of what took place during this time. The lecture explains why the stock market crashed in 1929 and offers statistics on bank closures, unemployment figures, information on FDR and the New Deal. There are moving quotations from Meridel LeSueur and Studs Terkel interviews. The lecture tells of the hardships and the resourcefulness and resiliency of the Greatest Generation. I offer the class the case my great aunt who forever saved string and would never waste food, habits she wore as scars from her experiences in the Depression. After the lecture, there is a short break.

The third element, (the asanas), provide a deeper look at some aspects of the lesson's topic and takes the form of class discussion on readings and upcoming writing assignments. In the above example, students read the relevant chapter from their Howard Zinn text and the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which is set during the 1930s. We talk about the novel, which the American Library Association voted as the best of the twentieth century. We consider especially how the issues of the Great Depression played out in Harper Lee's story. Students explain how fiction can be a powerful tool for learning about the past. By this time, we are three-quarters the way into class period; we downshift into the final segment (meditation), an episode of the PBS documentary series on the Depression entitled "Arsenal for Democracy." With extensive archival footage, news reels and oral history interviews, the film offers a view of how the era of economic crisis was resolved ultimately by the start of World War II and the full employment it brought Americans.

The Sanskrit word "yoga" means unity; yoga practice is about unifying the mind, body and spirit through attention to breathing and the present moment. In my class, the unity is in created through a textured and nuanced understanding of a lesson topic by investigating it from various perspectives. Part of the alchemy of this technique is to harness students' interests and diverse learning styles. There are multiple points of entry --aesthetic, quantitative, and emotional-- into the lesson topic.

Much as I believe that my teaching is enhanced by this approach, if a passerby looked through my classroom window a few years ago and again today, both would appear to be taught in the same format. Even before yoga, my background as a liberal, feminist social historian went against the traditional model of a top-down learning that revolved around lectures. My courses emphasized a mix of activities to foster "active learning."

Now, instead of tossing the class elements (lecture, discussion, exercises with primary sources, films) into the air and juggling them to keep things lively and interesting, I approach my teaching with greater intentionality. I choose the order and tone and progression of activities to shepherd the class through the complexities of the day's lesson topic. What is called "mindfulness" in yoga, a heightened awareness of one's priorities is incorporated into the structure of the lesson. Also, I am now more attuned to the classroom environment: the lighting, the ventilation, the tone of my voice, and other outside factors that affect the learning process.

Judging from course evaluations, students are responding favorably to my more yogic teaching style. Time and again, they say that they appreciate the way in which we study the past, and some confess that they never before enjoyed studying history.

Trying to make my history class more like yoga has given a new life to my work in the classroom. I am newly excited and engaged in my teaching. And this enthusiasm may be contagious; I have talked about the technique with friends who teach their own lengthy courses in fields as diverse as International Marketing and 3-D Animation. They are intrigued by the method and are willing to try what one referred to as "Zen and the art of teaching" in their classes.

Namaste.

I began studying yoga through the Bikram method and I suspect that the incredible proliferation of Bikram's studios, due to the combination of repeated poses, evident physical 'results', and the sense of 'cleansing' that comes from sweating for 90 minutes, has served to bring an enormous number of Americans to yoga.

I practiced Bikram for about 5 years before I was brave enough to try other types of yoga. I have since practiced Vinyasa Flow, Power Yoga, Anusara, Astanga and bits of pieces of other types of yoga.

Without a doubt, yoga is now a channel for my energy and emotions. The original purpose of yoga: to prepare the physical body for meditation, resonates with me at every class. I now find that the physical exercise component of yoga practice is the side benefit — the primary benefits include stilling my mind and allowing me to put all the "issues" of every day life into their appropriate context; and refocusing my concerns on things that are most important, such as how to better love my husband, children and those around me.

I believe that many physical "practices" can provide these opportunities for restoration and balance. In my experience, many professional athletes find this result in their daily practice as well. I know I did when I studied ballet for 12 years. I suspect Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps find the same thing in the practice of their sports.

The incredible beauty of yoga is its accessibility. As I have heard many say, "if you can breathe, you can do yoga". It's available to everyone. And unlike any other available form of exercise, yoga expands the physical body in a way that opens skeleton, muscles and cells to positions that are completely foreign to most of us in our every day lives; and then, by its very nature, it redirects our brains in ways that almost no other practice, physical or otherwise, does. This, I believe, is why it is helpful for so many.

I had felt my life was out of my control due to a series of events. Through the practice of yoga I began to feel empowered. I broke the cycle of addiction and bad dangerous thoughts. I was able to realize I was master of my own self and my future.

I practice everyday no matter what. I used to reach for other things to help copy, now I do yoga. I am in charge. I live in the moment now.

My experience with yoga began in the early 90s, trying different kinds, schools, falling in and out of practice.

It wasn't until October of 2001, a few weeks after seeing the World Trade Center Towers fall from my roof in downtown NYC that I would wake up panicked and so sore all over, I thought, "If this is stress, and growing old, I'm going to fight it." That was how I discovered Ashtanga Yoga, a Vinyasa or flow practice. It is practiced in a shared space, but not in a class. There is not a teacher at the front of the room telling you what asana to do next or when to breathe. Each person is taught individually and memorizes the series. It is optimally practiced 6 days a week, with the exception of full or new moon or during the first three days of a woman's period.

It changed my life and continues to, I say that at the risk of sounding cliché. This form of yoga is physically demanding as well as disciplined. It is meditation in action. It has led me to finding peace within myself, given me peace in my life, taken me all the way to India (which if anyone has ever been there, challenges internal and external peace like no other. She is a demanding mother, India is) as well as creating art that is informed by Indian spirituality and culture.

Why would a New York City native western minded woman ever reach this point of devoted interest? Maybe it starts with being able to relax (not an easy thing in urban centers such as this one) and then to be able to eventually realize and relax in the oneness of life, the universe.

Reading this over it seems to me filled again with clichés. So much time here in the west is about defining, explaining, categorizing. It is only the surface. The things that swim below that are beyond the grasp of words and concepts, that travel beyond our hearts or mind, through our prana, deep in our cells. Yoga has helped me to believe in the world that swims below the surface. I would wish that for everyone, to touch that realm.

Like many people, I lead a life of duality. Be they mothers/daughters, wives/workplace warriors, or caretakers/lovers, women all over our country are constantly being challenged to fulfill somewhat opposing roles. It is my experience that the practice of yoga radically affirms the greatness of a person (read: a woman!), and therefore helps carve out a space between our sense of responsibility and our desire for freedom.

I both teach and practice Anusara Yoga, created 11 years ago by John Friend of The Woodlands, Texas. I had the great privilege of studying with John this summer in Paris, London and Berlin, where I was once again reminded of this duality in life. In yoga, it is called Spanda, or the divine pulsation of the universe.

Spanda can be found around every corner of this fabulous world in the forms of light/darkness; contraction/expansion; giving/taking. So it is that during the day I give… I teach people how to delight in discovering their own hearts and say "YES!" to the challenge of trying something new. And at night, I perform Musical Theater in the DC-area.

I strongly believe that my yoga practice has been taken "off the mat" — as Ms. Corn might say — in that it has dropped me back into my own heart in my acting and singing. My regular, challenging yoga practice has improved my ability to use my breath resourcefully, and maintain the physical stamina needed as a singer/dancer. When those facets of performing are in "good alignment," I am once again able to focus on communicating the story to the audience — the paramount priority in theatre. When successful, it is that energetic vibration that inspires my ability to find myself through song and dance. That empowerment is then fed back into my yoga teaching, having tapped into and challenged my own sense of creativity.

Many people know that the word "yoga" comes from the Sanskrit meaning "to join." It is this joining of my two sides: practical teaching and rockin' theatre that keep me centered. Like a cyclist's wheel that is called "true" when it is in alignment, and "out of true" when it is slightly off, the beauty of Anusara Yoga always brings me back to center.

The Spanda remains, as is the nature of our amazing universe, but I am able to rest in the promise that — through the practice of yoga — I am balanced in the sweetness of my own heart.

Starting out was a challenge. I couldn't walk well, recently being discharged from the hospital for steroid treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). Lacking balance, strength, vision in the right eye (due to optic neuritis) made yoga a challenge in the beginning. Yet I decided to attend a special yoga class for those with MS. The class was Hatha yoga, and slowly over the course of time, I began to acquire strength, increase my sense of balance, regain my vision and above all, build hope for a brighter future. The different poses (asanas) increase my strength and balance. The breathing techniques and meditation combine to help me relax and simultaneously gain energy. I now start each day with a series of sun salutations and am very grateful for yoga's assistance in my life.

Yoga is the hub around which the wheel of my life revolves. Yoga not only keeps my body well and whole, but my practice keeps my emotions and my spirit balanced. Yoga has led me to a wholeness of life that I've never had before. Yoga has led me to the deep understanding that I am God's beloved creation — just right right now. The greatest gift that yoga has given me is that peacefulness within my life; I feel I am living as God intends me to in all areas of my life.

Years ago, as I navigated between the different areas of my life and the various roles I played, I would feel jarring shifts. My yoga practice has smoothed those transitions. I feel a new fluidity as I move from teaching in my yoga studio, to caring for my husband and children, to listening to a friend, to worshipping God.

It's common knowledge that yoga integrates body, mind and spirit. The profound truth for those of us living and practicing within busy, ordinary, daily lives, is that yoga integrates all the dimensions and areas of our lives. As much as we love being these things, we are not "mom," or "teacher," or "wife," or "parishioner," or "friend." We are simply who we are when we are still and quiet. We are God's creations trying our best to let His love and His light shine through us as we live our lives.

Yoga is a spiritual tool designed to help each of us — regular people living regular lives — draw closer to God. For me, yoga intersects beautifully with my Christian faith, but yoga works with any faith. Yoga helps us draw our faith out of weekly worship and into my everyday life. This is my greatest message to my students. This is my passion.

