Seeking serenity through Yoga
It’s not a kind of dairy food. It’s not a baseball player or even a cartoon bear.
There are several uses for yoga for students at USU. Dennise Gackstetter, a yoga teacher on campus, said it depends on the student, but they use it for everything from the spiritual aspects to simply exercise. She said some students come with physical problems they are trying to take care of and find more benefits than they thought they would.
There are many benefits to participating in yoga, including everything from “massaging the internal glands and organs to complete detoxification and reducing stress,” according to the Yoga For You Web site at gofc.org.
Yoga was started in northern India more than 5,000 years ago, according to yogabasics.com, but it is still used today, even at Utah State University.
Craig Faulhaber, a graduate student in forest, range and wildlife sciences, said yoga is a great way to feel calm, gain strength and flexibility. He said he has done yoga on his own off and on for a couple of years and is now taking a class.
“[Yoga] helps you to not be so sore when doing other activities,” Faulhaber said. “It has loosened the tension in my back.”
“I like the combination of mental and physical that you get with it,” Faulhaber said. “It’s really easy to get your mind scattered in a million directions. It’s great to focus on one thing. You come in with a bad day and you come out with the rest of your day improved.”
According to yogabasics.com, “yoga is aimed at integrating mind, body and spirit and achieving a state of enlightenment or oneness with the universe.”
At USU, there are several yoga classes for those who are interested in getting started.
For beginners, Gackstetter suggests finding a beginning class with a good teacher.
“A lot of people think a book or a video is good enough, but a teacher can help you to concentrate on what you need to and help you get in the right positions.”
Gackstetter has spent 20 years practicing yoga and says she still has room for improvement.
“If you have a bad yoga teacher, don’t give up, go to a different class,” she said, “There are so many ways to approach it.”
Kevin Kobe, director of campus recreation, said now is the time to get into yoga.
“If you look at the growth of yoga in Logan just in the last year, there are credit classes, a few not-for-credit and some at the Sports Academy. At any given time, there are 10 yoga classes going on – and that’s not counting the informal ones people are doing on their own,” he said.
Gackstetter said yoga is spiritual, not religious. Some people believe it is affiliated with a specific religion, but it is not. “People from all sorts of religions do yoga,” she said.
“You become stronger, flexible and get exercise, but it’s much bigger than that,” Gackstetter said. “It has become a fitness program, but they are missing the bigger picture. It can help you make your life better. You become more accepting and thoughtful. You become deeply aware of yourself.”
Kobe said yoga can “help you visualize how to relax. Your mind seems clearer,” For some students, yoga is a great way to exercise and feel better during their hectic day at school without having to do a full workout.
Gackstetter said yoga has great physical benefits.
“You will develop strength and learn how to relax. You’ll stop walking around tense all the time. You find out what your limitations are and learn to work with them,” she said.
Students aren’t the only ones taking yoga classes, however. Gackstetter teaches not-for-credit classes that are mostly filled with faculty and staff.
Kobe said yoga is really good for faculty and staff who have desk jobs.
“They are sitting on their butts all day. We have legs that move – we aren’t designed to sit in a chair all day.”
Faulhaber said if he has a bad day, he likes to do yoga.
“It’s something you can do anywhere,” he said. “At night, if I’m tense, I’ll just do some poses and just relax.”
He said his favorite pose is “shivasena,” where he can just lie there. “It’s the one time of the day you can just let yourself go,” he said.
Gackstetter compared yoga to other forms of exercise and said people doing yoga come out of class feeling calm and gathered instead of tired.
“You come out with a calm mind and awareness of breath,” Gackstetter said. “Mental awareness is a big part.”
Gackstetter said what sets yoga apart is its “focus on attitudes and projections of yourself. Yoga promotes a good self image.”
There are several types of yoga that range from very aggressive to calm and relaxed.
Depending on the individual and the class they are in, while doing yoga, everything from basic inversion poses to deeper full back bends could be involved, Gackstetter said.
What most people in the West think of as yoga is actually Hatha Yoga, one of the many types of yoga. It requires the most physical exercise of the various types.
“These different paths of yoga are simply different approaches and techniques that all lead to the same goal of unification and enlightenment,” according to yogabasics.com.
Gackstetter said Hatha Yoga is designed to help train the mind to focus the body for meditation.
“There are different styles of yoga – like flavors of ice cream – you have to find what is right for you,” Gackstetter said.
“It can help you find that you are perfect the way you are. You’ll learn that this is a pretty good body.”
-hollyadams@cc.usu.edu
Yoga is not a religion. Members of every religion can be found practicing yoga.
Students pratice yoga in Denise Gacksetter’s intermediate yoga class Thursday afternoon. Many yoga classes are available to students at USU.