Rebekah Liscio walks into the fencing room of Archbold Gymnasium, looking tired, her backpack falling off her shoulder. She sets her belongings down in the corner and pulls out a blue yoga mat and rolls it out in the center of the room.

Sitting down on the mat, Liscio stretches her legs out in front of her, extending her fingers toward her toes, her eyes fluttering shut as a look of content spreads across her face.

Yoga instructor Clay Strange addresses the class, telling them to begin clearing their minds and leaving all their worries and stresses outside of the room. The room becomes silent, save for a hypnotic soundtrack of violins and percussion playing in the background.

Liscio, a political science graduate student, is warming up for her weekly yoga class, one of the fastest-growing classes at Syracuse University’s Recreational Services and one of the most popular forms of exercise across the nation.

‘The schedule for yoga classes is huge,’ said Eliza Decker, assistant director of fitness, wellness and aquatics at Rec Services. ‘Over the past year I’ve had to keep adding more classes, more instructors. Even just a year ago, there weren’t this many.’

Rec Services currently offer 18 mind and body classes, which are predominately yoga but also include pilates and T’ai Chi classes – two exercises similar in style to yoga. There have been four classes added just this year, Decker said.

Yoga is an exercise program that combines breathing exercises, different body postures and meditation that started out as a mental exercise but now incorporates both mental and physical activity.

Amy Bidwell, a graduate student in exercise science, said there is a wide spectrum of yoga classes – some focus more on meditation, while others might stress losing weight.

‘A lot of yoga today is a lot more fitness-based,’ said Bidwell, a certified yoga instructor. ‘I think college students are interested in it for that, for burning fat. And it’s shown to be a pretty beneficial form of exercise.’

Physical gains from yoga include increased muscle tone, improved flexibility and a way to lower blood pressure. The different postures yoga students go through involve contorting the body in different positions to stretch muscles and improve coordination. One pose, the warrior, requires the person to balance all of his or her body weight on one leg with the rest of his body basically lying on that leg, parallel to the floor.

Despite the physical strain, yoga started out as a practice that focused on one’s spiritual side.

Yoga originated as a spiritual practice in India as early as 3000 BC and was used as a form of meditation and worship. It is still used heavily in Hinduism and Buddhism as a form of worship.

‘It’s an example of something Eastern being westernized,’ said Tim Fairchild, a professor of exercise science at the College of Human Ecology. ‘It’s like a Japanese person going to a Japanese restaurant here in Syracuse; it’s not the same as back home. People see it as a way to lose weight rather than a meditative process.’

The yoga trend reached American shores by the way of celebrities. Fairchild added once celebrities put yoga in the spotlight, the exercise became ‘in vogue’ – now it’s almost impossible to find a gym that doesn’t offer a yoga class.

Still, several millenniums after its creation, the mental aspect of yoga remains key to the exercise. Yoga classes at Rec Services focus on both the physical process of going through the postures and also the mental exercise of relaxation and meditation.

‘I get to be such a ball of nerves throughout the week that yoga really helps me to calm down,’ said Rebecca Smith, the wife of an SU student enrolled in a Rec Services class. ‘When I’m done I’m a lot more relaxed.’

What separates yoga from typical forms of exercise like running and cardio is that it incorporates breathing methods and meditation. The techniques help participants clear their mind, Strange, an instructor said.

During one of his classes, Strange reminds students to breathe and empty their minds from all of their stress and worries.

Yoga student Kendra Shorter said the emphasis on relaxation was the main reason she decided to take the class.

‘I had a big course load last semester, and I thought it would help me relax and get through the semester easier,’ said Shorter, a senior advertising major. ‘It definitely helped.’

Decker, who coordinates the yoga classes, says she notices students are surprised by how much of a workout yoga is for their body and their mind.

‘They come out of it a lot more flexible and with a lot more muscle strength and a lot less stress,’ Decker said. ‘They always say ‘There’s so much sweating.’ Students don’t think they’ll be sweating as much as doing so much work with such a calm exercise.’

But yoga’s rise in popularity among college students seems to be the combination of both the mental and physical benefits from one form of exercise. With such busy schedules and so little free time, yoga gives students both a workout and a time to relax.

‘I think yoga is so popular with college students because college is stressful, and yoga is a time out from that stress,’ Shorter said. ‘Yoga basically makes you take that break.’

eaconnor@syr.edu

Published on February 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm