An article in the Sunday Telegraph of 17.8.08 caught my eye. It was entitled: “Outdoor sports loosing players”.

It began by stating that statistics showed that less people were participating in traditional outdoor sports. Participation had declined over the past 5 years. The number one reason seems to be  lack ot time. One in five people did not exercise at all.

The sports for which numbers decreased were:

Tennis by 33%, bushwalking 24% and swimming 19%. Golf, basketball and netball participation also declined.

Aerobics, walking, cycling, touch football, weight training, running and cricket had increased participation rates.

The star performer was yoga  - with a 53% increase in participation in the state of New South Wales.

My take on this:

Cycling and walking may have increased due to spiralling petrol prices. Bushwalking has gone down because of the time factor combined with high petrol prices. Most people have to drive a fair way to get to the start of a walk.

I also believe that sports go in and out of favour like fashion. Some are more trendy that others at the moment. Outdoor sports may also have gone down in popularity because people are worried about too much sun exposure, especially for their children. Most children spend a lot of time in front of computers and with other gadgets, walk less and are generally much unfitter than the last generation. Sport and outdoor play is not something all children naturally gravitate to any more.  

Why has yoga become so popular?

My guess is that people are discovering how great they feel after a class, that it takes care of their mind and body. No other form of exercise leaves you feeling quite the same. Even a so-called “stretch-class” feels different. This is not my biased opinion! A lot of my students have said so!

It is the one space of time in an otherwise very hectic week during which they don’t have to worry about anyone else except themselves. It is peaceful and quiet. Minimal equipment is needed. 

Maybe I should ask my students what is the most important benefit for them and why they started attending classes.

Connie

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Over the last week, Sydney was buzzing with excitement. A huge global event, the World Youth day was held here. It is a gathering of young people from all over the world who have one thing in common: they are catholic and actively involved in church, prayer, missionary work, charitable work and so on.

About 125,000 pilgrims from many different nations gathered here. We hosted two of them in our place.  I got involved in as many events as I could and spent a lot of time in the city over the last week. The atmosphere was lovely. Groups of young people were everywhere. While moving about they sang, played instruments, clapped or stopped somewhere and started dancing and singing. Some of the songs were more like chants, repeating a few simple words or phrases. A lot of them sounded like yoga chants and had a very similar effect on me. One group did a lovely circle dance.

Those young people were genuinely happy and running on “very little sleep, adrenalin and cups of coffee” as one newspaper article described it. For me, one of the highlights was the walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This massive bridge does not get closed very often. It is very special to be able to walk across it. (without any trucks or cars going past you).

I had no concept of how many people 125,000 people really are. Now I have an idea! The first pilgrims started walking across the bridge at about 6am. The last ones were allowed onto the bridge at 2pm. They all had set out on a 9.6km walk. I walked with them for about 4km. Then I found myself a good spot where I could observe everybody going past. There was a steady stream of people for a total of 8 hours. Imagine a parade conisting of lots of people walking past you and not stopping for 8 hours. You don’t see the same group or person twice. The different groups carried their national flags or items of religious significance with them. The local Hare Krishna devotees had joined the walk and drummed and chanted their way along. They blended in really well.

The next day was the final mass, celebrated by the Pope who is the absolute highest leader of the the catholic church. Attendance at that mass was between 400,000 and 500,000 people. I had never seen such an “ocean” of people. It is hard to describe the magnitude of the crowds and what it felt like being part of it. If I understood correctly, there had never been so many people in one place in Australia before.

I am certainly glad that I took part in as many events as I could, it was an amazing experience. It is interesting to see that all spiritual practices and rituals contain very similar elements. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter which path someone has chosen, if they are confident that it is the right path and deep within their hearts they truly believe that they have found their calling, they will be happy. This happiness is contagious. It only took 125,000 people to make a huge impact in a City of close to 4 million. Unfortunately it didn’t last. It certainly planted a seed.

World Youth Day was the idea of a previous Pope and now has become a regular event. The next one will be held in the capital of Spain, Madrid.

Wouldn’t it be great have a World Yoga Day? (Did you notice - same initials WYD!)

Till next time,

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

I have some great news for regular yoga practitioners!

A study has shown that yoga “may upregulate the antioxidant capacity of cells to combat oxidative stress”.  In simple words this means that yoga seems to help the cells in our body to get rid of nasties like free radicals. This protects our cells from being damaged by these free radicals.

What is a free radical?

In layman’s terms it is a molecule that has an uneven number of electrons which causes it to become unbalanced. The unbalanced molecule then tries to steal electrons from another molecule to make itself more stable. This starts a chain reaction that can harm the cells of the body. Free radicals can enter the body from the outside (mainly air pollution) or they are produced by the body for various reasons. Sometimes there are good reasons - like killing viruses.

