Stiles doesn't manipulate her clients physically or mentally. During our class, instead of forcing me "deeper" into certain poses or correcting my poor form with her long, tapered fingers, she simply advises me on a better way to go about getting into position which explains the success of her DVDs, This is Yoga and Yoga Anywhere. She's nobody's "master" she says, and she doesn't want anybody "pledging allegiance" to her at the end of a class.

"Anytime I do get someone doing that kind of thing I just toss it back at them," she shrugs. "Sometimes people get overwhelmed and they come up to you after a session crying and saying that you're changing their life. I make sure I tell them that it's them, not me who's doing anything."

It's too much pressure for her to take, she says. Besides, what she's telling them is true. "A lot of the time when people make a change and they feel good, they think that the change is coming from outside and they want to hand that power over to somebody else, but actually it's all coming from them. The thing about yoga is that it activates parts of your body and brain that aren't usually activated."

It's hard to separate fact from mythology with yoga. After 20 minutes of gentle stretching movements with Stiles (of the two she teaches I decide to opt for the "relax" class rather than the "strong") I certainly feel better but I don't know if that's a combination of Stiles's husky yogic tones and blood to the head, or something more. It doesn't feel like exercise yet my tank top is damp by the end. And I can feel my heart beating. "In the strong classes everybody sweats buckets," she assures me. "It not only lengthens your limbs but you lose weight, too."

This is a subject of some contention in the yoga nerds' blogosphere, where Stiles was accused of pitching yoga as another "quick weight-loss tool". "I don't care what Tara Stiles says yoga is," one instructor raged. "It's not about making your body beautiful." This only prompts another ladette laugh from Stiles. "People want to make the body and mind separate but you are your body. Yoga is about making your mind clearer and your body beautiful. You will lose weight with yoga, because everything just starts to work better. Your insides work better and because it makes you feel better you start to eat healthier."

The yoga aristocrats may have been antagonistic to Stiles to begin with, but the longer her success continues and the larger her empire becomes (she has opened a studio in West Hollywood, plans to spend an increasing amount of time in London and is helping Bill Clinton bring yoga to US schools as part of his Alliance For a Healthier Generation initiative) the kinder they've become. "I think they're starting to realise that I'm not taking anything away I'm just adding to what's already there. I'm not attacking anybody: I just want people to see that you don't have to be a part of some elite club to like yoga."

At Strala, Stiles gets a whole jumble of characters. There are the businesswomen and men, who "come after work and walk home in their sweats and their brogues", the seven- and eight-year-olds who come in with their parents and the 60- and 70-year-olds. On Saturday mornings, she also gets the hungover and sleep-deprived young, hip crowd for whom she has designed a special "yoga for hangovers" class. "Actually most of the people who come on Saturdays seem to be hungover," she laughs, "but I like that they don't feel like they can't come in just because they went partying the night before."

I get the feeling Stiles had a pretty lively youth herself. The daughter of a couple of "straight-edged hippies" from Newton, Illinois, she "used to do everything", she says. "But nowadays my boyfriend and I don't drink that much and we try to eat healthy."

It was while she was still dreaming of becoming a ballerina that Stiles discovered yoga. "It made me feel the same way I felt as a little girl, when I would go and meditate in the woods near our house," she says. She recently went back to Newton, yoga mat under one arm, to make a documentary on bringing yoga to the small-town folk of Illinois. "They had tons of misconceptions but by the end they were, like, 'this feels good and it doesn't conflict with my church'."

Whatever it was that Stiles made me do down on the carpet of that East Village loft did feel good. I wasn't expecting to meet a religious leader when I rang her doorbell but I was expecting a spiritual zealot.

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Tara Stiles: 'Yoga is not an elite club'

The art of yoga may be more than 5,000 years old, but it is still possible to come up with new twists.

Alongside traditional and slow-flow classes, studios and organizations across the county have been personalizing yoga workouts by gender, age and in the case of downtowns The Yoga Place those who love chocolate.

For males, the Midland Country Club in response to suggestions by a staff golf professional created Zen for Men.

What you find with yoga is its a very intimidating class for a lot of people, Midland Country Club Fitness Director Jennifer Spiegel said.

The weekly class is attended primarily by men 40 and older, as well as those who want to work out athletic injuries or improve their golf game, she said.

Its boomed, Spiegel said. Its one of our popular classes.

In her 10 years at The Yoga Place, men and teenagers alike have shown interest, owner Kim Scott said.

Ive seen more people looking to yoga actually more teens and men, she said. My classes definitely in the past couple of years have become more popular, more attended.

The Midland Community Center began offering classes a year or so ago because of member interest, Wellness Manager Jodi Spiker said.

Among these is Restorative Yoga a class focused on holding five to six positions for 15 or 20 minutes at a time to bring ones body into a very relaxed state, Spiker said.

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Yoga classes offering new twists on ancient art

Melbourne, Feb 11 : A US based Hindu group said they are critical of turning yoga into a competitive sport as "2013 Australian National Yoga Asana Championship" was held at Melbourne on February 10, and find the idea "particularly unsettling". Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA), said that yoga, a reportedly pre-Indus Valley civilization practice, was a mental and physical discipline, a code of ascetic practices, and a feature of contemplation in Hinduism.

Believed to be founded by Yajnavalkya and codified later by Patanjali in Yoga-sutra, it was an integral part of Hinduism, he said.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, argued that idea of yoga as a competitive sport was contradictory to the basic core of yoga, and smelled of mercantile greed in a consumerist society.