I practice and teach Ashtanga yoga. The physical movement of Ashtanga yoga required my mental focus. This helps me quiet my mind. Ashtanga's focus on breath serves to deepen my focus even more. I think of my practice as a moving meditation. I open with an intention (a prayer if you use that language), the practice itself is a quieting process, savasana at the end is a time of attentive openness, receptivity and listening.

"Yoga? You're kidding, right?" My response to the suggestion that yoga would be a good way to reinforce the 10 weeks of Rolfing (structural integration) I had just completed was automatic and defensive. A former swimmer with Olympic aspirations, I tended to approach all kinds of physical activity as training. Though I didn't know much about yoga, my impression was that it was for non-athletes — people who liked to meditate and tie their bodies into unnatural, pretzel-like postures. On the other hand, the main reason I needed Rolfing was because of damage to my spine caused by years of over-training. As a bodyworker and healer myself, I knew something had to change.

In the end, I was intrigued enough by my Rolfer's experiences with yoga (she's no pretzel) to do some research. What I found left me marveling (yet again) at the way each new lesson appears in my life just as I'm ready to learn it.

Far from being a namby-pamby, watered down version of exercise, yoga is a powerful tool for integrating mind, body, and spirit. The word "yoga" means union, and the combination of postures and breathing not only quiet the mind and strengthen the body, but open energetic channels as well. Moreover, in the hands of a skilled yoga therapist (a yoga teacher who has been trained in how to adapt traditional techniques to the specific needs of individuals with health problems or injuries) yoga becomes a healing art.

I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that exactly the right yoga therapist appeared in my life, nor that the first thing out of her mouth was, "Now this is not a competition to see who can get on the cover of Yoga Journal. It's about breathing and listening to what the body needs."

Since entering Kate Hillman's studio approximately six months ago, I have forged a new and more compassionate relationship with my body. Moreover, I am stronger, more flexible, and able to integrate my own work more easily.

Equally important, however, has been the formation of a community of healing professionals known as the Transcendent Healing Collective. The collective includes everything from mainstream western doctors — such as an osteopath, psychotherapist, and dentist — to those working in more integrative fields such as yoga therapy, naturopathy, and ayurvedic counseling. Together we explore how our various disciplines dovetail, and share our perspectives on particular health topics (stress, interpersonal relationships, aging, playing for health, etc.) with the world at large. This takes the form of a weekly blog called Transcendent Healing to which we all contribute on a rotating basis.

Needless to say I had to smile when Krista asked for stories of how yoga has affected your life. I can't think of any aspect of my life that hasn't been positively affected by yoga. It is one of the few disciplines that addresses all aspects of being — offering tools for positive, life-affirming change.

I'd like to share my story about yoga's most fundamental aspect: breathing. Recovering from a back injury sustained during a "frisbee accident" on the Fourth of July (but I made the catch!), there was so much that I couldn't do. Weeks after the injury, I could still go into spasm without warning, and most stretching and yoga poses were beyond me.

Lying in bed one morning, I decided to just breathe as deeply as I could, to see if that would help my back muscles loosen their death-grip on my life. I inhaled deeply through my nose, allowing my belly to "fill up" first, and then letting the remainder of the inhalation move up into a full expansion of my chest. Then I exhaled completely, letting the air out in "one fell swoop."

What I discovered was that my body immediately responded to this "letting go" of my breath. I followed the first breath with another deep, full breath, and I began to feel random tiny little knots in various parts of my body -- arms, back, calves — release. I realized that I had switched my body into relaxation response, the opposite of fight-or-flight mode. I also instinctively realized that relaxation response was the body's healing mode.

More than the physical relaxation, I also had the realization that oxygen itself is our body's most basic food. Of course we drink water and eat food to survive, but oxygen is even more elemental. We cannot be deprived of it even for more than a few moments without the direst of effects. Yet, I found myself thinking, most of us drink very shallowly from the immense store of oxygen all around us. I envisioned an "oxygen patch" like a berry patch, all around us, and just waiting for us to "eat" our fill.

The longer I lay there, breathing in great "bunches" of oxygen, the better I felt — more relaxed and more filled, literally, with life. I also realized that I had been breathing without distraction for a long period of time — in a sense, meditating more successfully than I ever had in my life, all without any explicit intention of doing so. I was just trying to breathe deeply. Then I thought: is this what the wise, spiritual teachers of the world are trying to teach us — just breathe? Of course, the word "spirit" means breath. Maybe the great spiritual teachers are our "breath" teachers — the ones who show what happens when you center your life not in the shallow breathing of fight-or-flight mode, but in the healing mode of deep, full, oxygen-rich breaths.

Yes, I kept going to the chiropractor, and yes, I tried to be sensible in my bodily movements, but I really do date my recovery from that moment — when I learned how to push my body's healing button. I am now almost fully recovered, but am keeping my "breathing exercises" as part of my daily routine that I can call upon whenever I realize I'm in a stress mode, but don't really need to be.

I started Hatha yoga six years ago. I was grieving the death of my 85 year old mother, and family and friends prevailed upon me to try yoga. I had never been very athletic, but from the very first session, yoga meshed with my artistic personality! Through all the guided stretching and strengthening movements, I have found inner and outer strength. The meditation practice helps me to quiet the constant chatter and inner critic, and aids in concentration and creativity for my work in drawing and painting.

