Cranky knees forced me to find an alternative to jogging in high school, but my real love affair with yoga did not begin until my friend Kristen introduced me to Maha Yoga in LA during college. The owner of the studio, Steve Ross, is a former rocker turned monk who believes yoga is a celebration. At a time when yoga had become so mainstream, and sometimes uptight and ego-driven, his classes were fresh, fun and sweaty. His ear to ear smile and hip-hop laced playlists had me hooked...initially just for the workout. It was only after committing to semi-regular classes that I realized yoga is much more than a way to tone the physical body.
Yogis like to refer to the process as "peeling back the layers of the onion." Yoga starts with the physical postures or asanas, but it is in pushing your body to the edge of its limits that then starts to liberate the mind from its constant chatter. Once you get past worrying about the physical body and turn your awareness inside, the mind gets quiet. For me, that was then that I got my first few glimpses of peace--a reprieve from the broken record of counter-productive thoughts and useless worries plaguing my head on a day to day basis. The calm, refreshed, re-balanced feeling after a long Final Relaxation is what kept (and keeps) me coming back.
-For more on yoga and stress relief check out the article I wrote for F.A.C.T during the holidays.
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