Yoga has become a fad. Ten years ago, it was impossible to find yoga mats, clothes and accessories in stores like Wal-Mart. At best, one could find a yoga workout DVD from the public library and give it their best shot in their living room.

Now, opening a yoga studio is automatically viewed as a smart investment, as long as the classes are ones that the community can afford. The physical benefits of yoga are almost too good to be true, and the mental stillness it brings to any busy person is tempting.

I do yoga, and have consistently taken classes for the past two years. Like most people, I started because I wanted a good workout. When I first did hot vinyasa, or fast-paced yoga in a room of at least 90 degrees, I realized Id found the most physically and mentally challenging activity Id ever done. Always pushing myself, I made myself go back and do yoga until it was no longer the hardest thing I had ever done. What I found was much more than overcoming a physical challenge.

The practice of physical yoga is called Hatha yoga and is just one aspect of the yogic path, which is a life path. The yogis of the east have adopted contortionist movements, as well as an entirely yogic way of viewing the world.

The Self Realization Fellowship, founded by the Yogi and teacher Paramahansa Yogananda, publishes the most comprehensive definitions and types of yoga.

The fellowship outlines the types of yoga: Hatha, which is the yoga we all know, the movement between poses for the purpose of physical purity, preparing us for meditation; Karma Yoga, which is service to others without expectation of something in return; Mantra Yoga, which is using words or phrases and repeating them to center ourselves; Bhakti Yoga, or striving to see the love/god/divinity in everything; Jnana Yoga, or using wisdom and your smarts to distinguish between what is healthy and not; and finally, Raja Yoga, which is the synthesis of all these yogic practices.

Yoga literally means unity. If you also do yoga, perhaps ask yourself what sort of practice it is. What is your intention in doing yoga? A workout? A meditation? Both? A new perspective on the world? Whatever your reasons may be, know that yoga can be a powerful tool for personal transformation and the transformation of the world. Id rather not say that I do yoga, as it makes it a separate activity apart from my day-to-day life.

Instead, Ill say that Ive chosen to live yoga and to adopt not only the physical practice, but the other aspects as well, which ultimately challenges and influences the way I see the world.

By choosing to live yoga, you are choosing unity between your body and mind, your spirit and the exterior world, and yourself and others.

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Weekly Zen: Integrate yoga into your life

Starting its eighth year, Yoga Springs is expanding into Springfield, with a new studio in the Bushnell building downtown. Shown above in the studio is business owner Monica Hasek. Yoga Springs is offering free yoga classes on the hour at its Springfield studio this Saturday, April 14, as a grand opening event. (Photo by Lauren Heaton)

Yoga Springs is now 8 years old and stretching out into a new old space at the heart of downtown Springfield. While the local studio has opened the village to a lot of strengthening, balance and deep breathing, owner Monica Hasek felt ready to offer those same tools to the wider community. And when Springfields newly renovated, historic Bushnell building came calling, she could hardly refuse.

Springfield came to us, and there was no saying no, she said.

The new studio will open its doors for a grand opening this Saturday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The studio will offer free classes on the hour, with a schedule available at http://www.yogasprings.com. The building is located at 14 East Main Street, and has its own parking garage, which Bushnell building patrons can use free of charge with a pass from the business.

The invitation to Springfield came organically. Feeling that the studio had sufficiently saturated the local community with yoga pracititioners, Hasek had begun looking for a second studio space in the region. Because Yoga Springs is one of just three dedicated yoga studios in the Miami Valley, it draws patrons from Xenia, Fairborn, Beavercreek and Springfield. Dottie Clark, one of the Springfield yogis, recently leased some of the office space in the Bushnell building for her Ayurvedic medicine practice and thought a yoga studio next door would complement her practice.

Bushnell property owner Jim Lagos agreed. In 2010 Lagos, who is related to Brown apartment owner Tina Lagos, used a $5 million Jobs Ready Site Grant to complete a $10 million renovation of the 175,000-square-foot building, according to the Springfield News-Sun. Named after two-term Ohio governor Asa Bushnell, who built the structure in 1893, the building was designed by the firm Shipley, Rutan and Coolidge, who designed the Chicago Art Institute and library, and was considered worth not just saving but rebuilding as a LEEDS Platinum certified structure.

