In fall 1999 I started going to the 5:30 p.m. yoga class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's offered through the Group Exercise Program, which is a great program and $20 well spent every semester. It's open to all faculty, staff, and students.

I've been swimming for fitness at the Blatt P.E. Center since 1982, but I fell in love with yoga. What I really enjoy about it is the physical challenge. It's very difficult, even though it appears not to be. It is physically strenuous and requires tremendous balance. My balance has improved unbelievably since 1999. Yoga also improves physical and mental focus. And relaxation--yoga has been phenomenal for me in terms of relaxation.

I like the people who do yoga: they are generally very open, sharing people, and they are concerned about others. Nobody makes fun of anyone. There are four levels of yoga--one, two, three, and four--and now I'm a three about to go to a four. But I could hardly come up on bridge (a yoga position) when I first started. In one of my first classes, I tried a three-person-assisted handstand and fell. Everyone clapped, and no one laughed.

Yoga is not a competitive sport. I warmed the bench as a Little Leaguer, but nobody makes me sit on the bench in yoga. I get to play.

The 5:30 yoga class is a tremendously unique experience: you get to exercise with faculty, staff, and students. We get to know each other, and we are supportive of each other. There are students in that class who will contact me with a campus problem and ask for advice. So I'm able to mentor students who aren't even engineering students.

It's a popular class, largely because we've been blessed with very good teachers. They are student instructors who have had training in yoga external to the University. Our teacher this semester is Tiffany Terrell, an Honors College senior in exercise science.

We meet in the ROTC building at the corner of Pickens and Wheat streets. They have mats and straps to assist in poses. We just show up wearing comfortable, loose-fitting clothing. I wear shorts and a t-shirt. Others in the class wear fitted tops and exercise pants. You don't need special shoes. Yoga is done barefooted, or you can wear socks, but contact between feet and mat is important.

Yoga as a subject is very interesting. It is not a religion, as some people think. Originally, it was a philosophy of life, and the exercise part developed much later. I've been taking a course on the origins of yoga at City Yoga, a studio in Five Points. I also practice yoga there several times a week.

11/07