Yoga classes offer University students the chance to step back from the stress and chaos of their lives and flex both their minds and their bodiThe University provides a number of yoga courses, including Hatha, Kundalini, Ashtana and Gentle yoga, and many interested University students fill up these courses every year.
Last year, more than 2,000 University students enrolled in yoga, according to Laurel Hanley, office coordinator for the Physical Education Department.
“The University offers a broader range of yoga classes than most other four-year universities,” yoga instructor Viriam Khalsa said.
“The main philosophy behind yoga is that every human being has the birth right to be healthy and to live a healthy human life,” Khalsa said.
“Yoga strives to bring the real in line with the ideal.”
Khalsa teaches Kundalini yoga, which involves breathing methods and postures, but also includes sound, mantra and meditation. His 50-minute course strings together many different exercises, none of which is longer than three minutes.
“Kundalini is relatively easy to practice and is well-suited to people who live in the world,” Khalsa said.
He said yoga can help students relieve stress, relax, get more sleep and study better.
“Pun intended, yoga is flexible,” Khalsa said. “One thing that drew me to yoga is that it fits throughout your lifespan.”
Hatha yoga, the first school of yoga to reach the United States, is the most widely offered school of yoga at the University and is the most popular amongst University students. Hatha mostly emphasizes breathing techniques and postures, said Khalsa.
Adras Khalsa — who is not related to Viriam Khalsa — is a yoga
instructor at the YMCA who teaches a blend of Kundalini and Hatha yoga.
“The biggest challenge with my students is focus and mindset. It’s about being able to stay in one position,” Adras Khalsa said. “Once they get that, it goes to all parts of their lives from the books to the kids.”
Yoga sits well with University students because they are open, but also because it is a healthy way to cope with high stress, he added.
“Yoga allows university students to take a step back from all the changes going on around them and from being so engulfed,” he said.
Eugene hosts schools of yoga not available at the University. At Bikram’s Yoga College of India, students practice yoga in a room heated up to 105 degrees.
“The heat is challenging in the beginning, but after a couple sessions, students become used to it,” said Amy Hopkins, co-owner and yoga-instructor at Bikram’s Yoga College of India. “The heat is engaging. It brings your heart rate up and is both aerobic and anaerobic.”
Bikram’s Yoga College of
India, which opened in March of this year, offers 90-minute sessions, designed as beginning-level courses. The institute conducts 16 sessions a week and will add four more sessions this fall.
“What you work through in class, you can play out in the world” said Darlene Muller, fellow co-owner and yoga-instructor at Bikram’s Yoga College of India.

Jesse Dungan is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald.