Focus 580; Yoga and health

Good morning welcome to focus 580 This is our telephone Top program money. David Ensor glad to have you with us this morning. In first part of the program today we'll be talking about yoga something that as far as I can remember we have never talked about on this program and it's always good to know that there are things that we still have not yet explored. It's something that we know that increasing numbers of Americans are interested in and involved in. And so we thought we could have a conversation trying to talk a little bit about in very basic ways what yoga is and some of the benefits of the practice. And our guest this morning is Deb Lister. She's director of the living yoga center in Champaign she has over 10 years experience in fitness. She's certified in several fitness and wellness disciplines She's currently finishing up a certification in nutritional counseling. She's been practicing yoga for five years and teaching for three and we're trying to as I said cover some of the basics ask some basic questions about what yoga is and how it might benefit you and who can do it. And of course people who are listening if you have questions you should call in and ask them for yourself. Here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5

5. Also we have a toll free line good anywhere you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so at any point if you have questions you should call and talk with us. Well thanks very much for being there. You're very welcome. I read that according to the Yoga Journal they have estimated now that there's something like 15 million people in this country who are practicing yoga. And if that was true that would be something like a 300 percent increase over 10 years ago. So assuming those are pretty good numbers and that says something about the increasing popularity of yoga Why is it you think that so many people are discovering and then I guess relatively recently also you've been involved you get started getting involved in you know what draws people to you Do you think. Well I think part of it is that they're in their hectic lives that we seem to be leading these days that

yoga maybe they've heard that it might be a place where they can reduce some stress. They can get some physical benefits and potentially use them emotional psychological benefits from it. And they're ready for it. You know they're ready to take it from going and working out at the gym. Like many people we've always going to have focus on the exercise that has been very important over the last couple years. But I think those who do go out and go to the gems or practice some form of cardiovascular activity are finding that there might be something else too. All that and not just strictly the physical part of it. And maybe yoga. It's a very holistic approach to bringing. The body in connection with the mind so much of what we've been focusing on for the last 10 15 years is the fitness craze again and it's more than the body and the minds kind of been

lost in all that. And I think also that it's being more accepted by the allopathic medical community and that doctors I mean I get a lot of students that are recommended by their doctor right. Our physical therapist you know I need I need to do yoga and for a variety of reasons for physical reasons and then for stress reduction you can cure them so I guess it's my understanding that when people talk about yoga and doing it that they're talking about one piece of what is a much larger sort of philosophical and ethical tradition one that goes back a very long time. So that just asking a simple question like What is yoga starts to get very complicated very quickly but. How would one give us sort of a simple and basic answer to that question well what is that they were talking about. Well I've been working on that for a few years. You can get very long and involved but for condensing it

down yoga is a spiritual practice one of the things where the questions I get asked a lot is that a religion. And no it's not I mean there's no church or temple that you go to. Actually a man killing about fifteen hundred years ago the Yoga Sutras and which was he was trying to find a way to the truth and he was unhappy with the things that he has finding at the time. And so he wrote these sutras which talks of. And it's all based around yoga and meditation. And it is a spiritual discipline that has eight limbs to it and these various limbs are practicing various spiritual and physical. And I have physical components to them. Some of them are based on moral behavior concentration meditation the physical part which most Westerners think of as yoga is really

hot yoga hot meaning sun time meaning moon in it is there the balancing of the sun and moon qualities of bodies kind of a poetic way of saying balancing the opposites within our bodies within our minds. The heart in the soft the active and the passive left and right brain left and right parts of our bodies. And that's generally what Westerners think of as hot yoga and there's lots of different types which we can talk about. But in itself it is thought that this practice of working these eight limbs will bring you eventually to some Mahdi which is the the actual union or bliss of the union of the body and the mind and spirit together. So it's all part of it's part of a way the physical exercises are intended to be part of a way of living that also includes things like you know nonviolence and ethical behavior in dealing with other human being is and all but also this idea that you.

That maybe were overly attached to physical things and the physical world and it's this idea that there is there is a sort of a spiritual reality that you can get in contact with but what you have to do is you have to do a number of certain things and the exercises are intended to help your body be in in condition to do that. To do that. I mean yoga in itself the traditional potentially describes it as the sation of the fluctuations of the mind yoga is actually stillness is trying to still the mind still the body part of the ways the still the body is by practicing the pastors. You know we want to bring. In awareness to ourselves so many of us have just lost awareness of our bodies. Yoga is living in the present. We tend to focus on the past by recycling it or were always looking towards the future you know so many of us myself

included are very goal oriented and thats always looking ahead. So many times even through with our best intentions there is no control there what we do have is be present in the moment and thats what Yoga teaches you we need. When I have my students come in the classroom I work on having them forget about what's happening what has happened with their day what they have to do after they leave the class and this is time for themselves Yoga is an exploration of the internal. That's maybe where it's a little bit different from a religion religion is looking to the external case is a coming outward as it is a spiritual experience looking outwards finding the God whatever that God is or some spiritual being for you outside of yourself where yoga is the exploration of finding that spirit within yourself. There are certainly our traditions of meditation many of them that involve just sitting still. Doing nothing and there are some that do seem to incorporate movement with

meditation like I think does does that what. In what way does the moving compliment the meditation. OK well because you focus on how your body and your body is feeling at that moment. I mean it's not it's not something that that meditative quality I mean we we sometimes call yoga meditation in motion. That is something that you need to practice and work hard on. I know you were talking about sitting still for a long time. That's really tough. And moving and trying to meditate again is tough and the movement what it does is helps you we're so tied in our bodies that if we can get ourselves more in and stretch out and build up heat in the body in fine go from the hard spot to the soft spot that softness helps us to eventually maybe move within the stillness

and find that connection between ourselves and our body. And I guess that part of the reason that you do the exercises would be to prepare you for be sitting still for me right now and that's part that's part of the part of the whole thing is about right my students always say their favorite poses the very last one we do which is called corpse pose. And that's the relaxation part of class. And that is we are working very hard and at the end of the class this is our time for rest. And this is a point where they can meditate or they just take you know focusing inwards and and taking a time to spend allowing ourselves to rest so many times we don't allow ourselves to take that time for ourselves. And I think that's really important these days. Our guest here this morning in this first part of focus 580 is dead Lister She's director of the living yoga center in Champaign and we're talking about yoga and what it is and if you have questions you can call us at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2

2 9 4 5 5. Is this something that anyone could do. Yes I think so. I mean with varying depending on what there is some people do have physical limitations. However yoga is very adaptable. You can actually do yoga and a chair. There are programs I know back I think there was one in New York. I am not sure. But they actually have their patients who are wheelchair bound doing yoga and chair and part of that is for the physical components of them. And also for the the spiritual in the meditative qualities of it you know working through whatever issues they may have because of their debilitation. I've have people who are very very fit a lot of times people call me up and they'll say well I'm not very flexible. Well it really doesn't matter. I mean that's what the goal is it being it's strength

flexibility and Durrance and that will happen over time if you're not flexible. You can start taking you know get to work on that aspect of it. I have all ages I've worked with kids and kids love yoga. A lot of the poses are have have animal names. And so we you know we do the lion pose and the turtle pose in the locust pose and things like that and they really enjoy it. And then it moves all the way to gentle yoga where people when they do have physical limitations we can do restorative poses and help them just relax and open up areas in a very gentle manner you know letting it really working on letting the body release into the pose if it means propping them up with pillows getting into the press where they don't have to their legs maybe you want are very very stiff or they've got so Shorter's we can put them in positions that will allow them to relax and eventually open up. I know BN people talk about what about fitness and and an ideal

kind of program for fitness. They talk about three basic sorts of things that you one really ought to be thinking about. Flexibility is one. Strength is another and cardiac fitness is the third one and that you ought to. If you're really going to be well-rounded in your exercise you ought to do something that will you know that will get you some benefits all those three areas and I'm not sure if there's any one thing that will do all of those. Swimming maybe. I'm not sure too many other things that will both get you don't get your heart going and have some resistance so you do something for your muscles and at the same time get the flexibility angle. Yoga obviously will do flexibility. Does it have any other benefits in these other areas. Yes and strength very very much so because a lot of the poses do take a bit of. Strength to perform and you build up that strength over time. A lot of core body

strength which I find is really applicable to every Bit day life to functional living core being. Being in the middle section of the body in the trunk portion where people are having a lot of back problems because their abdominals are loose and they don't their postures are poor their shoulders are tight we sit at computers all day. These are things that when yoga is performed that you can really find a lot of benefits in a lot of that comes from the strength and I think every particular yoga discipline there and there's lots of them. Strength is a big component in durance actually is another one which takes into account cardiovascular fitness. And now I'm not going to say all yoga disciplines will get your heart up between 60 to 80 percent. Of where it should your maximum heart rate. If you want to calculate it like you're taking a group fitness class some kind of aerobics class or you're running or something like

that some of them do. They are the type of the type that I have been trained in is a very vigorous form of yoga. However regardless just the movement alone in the combination of putting the breathing riseth there have been studies that shown that it has reduced. I mean it has helped cardiovascular fitness in a sense that it is lowering cholesterol it has lowered blood pressure. They've had complete arterial you know it's lowered the platelet aggregation and some folks in the arterial walls. So there is the cardiovascular benefits from that ast aspect. And so it really depends on maybe the type of yoga getting that I'm from when this is my personal opinion because there are others who who feel that yoga is something that can cover everything and you really don't have to practice other forms of activity. I come from a background in the fitness field and am an amateur athlete so I'm of the

mind that yoga is something that I practice is a co Ponette of my overall fitness. I also do other activities. Yoga helps keep me injury free so that I can practice. I can do all the other activities that I want to do and I think that's are an extremely important aspect because we don't we are people are so very active these days which is wonderful they're getting their rear ends off the couch and moving or they hurt themselves because they aren't flexible and they don't have the strength and they can't do something for very long because they haven't built the endurance within the under the heading of hot yoga that this station that's this part of the whole thing that's about moving and breathing in meditation. There are different styles and I know the one that you do as you say is is one I think often elite athletes are attracted to because it's very rigorous and people have read about this this is what's sometimes referred to as power yoga. Not everyone is going to be up to that. How do how does one find the style that's right

for them. Well if you have the opportunity you go to different classes you call up yoga studios and talk to somebody about the different styles that they teach. And go if you can go to classes go to their beginning classes you know talk to them about their philosophy talk to them about the different things that they do and see if you know depending on what your objective is. I mean you've got it where are you going to yoga what what components are you looking for simply someplace that is not a lot of physical activity and some postures but then you're looking more for the meditative aspects have it something like gentler. Do you have physical limitations that you know you need to talk to be sure to when you do talk to somebody. If you do have physical limitations to let them know and then go try different classes you know you just need to do a little bit of research

about the different types of yoga and generally most most yoga studios have descriptions or have somebody there who will feel more than happy to you know take the time to talk to you about what's the difference between this and this and sometimes it's difficult through words to try to do that but you can do it by going in and experiencing class. We have color others are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 W I L L or 9 4 5 5 and then if it would be a long distance call you may use our toll free line that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have someone here locally on our line one. I'll find one. Yes OK I didn't like. Miss your address but I'm think it's a relationship between a fairly regular running jogging activity and the yoga on the other. A substitute for the council people are now paying up to that

point. Thank you all thanks for the go. Well we were just kind of covered a few minutes ago but no I do not think it is a substitute and I say that from a personal opinion others may believe otherwise but I think that is something that it complements something like running. You should you should do things that make you feel good I think yoga is an opportunity to keep yourself injury free too. Maybe take it beyond what you do when you're running I know that from being a runner that I do find some meditative aspects and in my running getting out and just feeling my body moving I feel the same thing in yoga but my yoga because I we spend a lot of time on working on the flexibility aspect and building up the strength helps me to perform much better as a runner and maintain you know maintain my body a bit better than I would if I just solely ran.

