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Articles about Sunrise Yoga Studio
Yoga — Helping to Create Balance for our Children ~ By Sandra Wells, RYT ~ published in Forsyth Woman magazine: August 2007
Focus on the Back: Yoga classes designed for those who have curvature of the spine ~ published in the Winston-Salem Journal: Thursday, January 11, 2007
Pain Management: Yoga has helped woman with scoliosis ~ published in the Winston-Salem Journal: Thursday, October 19, 2006
A Way of Life: Yoga instructor’s students say classes offer more than exercise ~ published in the Winston-Salem Journal: Thursday, October 2, 2003
In American society today, our children live in a world full of busy parents, school and peer pressures, various lessons, and competitive sports events. Do you ever wonder how our busy, stress filled days might carry over to our children? The hurried pace of our everyday lives can have a profound effect on our children’s lives. Yoga offers children (and adults) a way to help balance out the pressures and stresses of daily living. Yoga helps to build confidence and self-esteem without being competitive. It is based on the principles of truth, love, proper conduct, peace and nonviolence. Yoga allows children the natural freedom to express themselves in a healthy way.
Yoga helps to develop the entire body and mind and provides a lifelong foundation of well-being for children. Yoga for children:
• Develops strong muscles and bones
• Increases flexibility of the body
• Promotes self-esteem and confidence
• Increases concentration, focus and attention
• Fosters a peaceful, relaxed state of mind and body
• Provides personal tools for stress management
• Expresses creativity and imagination
• Increases knowledge of anatomy and health
• Develops social skills
• Fosters language development
• Explores self-reflection
• Teaches environmental awareness and earth care
Physical activity is vital for the health and development of children. Yoga provides exercise in a natural, healthy, and enjoyable manner. It works on the whole body, promoting strength, flexibility, and coordination. Mentally, yoga teaches children how to concentrate, relax, and become quiet and still.
Children learn with their whole selves. Yoga for children encourages them to use their bodies, minds, senses and imaginations as they learn. Our children’s yoga classes foster a loving, creative environment in which they discover their own truths. Teaching children to believe in themselves and listen to what their bodies and minds are instructing them to do will help them to find their inner teachers.
Our children’s yoga classes are typically high energy and quick paced to hold their attention and to focus their energy. Games are often incorporated into our classes. We use games to teach children patience and respect, encourage trust and cooperation, and develop intuition, concentration and focus. Breathing exercises are also taught as a way to assist children in controlling fears and anxieties. There is scheduled time for relaxation, which is actually become a favorite time of class for many. I like to end class with an affirmation about oneself or others to help instill positive thoughts and feelings with the children. These classes allow each child to explore their own bodies and see what they can do without competition or comparison. Our classes are a teaching/learning process for everyone. They foster creativity, expression, and a sense of growing together. We all benefit from what each other has to share. In our increasingly busy days, yoga can teach children how to relax, concentrate and to be quiet and still. It is my hope that, through the children’s yoga program at Sunrise Yoga Studio, children will learn to find balance in their lives.
The next 8 week series of children’s yoga classes are scheduled to begin on Tuesday September 4th-October 22nd (ages 3-6 at 4:00 - 4:30pm and ages 7-12 at 4:40 - 5:30 pm). Birthday parties, private sessions, and group functions are also available. Sign up for the monthly Kids Yoga newsletter @ www.sunriseyoga.net.
By Lisa O'Donnell
Karen Hoglund learned a lot about her body in the hundreds of hours she spent training to become a yoga teacher.
One of the most important lessons was how to alleviate back pain brought on by scoliosis, which is a curvature of the spine.
The condition affects 6 million people in the United States, according to the National Scoliosis Foundation. There is no cure, though treatments, such as wearing a brace, can stop the curve from getting worse.
The condition can be painful. Hoglund learned when she was 16 that she had a 27-degree curve in her spine. It wasn't painful at the time, but as she grew older, she experienced more back pain.
Yoga offered some relief.
"I started having some back issues as I got older, but it wasn't debilitating," Hoglund said. "When I practiced yoga, my body felt so much better. I was able to stretch it and learn how to find the right posture that helped my body."
Hoglund will share what she learned at a Yoga for Scoliosis workshop at Sunrise Yoga in the Meadowbrook Mall.
The six-part workshop will begin Saturday and run the next five Saturdays from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Participants can come to one session or all six. The cost is $14 a session.
Hoglund, a registered yoga teacher, will be assisted by Valerie Kiser, also a registered yoga teacher. Kiser owns the yoga studio.
The classes are geared for beginners and more advanced yoga practitioners.
Hoglund teaches a style of yoga that uses props such as chairs, blankets, blocks and straps. The props help people get into poses and hold themselves in proper alignment.
In the classes, Hoglund will teach a variety of poses that will lengthen the spine and strengthen underused muscles in the back. "Because of our curved backs, parts of our body are over-stretched and parts are underused," Hoglund said.
Because of her back condition, Hoglund paid special attention to the poses that helped her during hours of training.
She has also studied with instructors who have developed a specialty in this area.
"A lot of yoga is learning awareness of the body," she said.
Jeff Shilt, an orthopedist at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said that people with scoliosis who practice yoga may see benefits in reducing pain and strengthening their core. Despite no evidence to suggest that it will reduce curving of the spine. Shilt said that it is helpful form of therapy.