As an unexpected bonus, I have met wonderful women in my classes, some of whom have become friends. We are all of different physical ages but are all youthful seekers. One woman next to me turned out to be a Unity minister, and now I am an active member her church. Others share their life experiences before class and we all feel this connection to one another and to a force within us due to our practice of yoga.

I was introduced to yoga (Hatha) at my local YMCA and have practiced (increasingly) for 6 years. I am going to be 60 in November, and I wish I had found yoga much earlier in my life — it has definitely been life-changing for me. I am attracted to all aspects — mind, body and spirit. Physically I am stronger, more flexible and more aware of my body and its parts. Mentally, I have learned to slow down, to focus, to breathe, to have perspective. Spiritually I am learning to connect to something greater than myself and beyond the confines of my physical life.

I am so interested in reading and learning all about yoga. I keep a book about the anatomy of yoga in the bathroom to read about each pose. I have learned some chants in Sanskrit and am fascinated by that language. Currently I am a school librarian, but I plan to become a certified yoga instructor when I retire and would like to do yoga with senior citizens who are limited in their movement, as I truly believe yoga can be beneficial to anyone.

My mother has emphysema and I have shown her some breathing techniques that might help her. After work, when my energy is at its lowest, I have started doing 5 basic sun salutations and standing on my head for a few minutes and I am amazed by the energy I gain from this simple routine. I have found that the benefits of doing yoga are sometimes immediate — especially from the relaxation poses — but others become evident after a long time of practice, when I one day realize that I can actually feel a certain set of muscles, or that I can easily twist around as I back my car! I think savasana as a "practice" for dying is very interesting — letting go. I love yoga.

I have found that yoga is a holistic practice which allows me to connect spiritually, mentally and physically in ways that enrich and restore my life. I find that yoga has opened links to spirit that I was not able to access while growing up in the Episcopal church. Through meditation and pranayama, I have connected with source, quieted the mind stuff (chitta vritti), and it's challenging and fun! I practice Anusara, Iyengar, Vinyasa, & Asthanga yoga. I'm trying to figure out which one is best for me. I am leaning towards Anusara, which incorporates the Vinyasa flow but maintains alignment principals.

I became interested in yoga through the tapes by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his work at University of Massachusetts. I had seen him on a Bill Moyers PBS special on body-mind interaction. I sporadically tried doing the exercises at home. Then, our director of nursing (I'm a chaplain at a general hospital) offered a weekly yoga class. At the end of those sessions I found myself so relaxed that I often fell asleep as we finished in the "corpse pose." My sense of balance and of flexibility improved. One "aha!" moment came when I had both arms stretched above my head and my teacher told me to relax. I was amazed that I could be in the pose and hold it without the tension I usually had.

One of my teacher's major "mantras" for me was "Let your shoulders drop down from your ears." I heard those words so often that they became a part of my life and I would check, find the tension, and then relax, throughout the day. It also helped make me aware of other places where I stored tension in my body.

Seven years ago I suffered from a ruptured disk and to my surprise, the physical therapist had me doing "exercises" to help my back which I already knew as yoga poses.

I do not follow a regular practice of yoga, but the awareness remains and there are stretches I utilize to help relieve tension and discomfort. I remain aware of my posture, coaching myself to stand straight, shoulder blades back, and shoulders down from my ears.

My first experience with yoga was way back in 1986, at my undergrad college, at a small student center class. From that experience on, I knew that I had found a form of expression that suited me deeply. However, it was a long search to find the right teacher, to truly show me how powerful a devoted practice can be.

The Iyengar tradition has been a perfect path for me, in that it approaches yoga not as a thing that you do, but as a way of practicing life. Time on the mat is a time of play, meditation, exercise, research, and devotion. Hence, I view my mat as a playground, a laboratory, and a temple, all at the same time. I am so grateful for this gift of yoga, and the wonderful teachers who have devoted their lives to sharing it with all.

I'm 59 and take classes at the Blue Heron Yoga studio here in Walla Walla, Washington. I'm instructed by three teachers, who all have slightly different approaches: Terri Cotts (the studio owner), Kay Lynn Stevens and Ruth Russo. It's mostly a Hatha Yoga practice, but some Vinyasa elements as well. I started taking "gentle" yoga, after doing five years of Jazzercise, when I could no longer stand the loud music. I've had a meditation practice off and on for many years (very much "on" during the last few years) and yoga seemed a good complement to that. I have scoliosis and somewhat chronic back issues, and regular yoga practice has really helped my posture, my balance and my awareness. All three teachers I study with treat yoga as a spiritual practice, not just a physical one, which I appreciate. I practice regularly at home now; the combination of yoga and meditation has improved my life in many ways.

