By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune Published: July 11, 2012 Updated: July 11, 2012 - 8:43 AM

When yoga studio owner Francine Messano first organized "Yoga in the Park," a free one-hour class Sundays in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, the event drew about 10 people.

That was about two years ago, and momentum has been building gradually through word of mouth. Now, roughly 150 people show up rain or shine well, unless there's a tropical storm.

Classes begin at 6 p.m. Sundays. Attendees stretch their hamstrings and quadriceps, rotating hips out, relaxing necks, rotating upper bodies.

Their view: Tampa's signature park, the Hillsborough River and the minarets atop Plant Hall. Everyone loves the location, Messano said.

"Looking up at the sky, there's something powerful with just moving with the energy of nature," she said.

Added Melissa Carroll, who typically teaches the class: "It takes yoga out of its typical realm in the studio and certainly makes it more accessible to people."

The class is open to people of all ages and skill levels. Sometimes children participate in poses. Sometimes people in their 80s will give yoga a shot.

"People don't feel intimidated," said Messano, who runs Yoga Downtown Tampa at 206 E. Cass St.

Ellen Dominic of Riverside Heights and her husband came for a recent class. Dominic said it was her sixth yoga class in the park.

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Yoga takes over Curtis Hixon Park

Hiking is a magnificent way to get a workout while viewing nature. Rather than just walking or jogging on an excursion, why not incorporate yoga into your journey? Standing poses can easily be incorporated into your hike. So, next time you are ready for an outdoor adventure, take yoga with you on your hike for the following four reasons.

#1 Your muscles get stretched

During a hike your legs may get tired from long periods of walking. By taking breaks to perform yoga, you give your legs a chance to stretch in between periods of hiking. Stretching is important to prevent injuries, so it is a superb idea to perform several asanas before your walk that provide a wonderful warmup. The following poses are ideal for warming up:

Big Toe Pose (Padangusthasana)

This pose provides a superior stretch to both the thighs and calves, two muscle groups that are important to flex before a hike.

Chair Pose (Utkatasana)

The chair pose provides a marvelous method of stretching the shoulders and chest. In addition, it decreases flat feet, making it a supreme stretch before a backpacking journey.

#2 You get two workouts

Getting two workouts in one allows you to work different muscle groups, and you receive the benefits of hiking and yoga during one exercise session. Both hiking and many yoga poses prevent osteoporosis, making them a great combination. Hiking allows you to get a great cardiovascular workout, and standing asanas allow for relaxation, rejuvenation and stretching. Yoga also gives the heart beat a chance to slow down, making this an interval workout, and this type of workout is known to burn more fat and calories than other ones.

#3 You get the company of others hikers

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Four Reasons to Incorporate Yoga into Your Hike

A Bay Area yoga instructor has been fired from her job after a student she was teaching at the Facebook headquarters complained about the instructor's reaction to her in-class cell phone use.

Alice Van Ness, 35, has been teaching yoga since 2006. As a courtesy, as class begins she says she politely asks students to turn off their phones. But while teaching at the Facebook Fitness Center last month, the northern California native said one student -- who she says had been texting at the beginning of class began using her phone while she was demonstrating the difficult half moon pose.

"When she picked up her phone, I was surprised," Van Ness told ABC News. "I didn't know what to say. I just looked at her with this look of utter disbelief. Like, 'Really? You're going to do that right now?'"

That look of disapproval cost Van Ness her job with Plus One Health Management, the company that operates the gym out of Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., offices. Two weeks after the incident, Van Ness was dismissed by the company.

Van Ness says that the Facebook employee -- who she would only identify as "not [Facebook COO] Sheryl Sandberg" -- was in the middle of the front row of the class of about 10. When the class stopped as she typed on her phone, she quickly left the room. The woman then went to complain -- possibly directly to the Van Ness' manager -- that she felt humiliated by the incident.

Van Ness says that she didn't say anything to the woman, who shortly after making her complaint known, rejoined the class.

"I did not know what to say. I didn't want to make a huge deal out of it. It's the first time that someone did it, at such a time right in the middle of class," she says.

According to Van Ness, who has over 500 hours of training in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Seattle, there was no discussion with her supervisors as to what happened the day in question. She says that when she came in two weeks later, they had her final paycheck and termination papers ready.

Calls placed by ABC News to Plus One Health Management regarding the incident were not immediately returned. Slater Tow, a Facebook spokesman, told the Mercury News that since Van Ness is not its employee the company has no comment.

