Posts Tagged ‘street’

WSJ: Yoga is Good for Kids!

April 13th, 2011 wynona

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the growing trend of yoga for kids. Not only does it improve their flexibility, but it also helps them focus better on schoolwork:

In January, Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Southern California added yoga to its curriculum for 650 students at $20,000 a year. Principal Adriana Chavarin says she has seen how calm and centered students are after practicing the techniques. At a recent assembly, students were getting restless as they sat on the floor. Then a few sixth graders spontaneously led the rest in yoga poses and breathing exercises.

schoolkids.jpg

“Every kid in the audience quieted down,” says David Miyashiro, the district superintendent. “It’s a different language they all speak now.”

We want to know: Have you noticed this trend in your area? If so, tell us how it has changed someone’s life.

Read the whole story on:http://blogs.yogajournal.com/yogabuzz/

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WSJ: Should Christians Practice Yoga?

January 5th, 2011 levis25

1_5_buzz.jpgEver since Albert Mohler, president of the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, spoke out against Christians doing yoga, the blogosphere has gone wild.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, the story revolves around an article on Mohler’s website, where he wrote: “When Christians practice yoga, they must either
deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the
contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of
yoga.”

Here’s an update:

Since that story broke, the Wall Street Journal followed up with a poll that posed the question: Should Christians Practice Yoga? The result: 71.8% said yes, and 28.2% said no.

And in a December 30th article by highly-regarded scholar Wendy Doniger, Is Yoga a Form of Hinduism? Is Hinduism a Form of Yoga? she highlights the issues this debate has brought to the forefront, especially that some American Hindus think American yoga isn’t Hindu enough, while others like Mohler think that yoga is too Hindu.

We want to know: Do you think of yoga more as exercise, or as a spiritual practice?

Read the whole story on:http://blogs.yogajournal.com/yogabuzz/

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Is Yoga for Kids any Good?

July 19th, 2010 kate


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Parent-baby and parent-toddler yoga classes seem to be growing in popularity, but does it really help the children find their center? Shivani Vora from the Wall Street Journal reports. “A growing number of classes around the U.S. and DVD programs insist kids
can reap all the benefits of yoga–but in a less-structured format.
They say that yoga is calming for children, teaches them more awareness
about their bodies and even helps with their development.

But Punam Kashyap, a senior developmental and behavioral pediatrician
at the Institute of Child Development at the Joseph Sanzari Children’s
Hospital in Hackensack, N.J., says there is very little evidence that
the practice can have a positive effect on young children. “It’s a
theory, not a fact that yoga can calm babies,” she says. “That said, as
long as your child is having fun in a class, it’s not going to harm them
in any way.”

As parents, we were
curious if yoga would do anything to mellow out our small children. We
tested three classes and a DVD for comparison. (Read the entire blog for the details of the “experiment.”)

Our daughter paid attention for at least half of the DVD before her
attention started to waver. She attempted a few of the poses and was
fascinated by the animal and nature sounds like a hissing snake and
barking like a dog. We aren’t sure if it made her any calmer, but she
did have a good time and now keeps asking to “do yoga” to her disc.

While the children didn’t seem
noticeably more chilled out in the end, yoga did amuse them and
introduce them to a practice they can use to de-stress when they’re
older. For us, that makes yoga for kids a keeper.”

What do you think about kids doing yoga? Are they old enough to reap the benefits?

Read the whole story on:http://blogs.yogajournal.com/yogabuzz/

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Truly Tantric

July 7th, 2010 kate

sting_lrg.jpg

Sting just started out for a summer tour, and, unfortunately, the only buzz we keep hearing is about this mysterious scandalous tantra stuff.

Allow Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, to explain themselves in Yoga Journal’s exclusive interview. Stephanie Syman, author of The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, also plans to set the tantric-yoga record straight once and for all in her Wall Street Journal blog:

“Traditionally, Tantra refers to a loose and varied collection of
practices detailed in the Tantras (Indic texts). Some of its most
salient features are secrecy and worship of the female principle. The
feature that has most intrigued and shocked observers–both Indian and
Western–is that Tantra enjoins the aspirant to either visualize sex or
engage in acts of ritual intercourse.

The purpose of this conjugation,
often depicted as the union of Siva and Shakti, is to reach Samadhi, a
blissful state of consciousness devoid of any sense of personal
identity. Succeed, and not only do you turn your mind into a “point of
awareness,” as Ram Dass once put it, you obtain special powers
(siddhis).

You could say that we’re all Tantrics now since the most
popular form of yoga today, Hatha Yoga, has been a central feature of
Tantric practice, and its creators were affiliated with Tantric sects.

But as with most cultural imports, our assimilation of Tantra has
involved equal parts interpretation and invention.

No wonder. Tantric practice is no quick route to sexual
gratification. It’s traditionally demanding, complicated, highly
formalized, and at times, tedious. And only some types of Tantrics
(known as “left-handed”) engage in ritual sex at all. Tantra then
presents a paradox: it can involve sex and yet its prerequisites
mitigate the pleasure. And while you may enhance sexual performance via
Tantric practices, the goal is not to get good at sex, the goal is to
alter your consciousness so radically that embodied existence is no
longer relevant.”

Still curious? Read Todd Jones’ The Truth About Tantra.

Erin Chalfant is a writer, yoga teacher and the Web Editor at Yoga
Journal.

Read the whole story on:http://blogs.yogajournal.com/yogabuzz/

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Can Yoga Help Soldiers’ Mental Health?

November 13th, 2009 levis25

military.jpgThe shooting at the army base at Fort Hood that resulted in 13 lives lost and 30 people wounded was a tragedy that saddened the nation. But in the last year, the leaders at the base have been experimenting with new ways–including yoga–to help soldiers deal with the stress and pressure that comes with their jobs. In the aftermath of the shooting, they hope the “resiliency campus,” which in a huge facility that offers programs like yoga, aromatherapy, and video games with traditional counseling,

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