As it happens, before coming to yoga, Hasek worked as a commercial designer and had the expertise to design her own studio. Hasek gave six months of professional advice, and got a clean, modern, energy efficient new studio overlooking city fountains on an even trade.

This has been really a gift, Hasek said. We have been asked to be here, and they have made it possible for us.

For now, the new studio will be open Tuesday through Saturday, with a few classes each day. The Yellow Springs location will continue to host the majority of the weeks schedule. The two locations will help the studio utilize all of its 18 teachers, the majority of whom Hasek has trained in the studios teacher training program and certified through the National Yoga Alliance.

At close to 3,000 square feet, the Springfield space is about a third larger than the one in the village, and it can accommodate larger events, such as the teacher training classes or the master teacher workshops, like the one Yoga Springs hosted last weekend for Lynne Minton. The expansion has inspired the studio to plan an advanced 500-hour teacher training program with Minton, who is tentatively scheduled to come for eight five-day residencies over the next two years to teach high level yoga.

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Yoga Springs stretches to Springfield

Yoga has become a popular option for alternative health management.

Research has shown the practice can significantly reduce mental and physical stress, improve mood, and slow the aging process.

But some yogis believe many of the estimated 20 million U.S. students are missing the best part of the discipline: the inner happiness attainable through a healthy mind-body connection. They also worry about injuries that result when beginners tackle poses and exercises without proper guidance. There are so many disciplines of yoga, and with its rich history, the beginner can easily get lost, or worse, injured, said Mary Jo

Ricketson, an experienced yoga practitioner and healthcare specialist

and author of Moving Meditation. A registered nurse, she also holds a Master's degree in education from Northwestern University, and her approach is one that emphasizes the interaction of mind and body. This reciprocal relationship maximizes health benefits, and has exponentially positive consequences beyond the individual.

People have been practicing yoga for thousands of years. In the West, the practice has integrated with our culture leading to variations including extreme yoga. Ricketson warns this sort of exercise can alienate beginners, who may not be ready to jump in the deep end first. Without the proper training and guidance, she adds, beginners risk injuring their neck, lower back, knees and shoulders.

Here are seven things beginners -- and anyone practicing yoga -- should know to maximize their benefits:

1. Cardiovascular (aerobic) training: As with meditation, focused breathing is a cornerstone of mind-body training. Aerobic means with oxygen and aerobic movement increases the flow of oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, including the brain. Cardiovascular training is the single most important aspect of physical training because it keeps the heart open and strong.

2. Core and strength training: This includes the abdomen and buttocks, and the lower back. Many may not know this extends to the base of the skull, where strength, stability and balance originate.

3. Flexibility training (yoga postures): Stretching simply feels good, and it reminds students to not only be more flexible in one's body, but also one's mind. This allows us to move, and live, with greater ease.

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Yoga: Avoid beginner's mistakes while attaining a well of happiness

Celebrity yoga instructor Tara Stiles has been teaching people for years how to heal through the power of yoga. In her new book, Yoga Cures, Stiles gives simple routines that can help alleviate more than 50 common ailments, ranging from hangovers to broken hearts.

"A little bit of meditation and simple movements have a way of getting everything out of your body and your mindIt brings out the organs, and gets your nervous system going and gets the brain activated," Stiles, who also is the founder of Strala Yoga in New York, N.Y., told FoxNews.com.

For something like a hangover, Stiles recommends a basic twist to help lessen the sluggish feelings. A headstand can also help though beginners should only apply a little pressure to the head.

"As you inhale, you make a little more room in your body, and as you exhale, twisting sort of gives pressure to the organs and wrings out toxins and things like that, Stiles said.

Yoga can even ease some of the pain of getting dumped. Studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association have shown that broken heart syndrome, known clinically as stress cardiomyopathy, actually mimics some of the symptoms of a heart attack. Stiles said a simple tree pose can help bring balance to a persons life and move on.

Stiles also includes beauty tips in her book, such as a quick, easy way to fix bags under the eyes.

"You can rub your hands together pretty quickly, she said, Create some heat there, and then close your eyes and press the heels of your hands into your eyeballs. Stay there for a few breaths, and it really brings some energy and circulation and life into the eyes and gives you that refreshed feeling."