The workshop is geared specifically for people with scoliosis and not those with general back pain, Hoglund said. For more information, call at 778-1233.
By Denise Kasper
Most of us can remember lining up at the nurse's office in elementary school and bending over to touch our toes so she could check your spine. It's still the best way of checking for a healthy spine.
For Vicki Johnson of Winston-Salem, those tests were the first indication that she might be developing scoliosis. Scoliosis is a lateral curving of the spine, which usually develops in early adolescence, according to the National Scoliosis Foundation.
Scoliosis affects 2 percent to 3 percent of the population, or an estimated 6 million people in the United States, and there is no cure, the foundation said. Scoliosis affects infants, adolescents and adults worldwide with little regard to race or socioeconomic status.
The primary age of onset for scoliosis is 10 to 15, occurring equally among both genders. The disease can affect the quality of life with limited activity, pain, reduced respiratory function or diminished self-esteem, the foundation said.
Johnson's condition was diagnosed when she was in the 10th grade. She had surgery at age 17 to implant two medal rods to stabilize and straighten her spine. About three years later in 1991, she had the noticeable rods removed, but was then riddled with pain, soreness, numbness and tingling in her back and shoulders.
She learned to live with the pain and thought that it would just be her lot in life. As the pain steadily increased, a friend told her about yoga classes designed to ease the discomfort associated with scoliosis.
"It got to the point where I had to do something," Johnson said. Now at 34, she has learned to manage the pain.
Yoga's benefits and limitations
Valerie Kiser, a Clemmons yoga instructor, said that yoga can be very therapeutic for the discomfort and pain associated with scoliosis.
"I'm not saying it will straighten the back," Kiser said. "But it has changed the degree of the curve and reduced the pain."
Joseph O'Brien, the foundation's president and chief executive officer, said that there can be benefits to practicing yoga. As someone with scoliosis who has had four surgeries, he said he has found some relief with yoga, although he doesn't practice it regularly. "You just have to be careful of what yoga can and cannot do," O'Brien said. "There is no evidence that yoga can reduce the curve or stop the progression of the scoliosis. There is, however, a benefit involved with learning how to breathe, increasing mobility and flexibility."
For Johnson, those are exactly the things that have greatly improved since she started practicing yoga four years ago.
A three-part workshop on yoga and scoliosis will start at the Sunrise Yoga studio in the Meadowbrook Mall from 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday. The fee is $20 a class, and there is a 15-student limit. For more information, visit the Web site at www.sunriseyoga.net or call 778-1233.
By Pinky Kansupada
Valerie Kiser started her yoga class by asking her students how they were doing – a question that often elicits a one-word response. Not so in Kiser’s class.
“I have a new boyfriend,” said one student. Another said, “Stressed-out.”
Kiser began the session with a gentle ringing of a tethered chime. The atmosphere almost willed relaxation. Track lighting outlined the edges of the ceiling and faced the perpendicular walls. Bouncing yellow lights reflected a soft glow.
Kiser demonstrated a relaxation pose and then walked around to help students align their bodies as they mimicked their teacher.
Kiser, who has been teaching yoga for five years, opened sunrise Yoga studio Inc. in Clemmons in August.
Her students say that the class is more than physical exercise. Each student started practicing yoga for different reasons.
“I found that it very much relieves stress. It helps you deal with other people, and the ups and downs of life,” said Ken Scales , a carpenter who got started in yoga because of a shoulder injury.
Physical therapy wasn’t helping, he said. Two years later, the Lewisville native is practicing the art and is training to be a yoga teacher.
Scales said that his resting heart rate has decreased by 12 points in the last two years. Also, he has staved off the high blood pressure and diabetes from which his brother and father suffer; he attributes his good health to yoga.
Larry Schonhofen, a 50-year-old optometrist in Clemmons, started practicing yoga at age 18 after watching a public television show on the subject. Schonhofen said that yoga launched him into an “extremely healthy lifestyle.”
“I am at an idea weight,” he said. “It does burn calories if you do the more rigorous forms, and it calms you so you are not eating out of emotional stress.”
Schonhofen’s patients often ask him why he is always so upbeat, and he credits yoga.
Schonhofen says he practices yoga for an hour every morning. Outside of the occasional walk, he does not practice any other form of exercise, he said. He played tennis for 15 years, but he quit because the “violent jarring” did more harm than good.
Students will recognize the change in their bodies and lifestyles within six months to a year, said Kiser, who taught aerobics and weight training for seven years before teaching yoga.
Kiser, 32, started practicing yoga after taking a class in 1998 and says that it makes her feel “calm and centered.”
“For me, it’s not just a form of exercise; it’s a process. It is a journey. It is a lifestyle,” Kiser said.
In addition to the gym, Kiser has taught classes at churches, businesses, and residences.
When she observes her seasoned students, Kiser said she witnesses a common evolution.
“They treat themselves better.”
Her students observe her teaching methods and praise her positive approach.
“She emphasizes the noncompetitiveness of it,” said Scales who has been Kiser’s student for two years.
Starting in November, Kiser will bring two teachers on board and expand her classes to include children and families. Kiser hold classes throughout the week and offers free introductory classes.
6000 Meadowbrook Mall Court, Suite 28
Clemmons, NC 27012
(336) 778-1233
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