But what I really wanted to tell you about was my son, Ara, who was born with a genetic defect called Trisomy 9-p, which can carry a wide spectrum of disabilities — both cognitive and physical — though in Ara's case the cognitive are more severe than the physical (after you leave out the open heart surgery he had as an infant). He's 30 years old now, and has been taking private yoga sessions for about a year, mostly with Terri Cotts, but lately with all three of my teachers. He only has a half hour session, once a week but the differences we've seen in him over the past year have been amazing and heart-warming. (Ara has also been under the care of a homeopath for many years, and we've seen wonderful results from that treatment, as well, but the gains we've seen since he started practicing yoga have been remarkable. Perhaps is a synergistic effect of the yoga and the homeopathy.)

Ara has very little abstract reasoning capability, and difficulties with expressive language, both articulation and the ability to formulate a coherent thought. But since he's been doing yoga, his ability to express how his body is feeling has improved dramatically— he has an abnormally high pain threshold, and has always had great trouble identifying and articulating physical sensations. Now, he will say things like, "I'm cold," or "My foot hurts." It seems a small thing, but it's momentous to us… it appears his brain and body are forming important connections that we never thought to see. He also is able to express his emotional states better: "I like that smile you gave me, Mom," he said to me the other day, which is a HUGE concept for him to express. He's got more self confidence, too, and has been doing things on his own (he made his own appointment at the eye doctor and went to it alone last week— a first! And he took a jacket with a broken zipper to the mending shop by himself — another first.) He's also able to make longer sentences— his maximum number of syllables used to be about 7, now he's regularly making sentences of 11 or 12 words, some of which may have 2 syllables.

His posture has improved, which is also a big thing, because people with Trisomy 9-p often develop early-onset osteoporosis, which has been happening to Ara. He had started to have quite a "dowager's hump," but it's getting better since his yoga practice started, and he stands much straighter.

Terri's decided that Ara must have been a yogi in a previous life, because he takes to the poses so readily, and he enjoys his sessions so much. I gave him his own yoga mat for Christmas last year, (he'd only been doing his sessions for a couple of months, and I wasn't sure he'd think that was such an exciting gift) and he was elated! "My own yoga mat??!!" he said, with a giant smile.

He was never anywhere NEAR this interested in Special Olympics!

I don't know how much research there has been into yoga as a healing modality for people with mental disabilities, but I'm convinced that there should be a way found for every one of them to experience regular yoga practice. Perhaps you could discuss this idea with your guest. I'd love to know if more people like Ara are experiencing yoga's benefits in other parts of the world. One of the most moving things for me has been watching Ara respond to the gentle loving touch of the teachers as they guide him into his poses. Ara lives in a group home, with 24-hour staff, and they of course have to be very careful about "touching" the residents. Ara still gets lots of hugs from me and his father, but since he doesn't live at home any more, we don't see him every day, and I think he (along with many adults with disabilities) is starved for the physical contact we all need.

We're so thrilled with Ara's gains that we're certainly spreading the word here in Walla Walla, and we're going to make sure he has the opportunity to keep doing his yoga with Terri, Kay Lynn and Ruth. We feel so fortunate to have these good teachers in our community.

Thanks for the opportunity to tell you about Ara's yoga practice. I'm sorry I don't have a photo of him doing his favorite down dog on his red yoga mat, but I'll include one of him with his dad, taken on Father's Day this year.

The practice of yoga has helped me find my best self. I was introduced to yoga thirty-five years ago and have practiced daily for twenty-five years. I earned my classical Hatha yoga teacher certification four years ago and have been teaching yoga since then.

I believe that everyone can benefit from yoga. Practicing yoga causes you to slow down, pay attention to your breath and your body. You learn to accept yourself as you are and thus become more compassionate to yourself and others.

The changes that yoga brings are very subtle and occur slowly over time, therefore some people are disappointed in yoga because they are expecting quick results. However if one stays with the practice for a series of months, changes occur not only in one's body, but also in one's mind set and attitudes towards life.

(The picture I have included is my daughter and I doing the wheel pose with a little assistance from my cat, Woody.)

I arrived on my yoga mat at the age of 36, pregnant with my third child. I had run the fitness gamut, from cheerleader in high school to aerobics class queen in the 80s. At the time (early 90s) I was the ultimate gym-rat and over-volunteered mom of three children under the age of six. I ran at 5am nearly everyday so I could get my exercise in before the kids woke. We lived in Singapore at the time and my husband traveled all the time. I felt like a hamster on wheel that never, ever stopped. It is clear to me now I was longing for a new sense of purpose and a deeper, clearer perspective of myself in this world. All the exercise I had performed in the past was just that — physical exercise.

Nearing 40 and a busy mother, I was craving a spiritual practice that nurtured both body and soul. It probably was not coincidental that just prior to my first exposure to yoga, I had a "born-again" experience in my Christian faith. Perhaps it was this renewal of faith that compelled me to seek yoga. I felt a closeness to God during my early morning prayer time that I had never before experienced. I began to feel the need to extend the time I spent on my knees, silencing my mind so as to listen to His plan for my life. I did this on my altar-turned-yoga-mat by practicing with faith, devotion, awareness, discipline, joy and love by offering my body as a living sacrifice to God.

It was hard work yet I knew there had to be more to life than being a wife, mother, advertising executive or freelance journalist. Why had He brought me to this place? It took three years of steady practice to discover His plan.

