Is yoga a physical exercise, a mental one or more of a spiritual thing, along the lines of a religion? Does it demand only the most flexible bodies, build strength or simply provide practitioners with an opportunity to relax?
The answer may be yes, no, all or none of the above, depending on what brings people to the dance, so to speak. What people work to get from it, and who is teaching them and how can all make a big difference.
“It’s a philosophy,” says Debbie Wright, a retired Apollo-Ridge School District teacher who instructs PiYo at Sunflower Yoga in Indiana. “A lot of people think it’s a religion. It’s just a nice way to find some peace and strength and stretch and release. It’s a nice way to think about life.”
But misconceptions abound. Leah Delaney, an Apollo-Ridge alum who runs AngelWing Yoga & Wellness in New Kensington, says she regularly hears from people who think they cannot practice yoga unless they are incredibly flexible. That is far from the case, according to Delaney.
“Yoga is really for anybody,” she says. “You can come to any yoga class and make it work for you.”
To that end, Delaney says there are certain poses that elevate the heart rate and build up a sweat. Others are designed to relax or stretch. And activities such as chair yoga can be easier on the body, leaving the practice open to all genders and ages, Delaney explains.
“Yoga classes aren’t about keeping up with everybody else,” she says. “They’re about your own practice.”
The one constant is breath — recognizing it, controlling it, understanding how it is integral to the exercises, Delaney says. She likes to compare it to the keys to a car. Without them, a vehicle that may otherwise be fully functioning will not run.
“Breath is the key to yoga,” she says. “You can’t do the yoga practice without your breath.”
Tiffany Chan teaches yoga locally. She says while the visual of yoga poses is always a physical one, the discipline encompasses much more than that — including breathing, releasing and relaxation.
“It’s a transformative practice,” Chan says. “Whenever you do it, you feel better — and not just physically better. A lot of the practice is going on underneath.”
The operative word, she says, is “practice.” Putting in the time regularly with yoga is where people will start to see the biggest benefits. And one of the reasons some people do not fully understand yoga is that they simply have not tried it for themselves, she says.
“Watching it is totally different than actually doing the practice,” she says.
With Yoga Awareness Month on the horizon in September, Chan, Delaney and Wright talked about how and why they first got into yoga, what it has done for their lives, and what it means to transition to teaching others how to find peace, strength and more through the practice.
Tiffany Chan
Chan found yoga in the late 1980s through a college gym class. It was love at first try.
“I tried it and really liked it a lot,” she says. “It wasn’t just about the body; it was about life stress.”
In addition to finding relief from that stress, she recognized the practice — which Chan says is “everywhere now” — has another special benefit. It makes the good times better, she says, by enhancing her perception of them. It can make people better members of their families, communities and more, she adds.
“It has always met me where I’m at,” Chan says of yoga. “There’s all sorts of ways to tap into that calm feeling.”
Even so, Chan says she only practiced yoga “haphazardly” for the first few years. It was a weeklong workshop that focused her interest in the practice and led to her teaching it. Instruction proved to be its own reward, in large part because yoga communities tend to be driven by people who want to be there.
“People come because they love it and they enjoy it, not because they’re made to do it,” Chan says.
These days, she teaches students as well as other yoga teachers. She helps others make the same connections she found with the practice years ago and “ride the wave” of a contentious political climate and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s very rewarding to think I’ve been able to provide the space for it to happen,” Chan says. “I don’t talk about politics, but the stresses people may be having.”
The “space” in which she creates that environment varies. Chan rents places all over Indiana County, and says she has probably taught everywhere in the area. For much of 2020 and early 2021, that space was virtual, with a shift to Zoom classes. At first, people were apprehensive and wanted back in the physical space. But they got used to it, she says.
“I really miss being in-person, but I guess we’re all adapting,” Chan says. “It’s a big stress we’re all in right now. I’ve had to use my practice to keep my serenity.”
Chan says she has done that by focusing on things such as beauty and love. For more than a year now, the changes the pandemic has brought about have been something of an equalizer for people who are stressed, because everyone is experiencing it together. She compares it to something like the weather, which is out of our control but experienced by all.
“It’s just another thing to adapt to,” Chan says. “It kind of brings us together that way. It’s a strange bonding through tragedy and hardship. What kind of attitude are you going to have toward it?”
Chan (tiffanychanyoga.com) has presented twice to ARIN Intermediate Unit 28’s Early Intervention group over the past year. She says such stress management programs have become in-demand in the face of the aforementioned stressors. Chan adapts what she does a bit for those settings, where participants may not be yoga regulars.
“Sometimes, people have this preconceived notion of what it is and that they don’t need it; I love that as a challenge,” she says, noting she tries to show those people what yoga has done for her. “It’s not the ideal setting, but I take it as a challenge to get to them by the end of the hour.”
