WSJ: Out of the Kitchen and Into the Yoga Studio.

WSJ: Out of the Kitchen and Into the Yoga Studio.

YAHOOOO!  Another supporter of IYENGAR YOGA – it is THE BEST!  (in my humble opinion 🙂  and perfect for BOOMERS!!! It focuses on alignment and the differences in each person’s body (genetic, from injuries, bionic hips, whiplash).  Attention to alignment (plus props) helps you avoid INJURY.  Iyengar teachers have additional years of training in anatomy, handling injuries and therapeutic yoga.

WSJ:

At the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York in Chelsea, chef John DeLucie, uses ropes to improve his alignment during a pose while his instructor, Debby Green, watches. Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal

 After leaving his bustling restaurants at 11 p.m. or later, the 52-year-old chef-owner was finding it a challenge to wind down.

Mr. DeLucie says yoga helps quiet his mind from the stresses of the restaurant business and helps offset the aches and pains that ail most chefs. “I’m standing in a kitchen bent over chopping and after a few years that starts to affect your back,” he says. “You have to do something to counteract that.”

He started practicing yoga two years ago. At first, he tried a variety of yoga styles offered at his gym, Equinox. “At one point, I pulled a teacher aside and said I thought I was in the wrong place because everyone else could touch their toes and I couldn’t.”

But then he went to an Iyengar yoga class, a style of yoga that focuses on precise body alignment, taught by Debby Green at the Equinox near his apartment. “A lot of the classes I tried would hold a pose for half a second,” he says. “With Iyengar, things slowed down and we were going for perfection in the pose and I really liked that idea.”

“Iyengar yoga is very methodical. It’s not a workout where you sweat a lot,” says Ms. Green. It’s “like learning an instrument, you start with basic scales and then learn piece by piece.”

He says he likes the aspirational aspect of working toward yoga poses. “Maybe you can’t do a pose today, but there’s always tomorrow,” he says. “I can stand on my hands and my head and all sort of things I never thought I’d be able to do.”