I now know my first teacher was a gift from God. A Buddhist of Chinese descent, she had a deep cultural understanding and awareness of how yoga transcends all religion. I was, after all, a devout Christian and protective of my faith. In my first class she asked that we focus on our supreme being, whether it was God, Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddha — it didn't matter — simply focus on "your" one true God. At that instant, all the mysticism that veiled my mind about yoga vanished but more important what was revealed was infinitely more vital to me as a Christian. My Christianity could co-exist with my yoga practice. In fact, I was to discover much to my delight, I would eventually be led to witness to others about God's love right on my yoga mat. But just how yoga restored me, instead of draining me like all the other exercise I had done in the past, was an unexpected and completely exhilarating benefit.

I began teaching one class a week after a 10-week training instructor's course. I had so much more to learn but I was so happy sharing my love of yoga with others. It was as Stephen Cope describes in his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, "a deep opening of the heart in this state of bliss and unutterable sense of well being."

One thing led to another and now 15 years later, I find myself a certified Iyengar yoga teacher teaching nine classes a week. It has been a spiritual journey whose destination, had I been aware, probably would have scared me away. Instead, I have this awake mind and heart that has come to the realization that when we surrender to His plan for us, we realize our true Self. It's hard work, this yoga-mat-turned-altar thing, but I love letting go of the life of desire, the world of materialism, the "craving, clinging and grasping" part of life. There is sweet freedom in relinquishing and learning to live life fully present in the moment. This is when I realize my true Self, the one who was meant to devote her passion to teaching others how yoga can restore us and improve the quality of our lives.

Having gone through cancer treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) two times before the age of 40, there has been much to make sense out of, particularly since my second experience with cancer began when I was without health insurance. Needless to say, life became grossly out of balance very quickly. Within three months of the diagnosis of my recurrence with NHL, I became poor and disabled in order to get help from state and federal assistance programs; I incurred significant medical bills before I started receiving any assistance; and I stopped working and started chemotherapy and lost much of my physical and emotional self to the process. As most of our language and way of making sense reinforces, I became entangled in a war I could not escape. If I wanted to live, I had to fight.

When I emerged from treatment about eight months after the diagnosis there was much to regain in the way of balance in my life, although I did not yet understand that. I discovered that the world of surviving cancer is as fraught with metaphorical war-making as the active battles I had to endure in treatment. While I attended a conference on cancer survivorship and several Lance Armstrong Foundation events, I still felt resistant to becoming too involved with the "Livestrong army" and accepting congratulations for beating cancer. Although I was mad at the lost time, money, physicality, as well as other setbacks, and I wanted to see changes in policy with regards to cancer survivorship, I no longer wanted war to be my major metaphorical sense making strategy. Instead, I turned to a practice of incorporating balance back into my life.

It started by going to a Bikram yoga class almost everyday for two weeks while visiting a friend in Denver, Colorado that fall after treatment, and it continued that winter when I decided I would put in over 100 days on my skis. While I continued practicing yoga at home, skiing brought a dynamic aspect to the practice of balance. I had to stay in balance while moving sometimes at great speed under difficult conditions. After the ski season ended I began traipsing around the forest and getting in tune with the balance of nature. With each new season I seek out ways to enhance my balance practice by riding my bike, or learning about the ocean for example.

Throughout this past summer and now as fall rains down on us fast and furiously up here in the northern temperate rainforest, I go to yoga class regularly, usually two or three times a week. Since Bikram is not taught here, I now study Ashtanga. Each class brings me a deeper sense of balance, strength and freedom from the chaos that war leaves in its path. I find new connections with my core and breath that I look forward to exploring when I once again click into my skis this winter. I also believe that my balance practices inform my thinking as to how we should proceed as cancer survivors. If we are inspire and move towards real change in how we deal with cancer then moving while in balance seems so much more sustainable than trying to sustain another 35 years of warring with ourselves, our government and the medical community.

I have been practicing Hatha yoga since 1994, most of my teachers are Anusaura inspired, recently I began practicing Shadow Yoga. I begin each day with a home practice of sun salutations and standing poses.

In the beginning the first benefit was mountain pose, just standing balanced like a mountain, no matter the weather, wind, snow, heat the mountain is standing strong — I used this pose as I waited in line at the grocery store, instead of being anxious, in a hurry, upset at the person using all the coupons I could just be the mountain.

Balance, feeling calm, knowing you can just breathe, being centered.

Thich Nhat Hanh talks about a boat of Vietnamese refugees who are very scared and says if one person on the boat can remain calm by just breathing they may be able to save everyone on the boat.

I heard a story about a woman in a bank robbery situation. She said she just tried to breathe and remain calm to somehow transfer this to the people holding the guns, and she believed this helped the situation and no one was harmed.

There are also the physical aspects, flexibility, strength, benefits for the internal organs, but in the end the practice is to prepare one to be able to sit comfortably to meditate.

As a public high school biology teacher who is a Catholic (and perhaps more importantly a spiritual person), I'm continually looking for ways to make the connection between science and religion and present it in the classroom in a careful non-religious way.

