SportsGeezer

Should Yoga Instruction Be Regulated?

First, note the byline: Yes, it's A.G. Sulzberger, the 28-year-old son of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and he's putting the family's newspaper to good use, reporting on a controversial move in New York to require yoga instructors to be licensed by the state. The wannabe regulators argue that licensing the schools would allow states to enforce basic training standards and protect customers who usually spend $2,000 to $5,000 on training courses, not to mention provide revenue for cash-starved governments.And the yoga instructors? They took immediate non-action. The Times reports that 100 devotees from around the state protested by sittings barefoot and cross-legged on the floor of a mid-town studio, chanting for two hours.
Read more in the New York Times.

How Sensual, Exactly, Is the Bollywood Workout?

A curious reader wants to know: How sensuous, exactly, is the Bollywood workout?  To  answer that, Geezer directs readers' attention to this helpful L.A. Times Q&A, with the queen, originator, and possibly only practitioner of the the Bollywood workout, Hemalayaa.  Much like Prince, Hemalyayaa wears exotic clothing, seems to be in constant motion, and has no last name. And like Prince's performances, as Hemalyayaa herself puts it, Bollywood is all about being over the top.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

Finally, Competitive Yoga

Type A readers will be pleased to learn that finally, they can practice yoga and win. Writing in the Washington Post, Rita Zeidner interviews competitive yoga champ Sonya Wyche, who will represent the D.C. area in the upcoming 2008 Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup in Los Angeles. What does she say that's interesting? Before each competition, Wyche, who is a nephrologist, drinks coconut water, because it gives her a healthy dose of potassium without  the sugar that comes in sports drinks.She also has two oranges.
Read more in the Washington Post.

Yoga Comes to the Office: Please Foward to HR

Cynical readers will read this piece in the Boston Globe about corporations bringing yoga classes to the office and zero in on the reason for the "largess": healthier, happier employees are more productive. Practical readers will send the link to the story on to their HR departments. What will you do?
Here's the link.

The Athlete's Guide to Yoga

It is generally accepted in the training community that yoga makes good athletes better. It is also accepted, by Geezer, that yoga does not make bad athletes worse. So what's to lose? Now comes Sage Rountree, endurance athlete, yoga instructor, and a very nice writer, with her new book, The Athlete's Guide to Yoga: an integrated approach to strength, flexibility & focus.
What's good about it? The writing, the photo illustrations, the organization, and the 15-minute DVD of warm up and cool down exercises that comes with it. In other words, everything.

Why You Want to Add Yoga to Your List of New Year's Resolutions

For several years now, "Practice Yoga" would have been high on Geezer's list of new year's resolutions, if only Geezer had not resolved, several years ago, to refrain from making any such resolutions. For those who still believe that writing things down can result in self-improvement, however, recent research has found a few more reasons to add yoga to next year's recipe for a better you.
The Scientific American cites studies conducted in Sweden and India that demonstrate that yoga induces a feeling of well-being in healthy people,  whoever they are, and can reverse the clinical and biochemical changes associated with metabolic syndrome.
Sciam reports that a study conducted at the SP Medical College, Bikaner, India, looked at the beneficial effects of yoga and meditation in 101 adults with features of metabolic syndrome. In the study, 55 adults practiced regular yoga including standard postures and Raja Yoga, a form of transcendental meditation daily, while the other group received standard care. At the end of three months, waist circumference, blood pressure, blood sugar, and triglycerides were significantly lower, and "good" HDL cholesterol levels were higher in the yoga group as compared to controls. In the second study, Sciam reports, researchers at the University of Karlstad, Sweden, evaluated the beneficial effects of yoga-like breathing exercises on healthy volunteers.Fifty-five adults were advised to practice "Sudarshan Kriya," which involves cycles of slow normal and rapid breathing exercises. The exercises were practiced for an hour daily, six days a week for six weeks, while 48 controls were advised to relax in an armchair for 15 minutes daily. At the end of the study period, feelings of anxiety, stress and depression were significantly lower and levels of optimism significantly higher in the yoga group compared to the control group.
Read more about what yoga can do for you in The Scientific American.

How to Relieve Neck and Back Tension

Perhaps it's holiday stress. A large number of family members in a small space, such as Massachusetts, can bring out the worst in all of us. For whatever reason, a painful knot of tension in the upper back is causing driving Geezer some distress. Actually, the knot is in the upper back of Geezer's lovely wife, who requires Geezer to massage it when he would rather be doing other things, like re-reading the op-eds in yesterday's paper because today's paper has mysteriously disappeared. Again. At times like these, it's comforting to know that he may be excused from massage duty if he can direct his lovely wife to a some handy neck and back stress relief exercises, such as these, provided by L.A. Times yoga queen Karen Voight.
Step 1 Sit upright on the floor with your left leg crossed in front. Bring your right arm in front of your face. Wrap your left arm under the right, and bring the palms of your hands as close together as possible. Inhale and look up while raising your elbows and arching your upper spine. Pause for a moment.
Step 2 On an exhale, draw your navel to the spine, curl forward to round your back and bring your elbows down toward your waist. Tuck your chin in slightly and pause for a moment. Continue to repeat the movement until you have done it three times in each direction. Release your arms and repeat with the opposite leg crossed in front and the opposite arm on top.

For visual aids to the above exercises, click here.

More from Karen Voight.

Finally: Yoga for the Upper Body

Karen Voight, the excellent fitness czarina of the LA Times, thoughtfully passes on this yoga position that works like few yoga positions do, on the upper body.
Start here: Start on all fours with your knees below your hips and your hands below your shoulders. Raise your buttocks high into the air, and press your thighs back until your legs are straight. Keep stretching your buttocks up as you lower your heels to the floor. Now shift your weight over your left leg and raise your right leg above hip level.
Then do this: Keep your shoulders above your wrists as you slowly bend and lower your right knee to your chest. Round your back and pull your navel to your spine. Hold this position for three breaths, then return your leg up in the air, pause and lower to the floor. Repeat the pose raising your left leg.
For more tips from Karen Voight, click here. For more fitness news from the LA Times, click here. To visit a wonderfully comprehensive yoga site, click here.

Yoga for Athletes, or for Sex, You Choose

Geezer was about to direct his gentle readers to this  Men's Health piece on Yoga for Athletes, despite the middle school quality of the video, when he followed a link in the story to iYogaLife, and found this piece on Yoga for Hotter Sex. Then he thought, "Let the reader decide..."

How Not To Behave in Yoga Class