NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES ABOUT US
Contents:
Finding Your Inner Being - People turn to yoga for fitness and a lot more
Happy New You: A Fresh Approach to Fitness
Breathe Deeply: Knowing the proper technique maybe good preventative medicine
Reiki - Using touch therapy to relieve stress, pain
FINDING
YOUR INNER BEING
People turn to yoga for fitness and a lot more
By Diana Fishlock, The Express Times, February 9, 1998
No phones. No kids. No deadlines. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Over the years yoga has helped Joan Thirion deal with the stress of three careers, quitting smoking, a divorce and more.
"The people who come to yoga are not often the healthy people. Pain motivates them to come. Stress motivates them to come," says Thirion who teaches in her home studio in Bethlehem, at Northampton Community College and Muhlenhberg College.
"I’m trying to appeal to people who are waking up. I see myself as a teacher of healing and transformation."
Although it’s hard to track, yoga seems to be on the rise locally and nationally. Thirion has to turn people away from nearly every class she holds, she says.
"My perception is that yoga is going through a big boom right now," says Todd Jones assistant editor of Yoga Journal a national magazine.
"Can I back that up with cold hard figures? No. There’s a lot of media buzz about it. My impression is that there’s growth everywhere. It’s certainly taken off like a shot in L.A. the past few years. It seems to be pretty big in New York right now, too. So much yoga happens in small venues and YMCA’s and there’s no way to track that."
The magazine’s paid circulation has risen from about 70,000 to 100,000 in the past four years he says.
"It’s in the news. It’s on the covers of so many magazines. Any magazine you pick up there’s an article about yoga," says Athena Yanas who teaches at the Center for Natural Healing in Washington various places in Morris County, NJ and in people’s homes.
Yanas who's taught on and off for 10 years has a seen a gradual increase in interest the past five years and a boom in the past two, she says.
"It’s so popular with (people of) so many ages. Men are coming; a lot of teen-agers are coming. I teach at corporations during lunch hours.
That’s how Dan Fosbenner to started about seven months ago, when Thirion taught a class at Lucent Technologies in Allentown where Fosbenner works.
Lucent offers employees yoga, a fitness center and health food in the company cafeteria, because keeping employees healthy reduces the cost of health benefits, says Nancy Nagle a public relations community specialist at Lucent.
"Yoga was a difficult sell in the beginning, but once we got them into the fitness center and offered them some free classes and made them aware of what yoga is – the people I’ve talked to who take the yoga class really feed better physically and mentally," Nagle says.
Says Fosbenner, " I was just hoping to find a way to relax and clear my head and the flexibility. I didn’t realize how much work it was when I started to take it. It’s really a good workout.
"I wasn’t expecting the muscle tone, especially the upper body. There are some poses you have to hold. It’s almost like isometrics in a lot of ways… I was always one of those people in gym class who could never do a split. The whole key is just to relax your muscles into it. That makes a world of difference, I can get a lot further."
At 24 she’s probably the youngest person in the class, Fosbenner says.
Thirion says men comprise about half the students in the company yoga classes she teaches, but at her studio only about 10 percent are men.
Yoga Journals’ subscribers are nearly 80 percent women, Jones says, adding that while there are many theories, no one’s exactly sure why more women that men try yoga.
"The more aerobic, fiery styles of yoga tend to attract more men I would suspect in the more urban areas men are doing yoga."
Thirion sees students in their 20s to 70s, she says, "You’re never to old. You’re never too sick to start."
Thirion and Yanas both say almost all students begin yoga to reduce stress.
Donna Haney began studying yoga last May to find an exercise she enjoyed for stress management, the Bethlehem woman says.
"It’s definitely fulfilled my expectations I love it" Haney says.
"It’s very energizing. I always feel better when I’m doing yoga and afterward. That’s in a physical sense and also emotionally. I just feel more balanced, more peaceful. My health seems to have been much better this year that last year, as far as colds and the usual illnesses most people suffer from in the wintertime," says Haney.
" I consider yoga to be my health insurance. I take it that seriously. It’s more important to me to take a yoga class that to pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I feel like it’s kind of radical but I believe it makes a difference in the health."
In this country, Jones says, most people start doing yoga for the physical benefits, but over time they find other advantages too.
"Practice gives them a still place inside. It calms them down. That calm is very attractive from the constant chaos in our lives. It’s a chance to turn that off. People crave it and come back to it," Jones says.
"What starts out as a purely physical practice puts people in touch with their deeper selves overtime," he says.
One thing leads to another says Wendy Thompson, 37, of Bethlehem.
She began learning yoga about seven years ago to round out an aerobic exercise program to gain flexibility and balance.