As a practitioner of yoga with only 3 years of formal practice, I like to start my days with a yoga routine, though it often changes and thus reflects my inner stress. Essentially, I do four sun salutations, one each to the four cardinal directions (a bit of Feng Shui, if you will), each direction symbolizing something that works for me (these are not my own ideas but I cannot remember which "workshop" introduced these ideas to me…).

First to the East, while doing the sun salutation and breathing carefully, I will meditate on details I'm dealing within my life at that time; South meditating on people less fortunate; West meditating on the Big Picture & Perspective; and finally North meditating on "Just do it!"/Act now. It's nice because I can change the order in which I do the four directions or the number of them, depending on the need at the moment.

After practicing for more than twenty years, I started teaching yoga through a local city recreation center, where I design each course to try to fit the needs of the attendees. Continually gathering student input, I've felt called to use the traditional canon of Hatha and Astanga yoga practice as a springboard for "new" asanas. I am a retired paramedic who taught emergency medicine, including anatomy, and I base whatever I do on principles of anatomy as well as the ancient traditions.

For example, I've observed that we are evolving towards round-shoulderedness (from sedentary occupation) something the ancients who gave us the traditional science did not build in to the design. I rarely see students who have adequate enough shoulder flexibility and strength to get the full potential benefits from a pose like Downward-Facing Dog, which relies in part on creating a straight, strong extension of the arms. Breezing through a Sun Salutation without the intended form can make yoga into an awkward callisthenic rather than a powerful physical transformative force.

So, this fall, I've been inspired to rely on intuition and creativity to design a course called Yoga for Women, which focuses on balance, core strength, and mental poise. I rely on Patanjali's precepts and draw from the wealth of yoga tradition, but I also add my own asanas and exercises.

I can't help but wonder if, in this time of accelerated change in human consciousness, there are other yoga teachers (including your guest) and practitioners who feel drawn to an expansion of the traditions?

I started doing yoga 32 years ago, when I turned 30 and was trying to give up smoking. After I started doing yoga, I was able to stop smoking in one day and never, ever looked back. I realized then that there was something pretty amazing about the practice. After 5 years I became a yoga teacher and have been teaching now for 27 years.

In addition to teaching yoga, I have also been a visual artist for about the same amount of time. I began to notice, early on in my teaching and yoga practice, that many of the people I was encountering in yoga classes and as students, were also artists of all kinds. Since artists tend to be a bit outside the mainstream culture and more experimental, it seemed logical that they would be willing to try esoteric practices. But what attracted them specifically to yoga?

Over time I realized that artists were attracted to yoga because they were intuiting its potential to expand their creativity. Practicing yoga opens up creative capacity and unblocks regressive mental attitudes. This aspect of yoga is not talked about much but it is very profound. On a biological level, creative work increases blood flow to the brain and triggers the same sort of positive changes in brain chemistry found from doing meditation. Yoga is like a moving meditation, so the relationship between the two became very clear to me.

Many times, while I was trying to solve a problem I was having with a painting or something I was writing, or a life issue, the answer would come to me walking home from taking a yoga class. I've heard this same thing from many others as well. An answer pops up during or after a yoga practice. Yoga stimulates the unconscious and creativity.

Creativity is a very broad force in all human life. It is not the specialized "talent" or "skill" that most people think it is. Rather, it is much more a habit of mind and affects every area of our lives.

It gives people a way of re imagining their circumstances, relationships, situation in life, and emotional state. It is a source of optimism and hope. You don't have to be an "artist" to appreciate the advantages of being a creative person. Being creative is a way of staying in tune with change and of being able to adapt successfully to life's curve balls.

So, in addition to the physical health and relaxation benefits you hear so much about, yoga has a powerful benefit, maybe it's most important benefit, in it's ability to enhance creativity. This has been one of my greatest realizations about what yoga does for me.

I practice a form of yoga known as Astanga yoga. It is the most difficult form physically and I find that the physical challenge keeps my mind focused on my breath and my attention firmly fixed in the moment, so it is like a moving meditation practice. For me, yoga forms that are too slow and easy allow my mind to wander and become unfocused. Since it is not appropriate for most people, it's just too hard, I do not teach Astanga. I teach an excerpted form but one that is challenging enough to keep students focused and in the present moment.

Yoga is a non-verbal experience that stimulates one's intuitive nature, opens the mind, increases awareness and composure. In addition yoga provides a myriad of health benefits, such as: stabilizes blood pressure, builds lean muscle mass, enhances balance,increases range of motion, strength and flexibility. It also increases concentration, calmness and feelings of contentment at the same time that it teaches self-awareness, self-knowledge and compassion.

I always felt that I needed to learn to breathe more fully and more easily. I didn't really learn know how to breathe until I started doing Yoga. I was told to breathe from here or from there; and I was told "don't do this or that," but none of it made sense and it did not help. I even asked a singer and an actor for help, even though I am not a singer or an actor, but I did not get the help I was searching for.

One day while watching public television, I learned about Peggy Cappy's "Yoga for the Rest of Us." I bought her DVDs, and I finally felt the ease of breathing. Without my daily simple yoga exercises which consist of stretching, balancing and breathing, I cannot imagine feeling good physically or mentally.