Other questions are welcome we're getting close to the midpoint here of the hour. Our guest is Deb Lister She's director of the living yoga center in Champagne she's been involved in fitness for a long time is herself an amateur athlete. She's certified in the fitness and wellness disciplines she's been practicing yoga for five years and teaching for three. And the questions are certainly welcome three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 wy I love how most people how well often do they practice. For most people. Well I would love to them to get everybody to practice every day. But sometimes it's very difficult with their lives I sometimes have a hard time getting in to myself these days. If you can you want to at least get 15 minutes in a day. Whether it be in the morning some people I have people who do it in the morning and helps them wake up do it in the evening helps them relax before they go to bed. Daily

Practice the best way. There's lots of opportunities I mean if you go to a class of course once or twice a week that would be wonderful and then practice on your own yoga something is not just coming. It's different from a group fitness class and that it's not something that you necessarily just go to once or twice a week and then kind of forget about it it really is a lifestyle something that you add into everyday living. Well what's what is if if we were going to go to your class and say that we were just starting out. You know what. What is the experience like and what would a session kind of be like. Well first of all I'd teach you on how to breathe I know that sounds silly but many people when we were babies we would breathe more naturally from the belly area. And as we have gotten older we've gotten to it so that we

constrict our breathing and we breathe more from the rib cage and through the shoulders and their shoulders rise and fall as we breathe. So I teach you how to change that your brain breathing pattern. We bet we talk about alignment a lot and how to stand posture is very important. People are walking around with very poor posture. And from there I warm you up with a series of movements called Sun Salutation. And this is where we take several poses which. Work the body in different range of motion forward bends a slight backward bending. That helps to warm up the body and from this warmth. That is where we go on to perform some of the individual poses that work on certain parts of your body. But this is just like you would do in your traditional. If you think of as a warmup that's XXL what it is and most yoga disciplines. Everybody has a sun salutation and it is a formed

and it helps you to bring center yourself. Bring yourself into yourself instead of the outside. And from that after we get warmed up then we take you usually into standing poses and there's a variety of standing poses and after we perform a standing poses we sit down and we do some seated poses and from the seated poses which again are focusing on different physical aspects. You know spinal twists forward bends backbends things like that then and generally wrap that up with as I said my student's favorite pose device and I which is coarse pose and that's the relaxation part of class and a lot of classes that you'll find at most studios they can run from an hour to an hour and a half I think probably your typical yoga class is about an hour and a half I've seen them between As long as two hours depending on what you do but you try to spend the last 10 minutes. Do I hear you right to say this that the last poses corpse like.

Yes I know. And yes I tell them no. Hopefully you will not feel it is the core of that is the English translation because you kind of lie yourself out on the parts and that a corpse when atomically That's when so it's lying down on your back on your back yeah I bet you're flat on the floor you were flat on the floor. Yes and this is you said that you very relaxed and now take a few minutes for yourself that's right. There's some interesting we have say a lot of sand I use a combination of the Sanskrit name of the poses in the English and summer are quite interesting and the translations are that this happened. Translation for show. Is there ever a point at which you you would say you know what there is to know that is you. You know all the various poses you know all the different routines and that there wouldn't really be too many more things that you could learn. No I don't think so. I think of anything else it's a continuing education process and there's always new places to explore yoga in itself is not trying to meet an end

point getting it's the journey in between. It's the journey and how you what you experience through yoga practice. What you find out about yourself and I think since we're changing all the time that's a constant constant goal I guess Jack to this what's what's happening along the journey not getting to the point. I think we have another caller here this is on our line number one someone here in Champaign Urbana Hello. Hello. Yes I'm enjoying your program today at. I just wanted to say that that last week was my first time doing yoga. My girlfriend had been encouraging me for at least a year to go and try it so I finally did. And I really loved it was it was quite fun and what I really liked about Deb class was that it was it was a little bit of every type of person there young and old men and women all athletic abilities shapes sizes. And it was very refreshing also because it was non

non competitive. So you just went there you didn't have to worry about. You know I don't know. I've never been to a rope's class but I can imagine it's all about sometimes about you know your outfit or how how in shape you are and everything but it is nice because it is very welcoming and I really like the whole aspect about focusing on the the spiritual. You know it wasn't just exercise. So I really enjoy it. It was it was better than more fun than what I had anticipated. So I just wanted to call in and say that. And David I think you should come sometime too it's quite fun. OK. Thank you. Thanks for the endorsement. How can you say that other questions certainly are welcome to questions comments. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have that toll free line good anywhere you can hear us around Illinois Indiana. Any place a signal will go. That's eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and our guest is Deb Lister director of the living yoga center in Champaign and we're talking about

yoga. So questions you can call us. I'm interested you know I'm just pulling my headphones off. I'm interested in one thing that you said and that struck me because I think that there are maybe different. Different people different disciplines that are really interested in this idea that body mechanics the way we use our bodies are important and that misuse is the root of a lot of problems. That is maybe when if we have pain it has something to do with not using our bodies properly. And so there are different ways of you know different people like the Alexander Technique is one of those things where they say you know they can just look at you and they can look at you walk up and down and they can say see look at you look at the way you're holding yourself look at the way that you move that that's when you know it's no wonder you say your joints hurt or your

your back hurts. And that seems to be maybe part of what what's going on here too it's paying some it's paying attention to the way that the way you said the way you stand the way you move and how that either can can make you feel good hard or not make you feel good. Well I think it's developing a sense of body awareness. Like I would say that connection of mind and body and. Many people don't know like you say how they what their posture is how they walk and I have my students tell me all of a sudden I'm standing in the grocery line I realize my shoulders are drooping and I'm you know putting all my weight on one leg and then just to to stand up straight so what you are is developing that sense of body awareness which the better we are aware of what is happening and connecting with our body the better we can keep ourselves free of disease and we can work towards healing ourselves. In

yoga we try to recognize what where the problems you know what your hips really tight here could you know what are the things you're doing what are the things we need to quit doing that are exacerbating that problem. And here we try to give people the tools to help them release and know more about that body so they can try to heal those areas stuck with someone else. Again here line number one. Hello. Hi good morning. I am calling on behalf of my 15 year old daughter at home for you. I was interested in yoga you know and I might have been I would be able to bring up the cross and I was wondering if that's because I would recommend that I just sing at BDO if it's possible to do that at home using a video. Yes that's a really good question. A lot of there's quite a number of videos out on Yoga these days and a majority of them are pretty good. If you want to

start with and there's a I can recommend a few and I would appreciate it. OK. There's one there's several by Yoga Journal and they have some very good introduction to yoga videos there's one in particular that's a wonderful one who is taught by Patricia Walden who's a very internationally known teacher. And then there's some beginning tapes by another internationally known. Instructor Rodney Yee who is also through yoga Journal's line of video. There is a Living Arts also has a series of beginning videos and depending a lot of them more say this is an introduction to yoga some of them may have introduction to power yoga which again we've talked about earlier is a little more vigorous approach. But all the introductory tapes are very similar that they're just going to introduce you to yoga in a sense they may just different differ in their presentation depending on the style or the discipline of yoga

that they're talking about. But the ones I highly recommend the ones from Yoga Journal and Living Arts they're very good. Thank you. You're welcome thanks. Now I'm sure you know some people that just might be the way that they would write it. They would have to do it. The advantage I'm sure of having a teacher. Some time with another person is that they can actually look at you and what you're doing and if necessary they can come over they can lay hands on you and they could sort of say OK that's that's close but sort of more like this you're what you can't. It's kind of hard to do if you're there all by yourself. Right. A lot of my students tell me that I mean they do come to class you know once or some to come twice a week and they do use videos is at home in between two you know. But they tell me that they really like having you know the person there because we can do exactly what you said we can help them be more aware of where their body is in space. They do tell me and I

found that myself with watching a video unless you sit there and watch it. You should watch it all the way through first because it's hard when you're in inverted your head's down and you're hearing somebody tell you. And you can't see that. So there there are some disadvantages to that so it's nice to maybe watch it through a little bit and kind of get an idea or maybe section it off a little bit until you get a little bit more familiar with it so you're not having to constantly crane your neck to look at the TV when you're in like downward facing dog or something you know. You know looking up you know I'm really curious about your own experience having come to yoga being somebody who had really been come to yoga somebody who was had a pretty high level of fitness and somebody who was used to doing a lot of exercise and and being in pretty good shape. And how. Do. You know what about it was different or new or.

