Yoga instructor Maria Meijer provides a refreshingly simple task for Northwestern students: breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Relax.
“Follow your breathing,” she says. “Where is it going?”
As college students pile on classes, more are making time for yoga, a 5,000-year-old combination of exercise and meditation.
Students now make up a fifth of the 16 million yoga students nationwide, and their numbers are rising fast. Enrollment of younger students increased almost 50 percent from 2003 to 2004.
“Students have been getting younger and younger,” said NU yoga instructor Diana Cornelius. “When I started teaching I had older people in community centers. Then I went to Columbia College. Before, they had only one class a week. Now it’s a big part of their curriculum.”
Evening classes at Patten Gymnasium draw more than 30 students per class. NU’s fitness and recreation program offers 14 yoga classes per week to meet student demand. Local gyms like the Evanston Athletic Club, 1723 Benson Ave., also offer yoga classes.
Many students said they have turned to yoga because unlike weightlifting or running, yoga combines physical exercise with meditation and stress relief.
“It requires a balance,” Communication sophomore Rachel Durston said. “It’s a balance between mind and heart, and mind and body. That’s why it’s so perfect.”
James Shih agrees.
“It’s relaxing,” the Medill sophomore said. “I like taking 30 minutes off in my day.”
Many student athletes use yoga for cross-training and injury recovery because they said it increases flexibility, muscle strength, endurance and balance.
Denise Rosenfield, a yoga instructor at Northwestern, said there’s also an indirect health benefit for college students.
“It’s a good cleanser for all those toxins, whatever they may be,” she said. “I know on Saturday mornings I get students that start out moving very slowly, but by the end they’re up and running.”
And while yoga is transforming colleges, college students are changing the face of yoga. Yoga instructor Hansa Knox of Jaya Yoga Center in Denver, Colo., said students are more interested in fitness yoga than pure meditation.
“We’ve Americanized yoga,” Knox said. “I don’t want to say it’s a new form of yoga – it’s grown from 4,000 to 5,000 years of tradition – but it’s certainly a different expression of yoga.”
But some students say they can’t find the time, while others balk at the fitness fee.
“This quarter I really sought out a place to exercise,” said Medill sophomore Kurt Soller, a former Daily staffer. “But (at) 80 to 100 dollars for yoga, I would rather go to EAC and watch ‘Desperate Housewives’ while I exercise.”
Nevertheless, yoga instructor Meijer said she expects the trend to continue.
“They come often because it’s a fashion, but they stay with it because it’s so beneficial in so many ways,” she said.
Reach Jake Laub at [email protected].