"I think that yoga influences other areas of your life as well, in terms of stress management and prioritizing and putting things into perspective," Thomson says, adding that it’s also helped her to become more self-accepting.
"I think because yoga makes you so aware of your body, mind and spirit, as you get into a daily practice, it can’t help but change the way you live your life. My intent was much more oriented towards fitness than to spirituality, but it happened anyway."
Yoga has helped Thomson let go of control and just accept life, she says.
She and her husband had thought about moving, so they decided to try to sell their home.
"We thought if the home sold it would be a good indication that we should move on to another place in our lives," she says.
Their home sold and now they are in a transition time and a transition home, she says. "We have a lot of peace and patience about where we are. If you feel you’ve done it for the right reason, then there’s a lot of peace that goes along with it."
Thanks to yoga, Yanas says, she feels connected with her body, mind and spirit. "I’m always in balance. I feel that wherever I go I carry that with me. When I’m working at a company or if someone comes to my house people say they feel relaxed around me."
People are feeling more comfortable with spirituality, she says, adding that some types of yoga are more physical, some more spiritual and some more meditative that others.
Most of the yoga styles popular in the United States stem from hatha yoga, Jones says.
Hatha yoga’s elaborate physical postures calm the mind and cultivate a state of relaxed by alert concentration, according to an article in Yoga Journal.
Hatha yoga also involves deep breathing techniques and meditation.
With certain geographic areas or subcultures, variations of hatha have developed. "Type A New York professionals do a fiery Ashtanga or a spinoff called Power Yoga. They’re done in a warm room and are meant to heat the body up quite a bit.
Jones thinks one reason yoga’s popularity is swelling is aging baby boomers who did aerobics in their 20s who found out they had joint problems and injuries. The more aerobic forms of yoga bring the same benefits as aerobics without the risks, he says.
Aerobics is about doing, yoga is about undoing, Thirion says. Aerobics takes energy, yoga gives energy.
"Why do something that’s supposed to be healthy that causes more injuries, that takes energy away?" she says.
"People get healthier; they feel better. Their lives work better. Every class I hear something good."
Yoga isn’t about what’s happening in the outer world, she says. "It’s not another thing. We don’t need more things. It’s an inner journey. Socrates said ‘Know thyself.’ Yoga is a wonderful place to start."
HAPPY NEW YOU: A FRESH APPROACH TO FITNESS
By Lorraine Rile McFerran, Lehigh Valley Woman, January/February 1999
Between the hammer of dynamic ideas and the anvil of a favourable environment, exercise forges and maintains a zest for life.
—Ernst Jokl
The value of exercise and physical fitness can’t be underestimated. Physically fit people are able to deal with changes in the environment with little deviation from their normal behavior, which is a huge benefit. They tolerate physical stress better, have healthier hears and have been shown to be more mentally alert than those who are less fit.
While we all have a desire and need for fitness, many of us have trouble sticking to an exercise program. We may begin enthusiastically but, after some time, get burned out on "going for the burn" Fitness professionals understand this dilemma so they’re constantly developing innovative ways to get and sty in shape and keep their clients motivated.
The fitness community in the Lehigh Valley is keeping pace with some of the latest and most interesting and invigorating types of exercise being done today. We’ve chosen to highlight four new programs available locally to offer a fresh slant on fitness for the new year. Most can be done at home, but when combined with the excitement and comradeship provided by a group setting, they become workouts for your mind, body and soul!
Power Yoga
If you think yoga has gone the way of the flower children and the summer of love, you’re half right. Always practiced by some for its’ relaxing effect and subtle toning, the exercise has returned in the 90s in a more aggressive, aerobic version, called ‘Ashtanga’ or ‘power yoga.’
The difference between the original and the new versions is in the vinyasa or the connecting movements between the postures. These create a continuous flow to heat up the body and raise the pulse to aerobically desirable levels. The movements strengthen the spine, leg muscles, arms, shoulders, and abdomen, while deep breathing – always a part of yoga – activates the parasympathetic nervous system which helps people relax, fight stress and boost their sex lives.
"The postures of power yoga are strength-oriented," says Wayne Stump, senior program director at the Bethlehem YMCA. "Some look like one-arm push-ups and hand-stands. The pace is quick -- that’s why the breathing is so important. It helps get you through the postures and leads you into the metaphysical side of the exercise.
Power yoga is more accurately called ‘flowing yoga’ according to Joan Thirion who teaches the exercise at Northampton Community College, Bethlehem; Muhlenberg College and Lucent Technologies, both Allentown, and at her own studio, Yoga and Health in Bethlehem.
"Because yoga gives to the muscles, glands, organs and balances everything, you end up having more energy that when you started," says Thirion. "It’s like taking hold of a lightning rod."
