Yoga, the form of exercise, is being taught in our nation's classrooms. Teachers and educators believe that yoga will raise the children's energy levels and allow them to concentrate better, and the children find it fun. Here is a direct quote from a nine-year-old yoga enthusiast:
"It makes me feel calm, relaxed and it gets all the stress out of me."
At nine years old, what kind could possibly be stressing that girl out? Life was pretty much all cattails and Milk Duds for me when I was nine. I didn't need yoga to relieve all that stress from having very little responsibility.
Allow me to digress further:
A child during the Industrial Revolution who worked in a polluted factory and lugged around unwieldy crates of bauxite and made twelve extra cents a month for his family so they could buy the barest of necessities knows what stress is.
You, little nine-year-old yoga enthusiast, have no idea what stress is unless, perhaps, you escaped from a war-torn third-world country in a boxcar full of pit vipers.
Back to yoga.
Yoga is fun. I've done it, and I'm not hippie. I don't even chant over pieces of iridescent rock. Yoga, much like religion and cat-fancying, gets a bad rap from its zealots. All fun things, like religion and cat-fancying, can be ruined by a few froth-mouthed zealotry apples.
Digression 2:
If you think you may be a zealot, then ask yourself this question: If you see a person doing the thing that you fancy in a way different than you, do you A) try and instruct that person in your perceived correct way of doing that thing or B) do you leave well enough alone and let the other person have a good time?
If you chose A, then you need to relax. Try some yoga.
Yoga has many positive effects to health: Better breathing, improved hand-eye coordination, improved posture, better balance and so on and so forth.
Yoga may not be for everyone. Ask your family doctor or internist if it would be right for you. Click here to find a doctor.