What about that experience was what you game that you weren't getting. Just out of whatever else you you know running or whatever other kinds of exercise you were doing. Right. Well I came to it because I was having some injuries because I'm an amateur triathlete and I have a heck of a lot of fun with it. But it is tough on the body and in my advancing age. And so I looked at yoga I mean a real Ridgeley came to it as a form of structured stretching. Most athletes are notorious for not the stretching component. And luckily it is you know everybody tells you. We tell you in the fitness world you need to stretch and warm up and stretch. But finding a way to do it. And this I felt that yoga in the sense was going to offer me a more structured way. Did this pose you did this when this

when after it but after I got into it and was doing it for a while I found that the benefits were much more so than just simply the stretching the strength and the insurance that was keeping me were injury free. But at the same time I was being able to find a little more. Time to myself to spend with myself I felt more of the spiritual component that everybody you know I've been talking about and. Then it really flipped in a sense. My focus. I it's been a nice from being a yoga teacher I'm not strictly just coming from the yoga world because I did. I do have the fitness background and I believe that it's I have a bit of more maybe a more balanced approach to it because I don't like I said I don't believe that yoga is the be all to

end you know thing that there are other aspects and people should walk and move and bike and run if they want to. Do all these things yoga just is another component of their whole fitness regime but it's it's done wonders for me it helps me to calm my mind. I live a very active and kind of crazy life sometimes and I've found that I've taken it and there's a wonderful book by Judith Lassiter if anybody's interested called Living your yoga and it talks about how you take your Osten are your posture practice and moving it into applying it to your everyday life how you start going toward situation with a little bit more compassion a little bit more things don't bother you as much you've learned as we learn to soften in yoga coming from the hard to the soft. You take your life illness in a sense and you look at it you take it from the internal exploration actually to an external exploration and how it effects your surroundings and

and softening to situations to be a bit more instead of hardening when we have something that an obstacle in our way. We don't. Immediately harden ourselves up to it we learn to work through it a bit more and that's really what yoga is all about. Our bodies are obstacles in a sense of being you know into this other state which is you know feeling that self-awareness. We have about 10 minutes left in this part of the show and our guest is Deb Lister She's director of the living yoga center in Champaign. And if you have questions you should call Don't wait till the very end here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line that's good anywhere. You can hear us. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5. Here in in the West so to speak. We have this thing we like to know why stuff works. We like to take stuff apart and see the moving parts and understand it's not

just it's something we have a desired effect. We want to know why we want to be able to explain it. Has Is there a way to or have people actually looked from the sort of the science western side to look at yoga look to what's going on in the body and come up with some sort of answer that if indeed it has these benefits why what is going on that makes that possible. Well there have been several studies that have tried to do that but. It tried to take the empirical approach but yoga is very complex and affects the body on very different levels. If they try to do a double blind study what they would study a good yoga class and a not good yoga class like it's kind of hard to do something like that. But there has I mean Dean Ornish who is famous for his very his.

Low fat diets and his the work that he's done in the cardiovascular field with the patients at risk for heart attacks has had some very good results and it has been a cause. It has been yoga with a combination of exercise and his diet his diet regimen. And you can't really single out yoga as being that one factor but he had tremendous results with the folks that have been resolved he did a study in 1990 and then he did another study in 1998 where he trimmed it down trying to just have yoga a bit but it's it's still very convoluted but there are. There is data saying yes yoga does have an effect on our nervous system and there's two components you're sympathetic in your parasympathetic the sympathetic is your fight or flight response. You know I've got to get it if survival response that's you know built into us. And then the parasympathetic is the relaxation response. They have found that it lowers you know it. It kind of shuts off