"It gave the appearance of contortionists at a circus focused on winning trophies. Pushing this spiritual and inward-looking practice with long held traditions for competition and making it a public performance was distortion of its originally intended idea and plainly just 'missing the point', said Zed.

"Let us please leave the sacred in yoga intact and protect it from push culture," he stressed.

Zed pointed out that 'yoga', which had come to mean in the West as 'modern postural yoga', was actually a mental and physical discipline by means of which the human soul united with universal soul.

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US Hindus find Melbourne yoga competition unsettling

When local singer-songwriter Ida Jo started reciting Sanskrit passages during a recent interview it was easy to imagine the words were designed to raise the dead or to open some secret passage buried deep beneath the Egyptian pyramids.

The truth, it turns out, is far more pedestrian.

Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu, she said, means may all beings be happy and free.

The passage is one of many chanted during yoga classes run by Vinyasa Mantra Music, a new musical endeavor featuring Jo, longtime musical cohort Scott Lamps (the two also perform together in laid-back folk trio Bello) and local yoga instructors Ken Kloes and David Lincecum.

Kloes and Lincecum initially conceived of the class last summer and approached then-students Jo and Lamps to assist with the musical aspect.

I think music and yoga go hand-in-hand, said Jo. Therell be teachers that play Lady Gaga or something, and then there will be teachers that play very meditative music thats really slow and peaceful. Then theres everything in between.

Vinyasa Mantra Music performances tend towards the more peaceful end of the spectrum, with Jo and Lamps providing acoustic instrumentation (Lamps plays guitar, Jo violin) for the classes, which generally run about two hours in length. The sessions include a full yoga workout, as well as additional time for reflection and meditation.

Theres a section in the class where David talks to people about what they want more of in their life, said Jo. And people actually have paper and a pencil and write that down, and then use that for meditation.

But the most important element of the class and the one most first timers are usually more hesitant to embrace is the chanting.

Its fun to see the progression of the class, because in the beginning people are like, Oh, I dont know how much I want to sing or how loudly I want to sing, said Jo. Then towards the end everybody is really singing and really into it. The energy from the beginning of the class to the end of the class changes quite dramatically.

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Local yoga enthusiasts unwind to live music

Avery Fallon, a second grader in Ms. Lamar's class at Winter Park Elementary does Yoga during recess on Feb. 2, 2013.

There are bellowing grunts coming from the playground of Winter Park Elementary School. But they're not loud enough.

"Make some noise!" yells yoga instructor Ryan Williams, bringing his arms over his head, pulling them down like he's chopping wood and letting out a howl. Constance Lamar's second-graders, mimicking his motions, respond with hollers of their own (and a few giggles). But they need to get even louder.

"I can't hear you!" yoga instructor Matteo Zacchino says in a teasing singsong. That produces another round of whoops from the grinning students as they continue "chopping wood."

The exercise is part of Winter Park Elementary's recess yoga program, which is stretching students' bodies and their vocal cords throughout the month of February. The program serves a dual purpose: It gives students a breather and helps them refocus in the middle of the day, while also letting local yoga instructors give back.

The program was born out of an idea that Matteo Zacchino, owner of local Be Unlimited Yoga studio, had while coaching a Cape Fear Soccer Club team. A little bit of yoga before practice left Zacchino amazed at how much more focused his players were, and he decided to adapt the idea for recess at Winter Park Elementary, where his son Dante is a student.

Students in second, third and fifth grade practice for a half-hour during recess three days a week. All through February, Zacchino and instructors from his studio are donating their time for the recess yoga. They're hoping to raise $2,000 to keep the program going longer and bring it to more schools.

Instructors Ryan Williams, Tara Blackburn and Brandi Craddock use different methods to keep the kids engaged, like getting the students to act out the names of poses: A balancing pose with legs spread wide and arms held out to the sides turns the students into warriors. They also offer constant encouragement, asking children how they feel and giving high-fives for good form.

Second-grader Dorothy Delgar is a fan of her daily stretches.

"It calms us down when we're really frustrated," she said.

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Yoga stretches bodies, minds at Winter Park Elementary

WILLIAM BENDER, Daily News Staff Writer benderw@phillynews.com, 215-854-5255 Posted: Monday, February 11, 2013, 3:01 AM

You're probably thinking that those words don't go together. Not like, say, drugs and crime.

But you're not Jennifer Bedrick.

The 34-year-old mother is bringing free yoga to Upper Darby in an effort to fight addiction - and all the neighborhood problems that come with it - one sun salutation at a time.

"I've done yoga in the city and in Narberth, but it's like a void here. I realized this would be a good community project," said Bedrick, whose past has included a few addictions, from nicotine to sugar to "more recreational things."

In December, Bedrick implemented her 90-classes-in-90-days concept by gathering a few yoga instructors to teach at the boxing and karate gym on West Chester Pike.

The classes are open to the community, but especially to residents looking for a mental and physical edge to combat drug or alcohol addiction - or any other type of addiction. Donations are welcome.

"Yoga and kickboxing have been my yin and my yang," Bedrick, who has worked in personal training said. "And meditation. Things started to make sense. I found myself being happier.

"You're trying to breathe through something that's difficult, knowing it's not going to last forever," she said. "You're getting stronger, and the next time you go into that pose it's a little easier, because you've been there before. Taking what you learn on the mat and applying it to life helps."

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Upper Darby trainer says yoga can reduce drug addiction