Van Ness told the Mercury News that her termination letter noted that the employee said Van Ness had "made a spectacle of her" during class by stopping instruction and glaring at her.

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Yoga Teacher at Facebook Fired Over Texting Student

SAN FRANCISCO -- The head coach of the defending national champs doesn't have one of those offices bigger than the local Kinko's. His office doesn't have a wide picture window that looks out over his 100,000-seat stadium or a handy remote control for the double doors to enter the place. Heck, there aren't double doors.

The place is the size of most college head coach's office bathrooms. Aside from its cramped dimensions, the thing you immediately notice are all of the photos of his former players framed on the walls. George Rush is proud of his guys, not just what they did for him at City College of San Francisco (CCSF), but what they became.

In less than a month, Rush's team will begin fall training camp. It's his 37th season as the Rams' head coach. They are a powerhouse in the junior college ranks as much as any program is at the Division I level. Rush annually sends more than a dozen of his starters into major college football, meaning he has to reload every season, yet he almost always does.

Over the past 13 seasons, Rush has led the Rams to seven national titles. This fall, the Rams are looking to repeat as national champs for the first time since they wrapped up a three-peat in 2001.

Rush arrived at CCSF 46 seasons ago. Like many of his players, Rush was a "bounce-back." His college career began someplace else. Rush admits he had a little too much fun in his freshman year at Santa Clara University, so he ended up enrolling at CCSF where he played at the school in the mid 1960s and was a teammate of O.J. Simpson.

The 64-year-old has seen more than his share of heart-breaking stories. He's also seen a lot of change, not just in the lives of the guys he coaches and hopes to develop, but also in the world in which they live.

What frustrates and angers Rush more than anything these days is the changes in the system that he says is squeezing his players in a way he says is appalling and unfair.

"Whenever I see those NCAA commercials when I watch March Madness, where they say 'these are our athletes, these are the leaders of America,' I wanna throw up," Rush says. He calls the NCAA "a monstrous monopoly," run by a bunch of "hypocrites."

In April, 2011, seven of Rush's CCSF players sued the NCAA and all of California's Division I public universities for unconstitutional discrimination regarding NCAA rules controlling junior college transfers. The case was prompted by the NCAA adding a requirement for junior college non-qualifiers to have passed two college English courses and one math course, something that didn't apply to any other student-athletes.

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For juco coaching legend Rush, fight against NCAA is all about playing fair

These days you can be coached to excel in just about anything and now one Queenstown centre is offering coaching in the broadest subjects of all - life.

The Nadi Wellbeing Centre is offering the "Personal Foundation Programme" for women who are interested in personal development in all aspects of their lives.

The "transformational course" aims to help women reorient their lives around self-care and encourage them to "get sorted" personally, mentally, physically and financially.

Organiser Amanda Woolridge took part in the course 15 years ago when first studying for a life-coaching course.

"It was life transforming for me and so I now deliver the programme locally, and so far 56 Queenstown women have also completed it and made positive changes in their lives."

The programme costs $392 per person and comprises eight weekly sessions starting on Tuesday, August 14, from 7.45pm. The course includes a workbook containing 12 "life lessons". The women will meet for an hour and a-half each week to share insights and receive support. Email amanda@xlcoaching.co.nz

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Aim of course to help women 'get sorted'

Today we ranked the Pac-12 coaching jobs -- an inexact science to say the least.

ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach took another angle: Underrated coaching jobs. And he tapped two from the Pac-12: Stanford and Washington.

Here's what he had to say:

Washington: The Huskies won a national championship under coach Don James in 1991, so there's no reason they shouldn't be more competitive in the Pac-12. Coach Steve Sarkisian, a former USC assistant, has expanded UW's recruiting base into California. Husky Stadium is finally getting a face-lift, so the Huskies will play this season at the Seattle Seahawks' CenturyLink Field. The $250 million project will remove the lower bowl of Husky Stadium and add a 40,000-square-foot football operations center, including a weight room and meeting rooms.

First off, when Mark writes about Stanford having "tougher admission standards that a lot of other schools," what he meant to say is admission standards that are higher THAN EVERY OTHER SCHOOL PLAYING FBS FOOTBALL.

I like these picks. Of course, "underrated" suggests a lot of things. Mostly I see it as a measure of a good place to be where you have a chance to win but a little less win-or-else pressure.

But are "underrated" jobs destination jobs? Or are the competitiveness and ambition -- required qualities in big-time college sports -- too overwhelming to prevent an eye from wandering. Sure, some guys who win big stick around second-tier jobs -- Boise State's Chris Petersen and Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer being two -- but it seems the vast majority of coaches are committed to the climb.

For most highly competitive sorts, they want to go to the most prestigious program, one that gives them the best chance to win national championships on a regular basis. And they'd want to see their name atop lists of highest paid coaches.

For some, though, there are other considerations, such as putting down roots and quality of life. And, perhaps, toning down the win-or-else reality of several big-time programs.

It will be interesting to watch Shaw at Stanford, his alma mater, and Sarkisian at Washington over the next few years. Shaw has been adamant that he already has his dream job and has no interest in going elsewhere. But what if he wins a national title and gets a call from the NFL? Same could be said of Sarkisian. Would he turn down the NFL? Heck, would he turn down, say, Florida if it ever became available?

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Underrated coaching jobs in Pac-12?

The United State Anti-Doping Agency announced lifetime bans for three former members of Lance Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service teams. The regulatory body revealed significant evidence against Armstrong and his associates in a published news release Tuesday. Team doctor Luis Garcia del Moral, consulting doctor Michele Ferrari and trainer Jose Marti declined to challenge allegations of a vast doping conspiracy before Monday's deadline, essentially accepting sanctions from the USADA. In the release, USADA outlined the doctor's clinical treatments in Spain during which saline infusions were given to mask prohibited blood transfusions and he "administered banned performance-enhancing drugs, including EPO, testosterone, corticosteroids and human growth hormone to cyclists." Moral was first accused by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis, convicted of doping in 2011, of being the brains of the doping program during his five-year stint as the team's primary physician from 1999-2003. "Permanently banning these individuals from sport is a powerful statement that protects the current and next generation of athletes from their influence, and preserves the integrity of future competition," USADA CEO Travis Tygart said in the statement. GOLF School is out for the PGA Tour -- Qualifying School, that is. The pressure-packed tournament known as the Qualifying School for years has determined which newcomers and journeymen will earn playing privileges on the tour for the following year. However, this year's Q-School will be the final edition before a new qualifying process is introduced in late 2013 for the 2014 tour. The most direct route to PGA Tour qualification will be through the Web.com Tour (formerly known as the Nationwide Tour). The top 25 finishers each year in the second-tier league will automatically move up to the big leagues the following year. The top 75 players from the Web.com Tour and players ranked Nos. 126-200 on the PGA Tour (the top players who failed to retain their PGA Tour cards) will enter a three-tournament series of $1 million events to be held in the fall. The first 25 from the Web.com Tour standings will play in the series in an attempt to enhance their playing priority for the following year, though they already will be assured of PGA Tour cards. Twenty-five additional players will move up based on their results in the three-event series. NHL The St. Louis Blues have re-signed unrestricted free agent Jamie Langenbrunner to a one-year deal according to TSN. The veteran forward will be 37 at the start of the 2012-13 season. He played one a one-year, $2.5 million deal last season and was named an assistant captain for the Blues to help the team transition during an early season coaching change to Ken Hitchcock. Langenbrunner scored six goals and tallied 24 points in 70 games last season. NASCAR NASCAR driver A.J. Allmendinger made his first public comments since he failed a drug test that led to his temporary suspension. Allmendinger requested NASCAR test his "B" sample, hoping it will produce a negative result. If that test does come up negative for banned substances, Allmendinger will be reinstated immediately. It the test is positive, he would be suspended indefinitely. The result is likely to take at least four or five days to produce. COLLEGE FOOTBALL Former Penn State president Graham Spanier was interviewed by former FBI director Louis Freeh on July 6 and, according to his attorneys, told the university-assigned independent investigator that he was never told of any incident involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. "At no time in the more than 16 years of his presidency at Penn State was Dr. Spanier told of an incident involving Jerry Sandusky that described child abuse, sexual misconduct or criminality of any kind," said attorney Peter Vaira in a statement. Grand jury testimony released in November indicated otherwise, and recent email correspondence leaked to national media and published by CNN would imply Spanier had direct knowledge of at least the 2001 incident reported by graduate assistant Mike McQueary. The findings of the Freeh Report are expected to be released Thursday morning. COLLEGE BASKETBALL Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery signed a seven-year contract extension with the Hawkeyes worth a minimum average of $1.66 million per season. McCaffery has raised expectations in Iowa City since replacing Todd Lickliter in 2010. The Hawkeyes reached the postseason in March, and McCaffery said the logical progression is to return to the NCAA Tournament in 2013 with a team that will be missing only two players from last season, supplemented by a top-20 ranked recruiting class. SOCCER Soccer legend Diego Maradona has been fired as the coach of the Al-Wasl club in the United Arab Emirates after one year on the job. Maradona, 51, led the team to an eighth-place finish in the 12-team league. The Dubai-based club had given him a two-year contract in May 2011, but he was removed with a year remaining on the deal. Al-Wasl sacked the entire coaching staff, the team announced in a statement.