Knowing
the proper technique maybe good preventative medicine
By Joanna Poncavage, The Morning Call, Sunday July 8, 2001
The closest most of us come to breathing to full advantage is to remember to take a deep breath when we are upset. But what if we took lots of deep breaths? What if we exercised our lungs the way we exercised our muscles in the gym?
It turns out that breathing deeply and fully, from our diaphragms instead of our upper chests, can have far-reaching health benefits. It is another example of East teaches West, as so often happens in the emerging field of mind-body, preventative medicine.
Joan Thirion of Bethlehem is a yoga instructor who is also a certified facilitator of a technique called "TransformBreathing" Developed by therapists Tom and Caron Goode, who also founded the International Breathwork Institute in Tucson, Ariz. TransformBreathing is described as deep, full breathing from the lower abdomen to the clavicle, inhaling and exhaling without pause.
"With more people taking yoga, more
people are hearing about breathing and the importance of the breath,"
says Thirion. "They are beginning to see that they do not use full breathing
capacity."
Most people don’t know how to breathe and that’s why they need a facilitator, she says. A facilitator can also help clients feel comfortable if breathwork stirs physical responses in the body such as tingling or releases repressed emotions. "A person usually schedules about 10 sessions with a facilitator then learns how to do a breath session on their own," she says. She offers a two hour group breathing session every couple of months. "But the idea is to practices it, 100 breaths every day," she says.
"When you are breathing well, your body
chemistry is kept in balance. When you breathe incorrectly for even three
minutes, you decrease the oxygen in the brain by 30 percent. And if you breath
incorrectly for years, you predispose yourself to all kinds of chronic illnesses,
a whole range of things such as chronic fatigue, chronic muscle dysfunction,
headache, backache. These are all connected to a lack of oxygen to certain
parts of the body," says Thirion, a registered yoga therapist.
Some breathing patterns can put the breather into a theta brain-wave state, the state between waking and consciousness. For people who meditate, this can lead to a deeper meditative state. And because in the theta brain-wave state we can more easily bypass the ego, the filtering mechanism in our minds, using breathwork in conjunction with talking therapies can be useful for personal growth and change, she says.
Conscious breathing can lower blood pressure and reduce anxiety. "Breathing is a holistic way of treating the body and trying to keep us healthy all the time, so we don’t have to be going to the doctor as often. Since I’ve been doing this breathing, and it’s been nine years, I haven’t been sick."
Using
touch therapy to relieve stress, pain
By John A. Zukowski, The Express Times, August 23, 2002
Whether it’s a tumor, a common cold, or a bout of stress, Greta Frazier says an ancient practice of therapeutic touching called Reiki can help.
On a recent morning, Frazier, a free-lance nurse from Hellertown, gave a demonstration of what she’ll do when she teachers a beginner’s Reiki class starting Sept. 17 at Northampton Community College. Mark Brabazon came from York Springs, Pa for a Reiki session. He was lying on a massage table setup at the college.
Frazier’s hands hovered over his body. Then she lightly touched him. She sensed some buildup because of a cold he had. The some slight soreness in his kidneys. So through her hands she sent energy to key spots. The process makes her hands feel warm and full of energy she said.
Although a full session of Reiki can take about an hour, after a few minutes, Brabazon said he felt better. "I feel clearer and more relaxed," he said. Reiki (pronounced ray-key) is an ancient natural healing practice that a growing number of New Age devotees as well as some nurses and doctors are using as a way to help heal pain and reduce stress.
"People in America can underestimate the power of touch," Brabazon says. "People associate touch too much with sex. But touch can mean so many other things."
Reiki masters divide the body into areas of energy centers called chakras. When a person has a problem, those energy centers clog up or get out of balance. People who know Reiki say they can touch passageways called meridians to free up and cleanse the trouble spots.
Reiki isn’t the only practice which uses touch in the quest to heal or lessen pain.
In acupuncture, there are strategically placed needles. Massage therapists use rigorous touch. The Chinese practice of Qigong uses massage and herbs. Some faith healers report they can cure diseases by touch with the power of the Holy Spirit.
But people who know Reiki say they use accessible energy. No needles or massaging is necessary.
It is a practice that is somewhat difficult to explain. Someone who knows Reiki both senses energy in someone’s body and sends energy to the body, according to it’s practitioners. Beginning classes provide energy-channeling exercises that focus on how to access this energy, which is believed to be a universal life force. That’s indicated in the name Reiki. In Japanese rei means spirit or soul and ki means energy or life force.