For more tips including fixes for cellulite, allergies and ADD check out Stiles book Yoga Cures and her website, tarastiles.com.

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Yoga routines to fix common ailments

JUST AFTER NEWS that Bobby Petrino was involved in a motorcycle mishap, lied to the media about it, withheld information from his bosses, was found to have at least one mistress and eventually was fired as the Arkansas head football coach, Steve Spurrier opined on the situation.

It did not used to be this way in college coaching, Spurrier said.

Although not his intention, Spurrier provided a rather succinct and worldly look at the dramatic and altering landscape of coaching at all levels over the past decade or so.

In fact, coaching generally is not what it used to be in just about every sport and at just about every level. For the sake of argument, though, lets narrow the focus of discussion to coaching in major-college football and in all of professional sports.

There are no numbers to confirm this, but you have to believe there were fewer scandals involving coaches as late as the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the scandal then dealt primarily with violations of NCAA rules. If Bear Bryant was cheating anywhere other than in recruiting, it certainly was not reported.

Those were likely the last days of an era in which college football coaches were viewed as role models for athletes. Going back further, it is easy to romanticize about the days when Knute Rockne and Bud Wilkinson served as father figures to their players. They were leaders, bent on developing young men as much as winning football games.

Coaches really are not coaches anymore, at least not at the major-college football level and at least not in the way we used to think of coaches. As salaries for coaches have skyrocketed, and university presidents and athletics directors have ceded power to men wearing whistles around their necks, the profession has changed drastically.

Anyone who believes college athletics is about sports and the games that are played has not been paying attention. Every major college now operates a multi-million dollar business called intercollegiate athletics. Athletics directors are the CEOs of these businesses, and head football coaches mens basketball coaches at some schools are the chief fund-raisers.

Because winning games directly correlates to increased revenues for the business, it has taken the highest priority at most institutions.

If an athletics department can hook on with a top fund-raiser (coach) who can win games and championships, then that person is paid handsomely. In most cases today, the chief fund-raiser (coach) is paid many times more annually than the president of the school and its athletics director.

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Morris: Coaching simply a business

Thu, 19 Apr 12:42:00 2012

Top British swimmer Liam Tancock has emphasised how world class coaching is critical in giving athletes the best chance of Olympic success.

Tancock, 26, is Team GBs foremost male swimming hope for London 2012 in a squad studded with female stars.

And he says that coaching he received as an eight-year-old forms the backbone of his challenge today.

The stuff I was taught when I was eight I still put into practice today it helped me get to the [100m] Olympic final in Beijing [in 2008], he told Eurosport.

For example, a great start in swimming is very important: I was taught to dry my hands before getting in, in order to get a better grip on the bar. Little things like that.

Growing up I had a great coach called John Randall until the age of 18. From then to now Ive had Ben Titley. I learned some great things about life from my coaches: they help me prepare for competition and get my body and mind ready.

Great coaches make great athletes, in all sports. Because of that Im involved in a campaign that aims to get young guys into coaching, with scholarships available.

Ive done some qualifications myself, but I dont have time at the moment to do any coaching as heading towards the Olympics Im focused on competing but Ive done a few swim clinics recently.

A double world champion in the 50 metre backstroke, Tancock also holds the world record time in that discipline. However the 50 is not an Olympic event so he will instead challenge over 100m in London in July and August.

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London 2012 - Tancock: Coaching key to British success

Thu, 19 Apr 12:26:00 2012

Top British swimmer Liam Tancock has emphasised how world class coaching is critical in giving athletes the best chance of Olympic success.

Tancock, 26, is Team GBs foremost male swimming hope for London 2012 in a squad studded with female stars.

And he says that coaching he received as an eight-year-old forms the backbone of his challenge today.

The stuff I was taught when I was eight I still put into practice today it helped me get to the [100m] Olympic final in Beijing [in 2008], he told Eurosport.

For example, a great start in swimming is very important: I was taught to dry my hands before getting in, in order to get a better grip on the bar. Little things like that.

Growing up I had a great coach called John Randall until the age of 18. From then to now Ive had Ben Titley. I learned some great things about life from my coaches: they help me prepare for competition and get my body and mind ready.