How does Yoga help to combat the free radicals?

How much yoga do I need to do?

The participants in this study did regular yoga practice as follows:

1 hour a day in the morning,

5 days a week

for six months

consisting of:

• half an hour of postures (fairly basic ones for the first month)
• yogic breathing (pranayama - different types) for 15 minutes done immediately after the postures
• meditation for 2 minutes (sitting cross legged or with feet touching and legs out to the side)
• chanting the sound “Aum” for 2 minutes

What were the results? 

The results were that Glutathione levels increased significantly and total antioxidant status also increased significantly in the yoga group.

What is Glutathione?

Glutathione is an important substance in our bodies that forms part of the antioxiodant defence. In other words: it makes free radicals harmless. In the process of doing so, it turns into GSSG, meaning oxidised glutathione. So if there is lots of GSSG in a person’s blood, it means there were a lot of free radicals that had to be gotten rid of. In this process the Glutathione was used  and changed to GSSG.

 What exactly happened to the yoga group?

• They had a significant increase in Glutathione levels (this is great news - more free radical quenchers on patrol in the body)
• At the same time they had less GSSG (which means that there must have been less free radicals floating around that had to be gotten rid of).
• Assuming that the environment didn’t change, yoga must have caused the body to produce less internal free radicals.

What did the other group do?

5 days a week, for 6 months the participants:

• jogged for up to 4km for 30 minutes, did flexibility exercises for 10 minutes, pull-ups for five minutes and games for 15 minutes.

What were the results?

• GSSG levels increased significantly. This means that there were more free radicals than before that had to be gotten rid of by the body.
• GSH levels decreased significantly - meaning either that the Glutathione was used up at a greater rate or that the body produced less. 
• None of the above is good news.

So, get moving and practice your yoga! It has a lot of “invisible” benefits apart from feeling great.

For those of you that are scientifically inclined and want to follow up, the reference is:

Sinha S, Singh SN, Monga YP, Ray US. Improvement of glutathione and total antioxidant status with yoga. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2007; 13 (10): 1085-1090

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

www.yogainahurry.com

At the moment I am participating in a “Giveaway Event”. This means a group of people (usually internet marketers)  get together and put up gifts for everybody to download.

I am really proud to be associated with this particular giveaway and have contributed a gift myself. This is the first time I have done this, please go and have a look.

http://www.wonderfulwebgiveaway2008.com/members.php?id=286

Any giveaway is only open for a limited time (this one closes in 2 weeks). There are lots of gifts. Head over there as soon as you can because it will take you a lot of time to download all the gifts you are interested in.

I am sure you will find something of interest there.

Here is the link again:

http://www.wonderfulwebgiveaway2008.com/members.php?id=286

Till next time

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

www.yogainahurry.com

This morning I listened to a very interesting interview: Charly Leetham from www.arvoreentreasures.cominterviewed Mark Hendricks. Mark is a very successful internet marketer, coach, educator, software producer www.Market-Soft.com and author with many years of experience. He had the original idea of creating a “giveaway” event, it started out as the 12 Days of Christmas promotion in 2003.

What impressed me about Mark is that he is a really genuine and generous human being. He touched on a lot of things during the interview and they all are very valuable and interesting.

Here are the points that I resonated with the most: 

• Success is a process, a learning experience
• The current education system takes the ability to be successful out of people
• The education system takes the steam out of the entrepreneurial spirit
• Students are moulded to be employable and take instructions
• Children need to be taught individual responsibility when they are young, NOT that “somebody will take of you and your problems”
• Education means “drawing out” (from educo) but nowadays it consists of “pouring in”
• The biggest disservice to a child’s growing mind is to answer “because” when they ask “why?”.  Equally devastating is the second answer after the second “why?” “Because I said so!”

How does all this fit into the yoga world?

Yoga teaches taking responsibility for yourself, your actions, your thoughts and your feelings. Every time you take time out to meditate, listen to a relaxation tape or do your physical practice you take responsibility for your own wellbeing.

You take control of your mind and your thoughts as well as your feelings. Again, success doesn’t come overnight but with persistence and time the results will be visible.

Here is a little exercise for you to try:

Every-time some negative “self talk” starts up in your mind (you know the kind: How stupid of me, I should have known better. I knew I would fail. I never was any good at that…) say to yourself: “STOP!” Then replace it with something positive like: I did the best I could, I will ask somebody for advice and try again, I managed to do the first step…

You will be amazed how much negative chatter you will find in a day!

Have a happy day.

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

www.yogainahurry.com