"I think of love as the glue of the universe and in Reiki you’re accessing that flow," say Joan Thirion, director of Yoga and Health in Bethlehem. "It’s not something that everyone doesn’t already have access to already." It’s not known exactly when Reiki started. However it was practiced in ancient Egypt and in Tibet. Although it’s a highly controversial belief, some people speculate that Jesus may have used this healing technique to cure illnesses. (Although many Christians maintain that Jesus performed his healing miracles because of his divine powers.)
The Christian Minister Mikoa Usui, who lived in Japan in the late 19th century, is credited with rediscovering Reiki. One tale about him is that he was looking for the healing power Jesus and Buddha used (although some people say that’s just a legend).
Usui believed emotional and spiritual problems created physical ailments and a lack of harmony in the body. He believed Reiki could rebalance the body. However, Reiki was never incorporated into the formal rituals or belief of any religion. So people of many different beliefs use it.
"Everyone from pagans to fundamentalist Christians," Frazier says.
In introductory classes, people learn the basics of Reiki and then how to apply it to others. Teachers say Reiki can also be used on animals. People who know Reiki may also use it on themselves.
"You can use it on yourself stuck in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway," Frazier says.
Reiki experts say it’s even possible to use Reiki on someone else without them being in the same physical place. In what is called "long-distance Reiki" people transmit positive energy to someone in a different location.
Reiki is increasing in popularity as more people are interested in what is called the mind-body connection, that’s the belief physical problems can be a manifestation of someone’s thoughts or emotions. Touch therapy is a way of changing those thoughts, some people believe.
Reiki also may be becoming more popular because it’s a practice that can be learned fairly quickly and anyone can have access to it.
"This energy has a wisdom in it and you don’t have to be afraid of ever making a mistake with an intention of healing because the energy knows where to go," Thirion says. "That energy has intelligence in it and I have seen incredible healing from it.
By Jeri Forestieri, Lehigh Valley Style, January/February 2003
A Warm Safe Place in Bethlehem
Walking into Joan Thirion’s Yoga and Health Studio in Bethlehem is like reentering the womb. It feels safe and quiet but for the nurturing sounds of Thirion’s voice and a trickling fountain. Many yoga instructors particularly those that practice Kripalu, the style of yoga Joan has taught for twenty years – have a soothing voice. Instructors like Thirion who verbally guide their pupils through meditation tap into a long forgotten memory, that of what it was like to be held by a mother or father and lulled to sleep. There is no safer place in the world and that is exactly the point of yoga.
"There’s a lot of laughter in Joan’s yoga," says Gene Mater, a caricaturist and watercolorist who’s been practicing yoga with Joan since he turned 50. "Joan was schooled in the tradition I enjoy most – Kripalu – which I began practicing in the late 1970s. At that time the yoga guru laughed and it was a good vibe. The vibe in Joan’s studio is also very relaxed." Mater says he likes yoga equally for the physical and meditative benefits. "I vowed not to feel old and decrepit when I turned 50, and because of yoga, I don’t!" Mater says it also helps him be more philosophical in times of turmoil. "Paying attention to my breathing is a good point of focus for me. I have found myself breathing my way through many discussions with my fourth teenager. Just doing meditation a couple of times a week helps focus me," Mater explains.
Thirion explains that her focus has changed somewhat over the past sixteen months. "September 11th has made me want to spend my remaining years teaching people about the benefits of meditation," Thirion says. A former stockbroker in charge of more than $20 million in client assets, Thirion says she "wants to help people transform themselves." So she quit a job that was no longer personally fulfilling after eleven years.
If you are frantic with the demands on your life or you’re someone who gives to others and never takes care of yourself, these things can eat a hole inside of your soul." Thirion decided to follow her intuition and start her own yoga studio after practicing for years and has never looked back.
"I can have the biggest effect on the world by working on myself and trying to help other people do the same. Every person is a circle of influence on 100 other people. On September 11th I wanted to go to New York but I realized that I was doing enough with my classes each week talking about it here as a way to deepen everyone’s understanding." Thirion works with people who were directly affected by September 11th, such as flight attendants who have been laid off as a result of the downturn in air travel. She also teaches Agere workers who have spent the last eighteen months wondering if they’re going to lose their jobs. "These people are under tremendous stress," Thirion explains. "During yoga, we create a space where they can be with themselves, witness their own feeling and face and name their demons. If they are successful, they will find inner freedom and all that really matters is what’s going on in their spirit, not the fear that they may lose their job the next day."
Thirion views the end of each class where she guides students through meditation - Shivasana or resting pose – as a precious time. "It’s seed planting time for me. Time to nourish their spirit for health and well being. I encourage them to stay in touch with their dreams and follow a path with heart."
Bethlehem’s seven-year-old Yoga and Health studio located in owner Joan Thirion’s home offers restorative yoga to hundreds of people who come from as far away as New Jersey to practice with Thirion.