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Press Box: Three Armstrong medical allies banned for life by USADA

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pq2rk6/emotional_intellig) has announced the addition of John Wiley and Sons Ltd's new book "Emotional Intelligence in Action: Training and Coaching Activities for Leaders, Managers, and Teams, 2nd Edition" to their offering.

The importance of emotional intelligence as a critical factor in personal and business success is now well established. Emotional Intelligence in Action, Second Edition shows how to tap the power of EI to build effective emotional skills and create real change for leaders and teams.

This book breaks new ground in providing a cross-reference matrix that maps sixty-five exercises to four leading emotional intelligence models - the EQ-I 2.0 or EQ360, TESI and TESI Short, the MSCEIT, and EISA - making it easy to use with all the models.

Revised to respond to the significant changes in EQi-2.0 and to add two new instruments, TESI and EISA, this Second Edition now offers in-depth coverage of such emerging topics as emotional expression, as well as twenty new exercises, accompanied by reproducible handouts for your participants.

Ideal for both individual or team coaching or as part of a wider leadership and management development program, Emotional Intelligence in Action, Second Edition provides highly-effective experiential learning, drawn from real life, that will help you enhance emotional intelligence competencies in every organization.

About the Authors

Marcia Hughes, president of Collaborative Growth, serves as a strategic communications partner for organizations and trainers and is a professional speaker. She offers emotional intelligence training and coaching and is a certified trainer in the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ360, and TESI.

James Bradford Terrell, vice president of Collaborative Growth, provides coaching in emotional and communication skillfulness and organizational competency development for individuals, teams in transition, and senior leaders. He coaches leaders and teams using the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ360 and TESI.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pq2rk6/emotional_intellig.

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Research and Markets: Emotional Intelligence in Action: Training and Coaching Activities for Leaders, Managers, and ...

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUoixaP1fOU

10-07-2012 09:33 The Mountbatten Centre is the south coasts premier sports and fitness facility. Fresh from a £20 million redevelopment, the centre offers members a 50m swimming pool, brand new fitness suite & studio, running & cycling tracks, a comprehensive programme of workout classes and a luxurious sauna, steam and spa area. For more information on the latest offers call 02392 626502.

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Health and Fitness at the Mountbatten Centre, Portsmouth - Video

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

NOTED wellness center Fitness First may have to change its policy on lack of liability over lost items after the Court of Appeals (CA) ordered it to pay a lawyer whose cellphone, uniform and wallet were allegedly stolen in one of its branches.

In 2006, lawyer Rommel delos Reyes complained to the management of Fitness First-Robinson's Manila about the disappearance of his personal belongings but the management said it cannot be held liable citing the provision in the membership agreement and notices posted on its walls.

Post your condolences to Dolphy's family

But in a decision penned by Associate Justice Antonio Villar, the CA said the reported loss "constitutes negligence and dereliction of its duties and responsibilities as operator of a health and wellness establishment."

"Fitness First, being a health club establishment is clearly bound to provide not only a comfortable working-out atmosphere for its members but also a security to their persons and belongings," the courts ninth division said on July 2.

Echoing the arguments presented by the Makati City Regional Trial Court which favored delos Reyes complaint, the CA found out that Fitness First failed to conduct an investigation especially that it holds the master key that could open all lockers.

As a result, the appellate court opened the possibility of one of the employees carting away delos Reyes belongings since they have access to the master key.

The CA also slammed the membership agreement that exempts Fitness First from any liability for losses, saying this is illegal under Article 2003 of the Civil Code.

Said provision provides that the hotel keeper cannot free himself from responsibility by posting notices to the effect that he is not liable for the articles brought by the guest, but the CA said like hotels, the operation of health and wellness centers are imbued with public interest.

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Fitness First ordered to pay for stolen items of a member