Yoga provides a complete health and wellness toolbox

RAINY RIVER — Everyone comes to yoga for their own reasons.

For Megan Spooner, a yogi (someone who practices yoga regularly) and a teacher with the Rainy River District School District, her journey into yoga began after sustaining a neck injury during her fifth full marathon. started.

Nothing seemed to ease her pain. Two years later, someone suggested Spooner try yoga.

“I couldn’t move my neck at all,” she says. “And I couldn’t turn my head from side to side at all. I had physical therapy, I went to the doctor, I had an MRI scan, and everything was in order, but it was muscular.”

“So yoga helped relieve that pain and relax my upper back. And the more I got into it, the more I practiced yoga, and the more often I did yoga, the more I found that my mobility returned. got it.”

“It worked wonders for me in relieving the pain and dealing with all the other things that come with it, but there was a lovely community locally that I got involved in,” she says. said.

Before joining the local yoga community in Fort Frances, Spooner watched an online video called P90X Vinyasa Yoga with Tony Horton.

Spooner earned her yoga teacher certification around 2015 to better understand herself as a yogi. She ultimately taught yoga classes at the Fort Frances Public Library Technology Center for two and a half years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of her remaining health and safety requirements, she has not returned to teaching classes yet, but she hopes to return at some point.

Spooner is currently practicing yoga at home.

When most people think of yoga, they think of yoga asanas, which refer to physical postures. The purpose of these poses was originally to prepare yogis for long periods of meditation, Spooner says, explaining that asanas are just one aspect of yoga.

Yoga is a great way to exercise, cope with trauma, increase flexibility, practice mindfulness, and more, but most importantly, yoga connects.

“Being connected to your body, your breath, and the world at large, or being able to sit and just be in space. Whether it’s to clear your mind, to calm yourself, or just to be present in the world around you. Please. That’s what yoga is. Yoga is not just asanas. It’s very multifaceted,” she said.

There are no beginners to yoga. Only those interested in attending yoga classes. Lack of flexibility is one of the most common concerns people have about yoga. But Spooner reminds us that yoga is about more than achieving cool poses.

“Yoga isn’t about achieving headstands or doing some crazy trick you see on the internet,” she said. “Yoga is really about connecting with yourself. So while practicing Asana will give you flexibility over time, it’s not something anyone needs to worry about. It’s about being there, breathing comfortably, and just being present.”

Being present affects our health in many ways. Spooner, who grew up with anxiety as a teenager, found that yoga helped ease her anxiety in difficult situations even as an adult.

“Rather than being reactive, I found myself slowing down…and being present in my body at the moment to go through what needed to go through. I could call it that,” she said.

Spooner encourages everyone to use yoga as a tool and incorporate what speaks to them.

A local yoga community called Tru North Yoga Cooperative offers a rotating selection of classes, including beginner classes, flow classes, power yoga, and fusion classes.

We recommend speaking with your instructor to determine which class is best for you.

Dee O’Sullivan, a certified yoga instructor with True North Yoga Cooperative, says it’s also a good idea to try all the classes to see which ones resonate with you.

“There’s also a part of me that wants to tell people to come and try it and not worry about whether it’s too hard because you won’t know until you try,” she said. “There are many different types of yoga, so finding an instructor that speaks to you and a style of yoga that speaks to you is very important.”

However, O’Sullivan points out that anyone with an injury or health condition should check with their instructor first to ensure they are safe.

O’Sullivan began her yoga journey through her work as a physical therapist. When she worked in a children’s program, many yoga poses were used to help her children reach their physiological goals.

O’Sullivan’s curiosity was piqued when she noticed that yoga poses seemed to have other benefits, too, such as making children calmer and more present.

“Yoga is really a toolkit,” she said. “In fact, this is an ancient custom that comes from indigenous cultures in eastern Asia. And it has hundreds and thousands of years of experience and knowledge that we now know are supported by neuroscience. Masu.”

“It really offers a variety of ways to help you on your path to health,” she said.

Brian Cousineau and Tracy Collan are also instructors at True North Yoga Cooperative. Our yoga class schedule is updated regularly on Facebook and our booking page is easily accessible.

Fort Frances Times/Local Journalism Initiative