Feeling Good From Head to Toe

Generally, I shy away from “crossover” yoga classes. I’m no hard core ashram freak; it just seems to me that the usual health-club class tweaks don’t add much. The popularity of exercise balls has hit yoga particularly hard, with every other gym offering some class where you fussily wedge the mushy spheres here and there while trying to keep a straight face. But when I heard about Yamuna Body Rolling Yoga, which is said to stimulate bones, realign tendons and ligaments, and lengthen and smooth muscles, my interest was piqued. I decided to check out the brand-new Yamuna Studio in the West Village.The 3,600-square-foot studio showcases the various incarnations of YBR, and includes therapy rooms and several studios for Pilates and other classes. It was opened a month ago byYamuna Body Rolling creator Yamuna Zake, an experienced yoga teacher and bodywork specialist who previously worked out of a tiny studio in the neighborhood. Ms. Zake developed her Body Logic system of physical therapy 25 years ago, when she injured her hip during childbirth. She subsequently incorporated the balls, which enabled her clients to achieve many of the benefits of hands-on treatment at home. The system has gradually gained popularity, and is now taught at a number of yoga and Pilates studios around the country.The regimen – which uses a variety of props – feels like a combination of Pilates and deep-tissue massage. It is particularly effective at providing relief for those with serious physical challenges such as fibromyalgia, scoliosis, or impaired mobility. And while Yamuna Body Rolling is a movement system on its own, it can also be an adjunct therapy for a variety of activities, including dancing, sports, and yoga.Yamuna Body Rolling Yoga has a yoga-like class structure and incorporates yoga poses; I decided to try a class at the studio, with a 15-minute Foot Fitness class beforehand.An understanding of the relationships between different body parts is one of the underlying principles of Yamuna Body Rolling, which means that realignment starts from the feet up. In the Foot Fitness session, Ms. Zake led a class of five through exercises using specialized tools called Foot Wakers, rubber hemispheres covered with knobs.A few minutes balancing on them while using various parts of the foot worked wonders for me, stretching the metatarsals and other areas that rarely get much at tention in yoga classes. We also used them on our hands, to warm up the lower arm ligaments and revitalize the connection between the wrists and the shoulders, especially in the basic yoga pose, Downward Facing Dog.With equilibrium in our extremities, the class shifted focus to the knee and hip joints, a problem area for me, as for many people. Stress and sedentary lifestyles lead to tight leg joints, which then pull the pelvic bones out of alignment, tighten the lower back, and throw off spinal and shoulder alignment. To loosen the hamstrings, Ms. Zake led us in a progressive stretch of the backs of our legs, both central and lateral.We used volleyball-sized balls to penetrate and massage the hamstrings and muscles, lengthening and warming up the connections between the bones of the lower skeleton.With two more balls about the size of grapefruits, we did variations on Virasana, a kneeling pose in yoga. By placing the balls under our sitting bones, then our lower shins,and finally progressing from behind the knee joint all the way down the calf, we gave our lower legs a deep, sometimes intense massage meant to improve circulation and range of flexibility.We then moved on to the “bowl seat,” or Gaumukhasana pose (also known as the “cow’s face”pose in yoga), where one sits on the floor with legs bent so that the feet lie next to the opposing hips, with one knee stacked on top of the other. It’s a challenging pose for the outer hips and deep hamstrings; we eased into it with a series of variations.The different support points and changing angles brought me deeper into this pose than is usually possible for me.A few more hip-loosening maneuvers followed, before we flipped over and tucked the first, larger ball into our front hip joints to do Half Locust and Bow poses on alternate sides. These backbends brought movement into our spines and placed much of our weight onto the balls, alleviating any residual stiffness in our hip flexors.The final step was a spine alignment and core strengthening, with the ball traveling from the sacrum to the back of the skull. Bearing down with our body weight on the ball helped stretch the spine and create a spacious, aligned feeling in the vertebrae.At every stage in the class, the props played a vital role that contributed to a more nuanced appreciation of the particular posture. Yamuna Body Rolling’s custom-manufactured equipment delivers a precise combination of support and resilience.YBR Yoga classes don’t “flow” like most yoga classes.”We tried Vinyasa classes, but it was just too difficult for most people to incorporate the props into them,” Ms. Zake said. “So we decided to break them down and help people improve their understanding of alignment and relationships in specific poses.” The result feels a bit like an Iyengar yoga class, where a pose is broken down into its components, workshop-style.While maneuvering the body around the balls felt a bit awkward at first,it soon became easier,and the benefits were immediately apparent. At one point, when switching over to the other side, I stretched my legs out and realized that the right one was fully two inches longer than the left. And it felt a lot more limber, too.The class’s emphasis on working from the bones out meant that I really thought about skeletal structure and how integral it was to movement, rather than trying to achieve the outer form of a posture. Afterwards, I felt leaner and longer, and my breathing was more free.Fellow first-timer Emily Davidow, a furniture designer and graphic artist, liked the multi-disciplinary approach, which drew on Pilates technique as well as yoga. Because she spends many hours a day at her computer, she said she found the hand work at the beginning of class helpful as well. “Places where I was holding tension without realizing it felt lighter and more open. And incorporating the balls helped articulate parts I didn’t know I could actually move that way,” she said.Ms. Zake especially welcomes that last sentiment. “We change bodies here, and it helps people change their consciousness. People feel that a shift has occurred inside them, and they walk out of this class smiling.”Yamuna Studio, 132 Perry St., 212-633-2143, www.yamunastudio.com. $20 for walk-in classes (multiple-class packages available); $7 for Foot Fitness in conjunction with a class.

Feeling Good From Head to Toe

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