that fight or flight and increases the relaxation response. I mean there has has been data to do that. Now if you want to pen it saying yes it has reduced this it has reduced that. It is usually kind of convoluted broken it down and from India what we've got. Thousands of years of anecdotal work in India yes they believe it. But of course it is anecdotal and because we were such we have this empirical bent on trying to make everything you know signed it has to you know it works because of this and this anecdotal data is as necessary as take into account. But you know always trying to find like you said but there has been tremendous. I mean there has been some research but it's they're still working on it. Well what do you think about the idea I think that there's this idea in this tradition and other traditions that there that energy flows through the body through

known paths and that part of the why it is we don't feel well we get sick is that blocks form in those paths. And that part of what you're doing with exercise discipline like those of their other maybe other ways to get at it is the idea to make sure that things flow the way that they're supposed to and that if that happens then you're going to be healthier happier have more energy you know be able to meet the challenges of life. Yeah I think that I think it's true that there are inner g passon in yoga you know depending on the discipline. Type she talks about her life force in yoga. It's. We work with the shock rows which are various energy points along the body and you're working the energy from the root chakra all the way to the very top out of kind of the top of your head. And yes I think there if there is blockages there I'm I'm

it's kind of the that part sometimes that is more difficult to talk to people about because it's not so tangible. And we do address it. And you know some some disciplines address it more than others like Leni yoga is focused completely on moving energy to coom to Leni from the root chakra to the very top of your head and coming out and that the whole focus is on that energy aspect. The kind of yoga which is what I practice. We talk about the energy elements but we're not as much concerned about the moon that we are concerned about the movement. It's in a different sense. It's in a different sense so it's kind of a interesting area. I do personally believe in it I think some people do. I think there

is a I mean there's disciplines built built around them. But you know I think there there is an aspect of that but it's also I get the impression I have is that if you're interested in that you can explore it but if you're not quite sure you understand that or could you that you can relate to that that's not necessarily an impediment to denote you know getting some sort of new benefits that are by no means at all. Now it is not an impediment it's a part that you can explore I mean yoga's has so many different aspects that are just embracing one like saying generally where westward bracing ascent of the physical part of it. When we do talk about energy movement but you know it depends on how far you want you want to take in your exploration. Let's talk with someone else again here locally line 1. Hello. Hi I just wanted. Echo the earlier comment caller's comment about how nice the yoga classes are I've been going for quite a while now and

just really wanted to echo from one who's been practicing with the injury prevention benefit. I am a runner who hadn't been able to run can play for more than about 6 weeks without getting injured before I started taking the classes from her that I've just really been great beneficial. Still fabulous when I'm done and able to keep up my primary support. Well just wanted to reiterate that the positive benefits of it are good. Thank you thanks for the call. We're coming down to a point here we have maybe you know two three minutes and we talk about a number of things I want to make sure there are any points that we haven't made and things that you want to get to that we do that before we end up having to finish it. Well I was thinking maybe about sharing some resources for people who might like to explore yoga in places where you can go to to find out about the different types. So when you go in here in Champaign there are there are several studios which you know practiced the

different disciplines and there's a couple of very good websites of people or interference Yoga Journal Yoga Journal dot com. There they have lots of information there that you might find in your yoga site dot com actually will if I give you listings. Teachers in the area and has a teacher directory and has great great information about the different types and actually about the awesomeness to about the different postures. There are several very good books. If you have maybe some back problems or neck problems there's a wonderful book by Mary chats and it's back here basics in its own back and neck pain relief and talks about using yoga to do that and some general information books. I know that a lot of people think the yoga for Dummies book I know myself.

Sometimes I insult that but this particular one was written by one of the very famous scholars of yoga philosophy. George first dean and a practitioner probably a nationally known practitioner Larry Payne. It's a very good book because it does a very good job of giving you a nice overview of what yoga is and the different disciplines and what you should do what the cost is where how you should check out the studios which is where it's a very good book. Well I think maybe about that point will finish up with I think 6 work. Thank you for having me I appreciate it. Our guest is Lister. She's director of the living yoga center in champagne.