Great coaches make great athletes, in all sports. Because of that Im involved in a campaign that aims to get young guys into coaching, with scholarships available.

Ive done some qualifications myself, but I dont have time at the moment to do any coaching as heading towards the Olympics Im focused on competing but Ive done a few swim clinics recently.

A double world champion in the 50 metre backstroke, Tancock also holds the world record time in that discipline. However the 50 is not an Olympic event so he will instead challenge over 100m in London in July and August.

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Tancock: Coaching key to British success

MIAMI (CBS4) Christine Silva was stressed trying to balance work and family, with no time left over for herself.

I was constantly exhausted. I felt like I was never able to keep up, said Silva.

So she tried something new. She hired a Wellness Coach to help her regain control of her life.

Within the very first session, I realized this is not about just getting exercise. It was about how do I see myself and where do I want to be, explained Silva.

A Wellness Coach takes a holistic approach, focusing the body and the mind. They meet clients one-on-one and create an individualized health plan.

Margaret Moore is CEO of Wellcoaches Corporation. The coach is really trained to help you take a bigger picture of you, over all aspects of your health and wellness and then come up with a formula that combines all of these things together.

Wellness coaching used to focus on helping individuals cope with one particular disease. And Life coaching was reserved for busy executives. But now its more mainstream for anyone, and its endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine.

Christinas been working with her coach for two years and says her life has changed

Im more relaxed almost on a almost daily basis, Christina explained.

Of course hiring the right coach is key. So ask a lot of questions about fees, whats offered, communication, and how many times you meet.

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Reset Your Life With Wellness Coaching

Dear Mothers (yes, all of you)

Oh please, oh please, give yourselves and each other a break.

Consider this an early Mothers Day present. I have no stake here except to be an objective outsider who sees much. Im not a parent and never wanted to be, so I speak out of concern for the many mothers I love and even the ones I dont know personally but whose angst is palpable.

Its all about this: Finding a way to peace about your decisions regarding your life as a parent.

Because clearly if one comment by Hilary Rosen a comment clearly made in the context of a conversation on CNNs Anderson 360 about PAID work can set off a firestorm of wrath where youre fighting each other about your decisions (again), there is a reason to go within and examine them. When we feel defensive about anything, it is a sign to stop and look at the situation. I tell this to my life coaching clients all the time and we work on where their sensitivity might be originating. Get in there and understand why a quip angers you or hurts your feelings.

I practice what I preach here, albeit in a different context. In a dialogue with a friend recently, I shared that I enjoy life as an independent contractor most of the time but every so often I find myself wondering if I made the right choice. The hours can be erratic, as is the money flow. But there is great freedom, too, and it works with my body rhythms. Overwhelmingly, my thoughts bring me back to yes, this is indeed the way of life that is best for me. However, if and when that changes, I will address it and alter my course.

So must mothers. A life path you chose two years ago might not necessarily be working now. Re-evaluate it thoughtfully. This applies to everyone, really, but I am especially thinking about mothers because of what Ive been hearing and reading in the wake of the political dustup created to put women in a twist last week. It worked like a charm.

Almost every day I delight in how mothers are their own best support system for each other, but also feel dismayed that they are the most vicious in cutting each others choices down. Why must your next door neighbor Sally approve of your decision to work part-time while raising your children? Why does that matter to you? And, if youre in the judgmental Sally category, what is it about your choice that bothers you so much youre projecting your uncertainty on to others in a way designed to hurt?

We as women so easily get into please validate me mode, dont we? Goodness, its exhausting.

For me, this last week of criticizing each others choices isnt about race or class or geography or who has a car elevator. Its not about political persuasion. Its about making a decision for yourself and your child and then knowing that at times youll feel great about it and at other times youll feel shaky and question yourself. Find peace in that reality.

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Life Coaching Mothers of All Stripes

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUmLPAA0HP4

17-04-2012 22:56 (Coalition of Bambang Health & Fitness Clubs) Promoting Health and Fitness thru this contest, held at Bambang Auditorium, Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya Philippines. (4th day event of the Panggayjaya 2012/Bambang Town Fiesta) Theme: "sound body, sound mind"

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Bambang Bikini Open 2012_part 1 - Video