A huge bonus was the Spiritual Connection I felt with the breath that I had never felt before. That spiritual connection led to my reading about Buddhism and to my daily meditation practice. Meditation focusing on the breath helps me to live more peacefully, and with more kindness and compassion.

All of this from simple Yoga exercises which stretch and balance the body.

In 1974, at the age of 20, I was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. Intuitively, I knew it was stress-related and a doctor put me on tranquilizers to "solve my problem." I realized I didn't want to live my life taking pills and began to explore other ways I could manage my overactive mind.

I was then living in a conservative, semi-rural community and didn't know how to find alternatives to the traditional medicine that was practiced there, but I did find a paperback book: Yoga, Youth and Reincarnation. I read it cover-to-cover, and began to practice asanas through study of photos and text descriptions. I loved the changes this new practice began in me, got rid of the pills and the stomach ulcer, and was hooked on this new possibility.

A few years later, I also began to practice vegetarianism, which I also continue to this day. Over the past 34 years, living many different places around the United States, I've had the good fortune to find an important handful of Hatha yoga teachers and came to embrace the Iyengar tradition, in particular. I continue to take classes two times per week to this day and am firmly convinced it helps me physically, mentally and spiritually. In October, I will go on a retreat with one of my teachers in order to immerse myself in my annual "booster."

I also practice alone but I find working with a teacher helps me to go "further" as lazy me will basically just coast without external input. Plus, I love to "touch base" with the community of other yogis and yoginnis that meet for these classes. I'm convinced that yoga isn't just a central part of my life and how I'm living it, but as a practicing fine artist, it has in real, but subtle, ways, influenced my entire career path and body of work.

I was diagnosed with Multiple Schlerosis in 1997 at UPenn and Jefferson hospitals. By 1999 I was consumed by debilitating symptoms. Out of desperation, I plunged back to nature with raw foods, proper breath, prayer, fasting, and Kundalini and Hatha yogas.

In 2003 my dog and I hiked from Maine to the Tennessee border on the Appalachian Trail. We passed virtually every other hiker and even moved 25 miles a day, 6 days a week our last month out.

I practice yoga everyday, in the sun, and on the ground when the weather permits. My body is so sensitive, I work full time doing state-contracted social work, and I'm not always strong enough to run up mountains. In fact, I am often reminded that I could be in a wheelchair very easily. However, when I am in the delicate rhythm, there are virtually no limits to my abilities.

Since the hike, my wife has worked by my side in the laborious tree service industry. Either way, I love yoga and what opened up to me because of the practice.

I've always been very restless, but the practice allows my body to relax for meditation. It has helped my posture, dealing with stress, and I'm certain has opened me to countless blessings.

I tried practicing yoga alone in my home, but found I needed a partner. I was lucky to have a great yoga teacher and he arranged for me to partner with a man who is now a friend named DeNiro.

Both of us were stressed completely as we are in finance here in Switzerland, but miss our homes — his is in Germany, in Lobbachtal, and mine is in Russia although I was born and raised in America. The yoga proved a wonderful relief, but not immediately. We had to go through our steps one at a time and often before a feeling of calm came over me, and later for DeNiro.

I would recommend it for anyone living a stress-filled life. The most unusual thing however is that my dogs at least try to do Yoga with us. This is the amazing and most fascinating thing. The dogs are giant schnauzers are and normally very active and noisy, but when they see us roll out out mats the lie down they seem almost to copy our movements as much as they can.

When I was a child I became enchanted with dance. My mother resisted, but eventually I convinced her for ballet lessons and quickly excelled in the technique. I grew into normal, tall, healthy body that happened to not be perfect for an aspiring ballerina. I soon began a cycle of purging and starvation.

Luckily I found the healing form of movement called Yoga. I started my practice while at college in New Mexico and continued until I eventually became a Vinyasa Teacher. This path of practice has also changed recently as I explore more styles in my current home of New York City.

I also have the pleasure of still having dance in my life, now Modern Dance, through teaching at a last chance alternative public high school in downtown Brooklyn. My students are more likely to be gang members than to ever be exposed to a downward dog, but I am amazed to have the honor of not only spending half my day practicing dance with my students but the other half is dedicated to yoga. Not only am I able to keep myself healthy, I also get to expose what I have found through yoga to the next generation.

Early this morning (4AM or thereabouts), I woke in anticipation of the coming storm (Hannah). I was uncomfortable and began to practice the "happy baby" position which I usually find soothing.

After after another half hour of sleeplessness and a change of beds, I began a series of more stringent poses. Keep in mind, it was early in the morning and my ultimate goal was to return to bed. Eventually I fell asleep and had a strange and wonderful dream which concerned saying goodbye to a childhood neighbor (four years my senior), who has terminal, brain cancer. In the dream I met with him (which I was denied several weeks ago because of his precarious state and the fact that I have not been in touch with him for many years). But the need to say goodbye to him was critical to me.

In my dream he quietly turned away from me and headed into an underground train station, without saying anything or acknowledging my presence. Today I will call his younger brother (my friend with whom I have remained in touch), to offer words of comfort.