She tries to make it experiential, leaves them with deep-breathing exercises and utilizes less-demanding tools, such as chair yoga.
“I always try to bring it to the physical,” she says. “It’s surprising how good you can feel from a couple little stretches.”
Chan emphasizes that for those who truly want to get something out of yoga, those types of classes should be the start of a journey. She encourages people to explore different ways to experience yoga.
“It’s just the beginning,” she says. “It’s not a one-time thing. You have to make it part of your lifestyle.”
Leah Delaney
As a spin instructor and personal trainer, Leah Delaney found herself going 110% day after day. The Apollo-Ridge Class of 2001 graduate focused on cardio and weightlifting, primarily.
“I did that for many, many years, and I never did any restorative care,” Delaney says.
She came to the realization that she needed to start taking a more holistic approach to self-care that included body maintenance and restoration. Roughly 10 years ago she rediscovered yoga and made it an important part of her lifestyle.
“I fell in love,” Delaney says of yoga, adding that she quickly made an effort to do it two to four times a week. “I noticed everything else just became easier. It literally oils your engine.”
The combination of physical and spiritual fulfillment Delaney found through yoga ultimately led her to becoming an instructor, working with everyone from athletes to senior citizens. This spring, she opened AngelWing Yoga & Wellness (angelwingyogaandwellness.com) in New Kensington.
At the studio, she and other instructors help their students gain flexibility, quiet their minds and build strength, with everything from chair yoga to various Vinyasa offerings, lunchtime flows to children’s classes, and Kundalini to Cosmic Yin yoga. The idea is to individualize achievements through practices that work best on a personal level. That yoga practice exists in tandem with personal training and good nutrition for a holistic approach Delaney hopes to make accessible to more people.
“Yoga’s looked at as more of a luxury than a necessity,” Delaney says. “And I want to change that.”
In fact, she wants to take it further than that. She is planning to have free, donation-based outdoor yoga classes during the warmer months. She also is trying to start a program through which she will choose someone once a month to receive a “largely discounted” rate on unlimited yoga.
“Each participant would just have to give me their story,” she says. “I was once in those shoes where it wasn’t always the easiest to financially be able to afford this healing modality, especially being a single mother of three. So I want this to be a chance to give back to anybody in a situation similar to what I was in.”
Delaney loves hearing the stories of her students. Whether it is finally mastering a pose that was once a struggle, learning to breathe through different postures or finding more positive connections with themselves, students’ successes come in all shapes and sizes. They are all rewarding to Delaney.
“People are always telling me their success stories, and they’re all different,” she says.
But it undoubtedly takes work to get there. Despite the often relaxed images, connecting mind, body and soul should be practiced at least once or twice a week, Delaney says. The rewards can be well worth it, as she is well aware.
“Yoga is a healing modality,” she says. “Everybody should try this.”
Debbie Wright
When Debbie Wright retired from teaching in Apollo-Ridge in 2011, she had not thought entirely about her “next step.” She had some things she hoped to do once her work schedule was cleared, but she underestimated just how much time she would have on her hands.
“There was a moment of panic,” she says. “I filled that panic with some things I always wanted to try.”
Among them: taking a class in yoga. She loved it, and she started studying yoga more. It helped her to see a path in her retirement years that includes regular practice.
“The people who do it on a regular basis like the strength, the peace you get,” Wright says.
She ended up taking a class in Pittsburgh to become an instructor and started teaching PiYo, a combination of Pilates and yoga, at Indiana’s Sunflower Yoga (sunfloweryogastudio.com). But during the pandemic shutdown at the studio that started in March 2020 and ended May 1, 2021, she shifted to yoga, including chair yoga, at the Indiana YMCA. While teaching in a non-studio situation has been a challenge, Wright has had the opportunity to provide comfort during a time of hardship. She has also had unique opportunities, such as teaching yoga to students with special needs.
“That was very rewarding to me,” Wright says.
Wright, 66, is now hoping to encourage more people her age to find what she found in yoga. She says the images often associated with yoga — young, slim women in beautiful clothes and baring their midriffs, as Wright puts it — can be discouraging to older practitioners.
“I’m no longer 25,” she says, noting she also tries to lead others by creating a welcoming environment where individuals can laugh at their own struggles. “I just don’t see it as being so serious.”
Wright says discovering yoga also helped her find a community of people who think about life in a similar way. She says with a laugh they even go out for drinks sometimes after their yoga sessions.
“These are people I wouldn’t have met,” Wright says, if not for finding yoga. “The companionship … it’s really heart-lifting.”
In April, Wright said she was eager to get back to it. She thought her students were, too.
“They were so anxious to come back,” Wright says. “It wasn’t just about the exercise; it was missing people. I’m excited to go back.”
