At 5:15 on Monday evenings, the upstairs aerobics room in the Warrensburg Community Center is converted into a haven. Eight barefoot women sit in prayer position on scattered mats. The lights are turned off and gentle music emanates from the speakers.
Outside the room, the frenzy of the gym continues feet pound loudly on treadmills, wheels whir on stationary bicycles, and metal clanks on weight-lifting machines.
Later, Yoga instructor Karla Gilmore will tell her basic yoga class to 'ignore the bowling alley,' referring to the noises of the gym that sometimes sound like toppling bowling pins. Right now, however, Gilmore is beginning the class with gentle instructions issued in a soft voice.
'Leave everything at the door. It will be there when you leave, just as big as before,' she says. 'Find an intention for this hour. It could be about stretching, breathing, balance or any aspect of your life. Remember to be aware of your breathing.'
Gilmore's favorite part of teaching yoga is when someone tells her after a class, 'I didn't know I could do this.'
For the next hour, Gilmore will take her class through a variety of asanas, or postures, reminding each woman to elongate her spine and focus on her breathing.
'Yoga is all about breathing,' Gilmore says. 'Asanas just give you something to do while you breathe. We hold our breath all the time. We bring life into us when we breathe.'
Gilmore has been practicing yoga for seven years. She has taken yoga classes around the country in places like Austin, Texas; Eureka and Arcata, Calif.; Portland, Ore. and Asheville, N.C.
'I love yoga and I carry my thoughts from yoga into my day,' Gilmore says. 'Yoga helps me find a place of peace and serenity and, maybe bigger than that, self acceptance. We live in a culture that pulls us away from that. Yoga helps you with self acceptance. It helps me say 'I'm ok where I’m at.''
Gilmore has tried a variety of yoga, including ashtanga yoga, which she describes as a 'quicker, power yoga,' and kripalu, a 'gentle yoga.' Gilmore has also tried kundalini yoga which kept her awake for three days straight. Gilmore’s favorite variety of yoga, however, is bikram yoga, which is done in temperatures of 95/105 degrees.
'I absolutely love [bikram yoga] because it gets the body warm and flexible, so it's easier to move and breathe into the poses,' Gilmore says. 'Once, I went every day on vacation. I would be dripping by the end of the class, but I was able to do so much more than ever before. It's amazing what you can do.'
Gilmore has practiced yoga for the past seven years and was encouraged by her husband in 2004 to become a yoga instructor.
Eventually, Gilmore wants to teach anusara yoga, which she says focuses on 'the heart and friendships.' But for now, Gilmore teaches hawtha, or basic, yoga. She only teaches on Mondays, but does yoga on her own throughout the week. Gilmore's husband also practices yoga, doing her favorite series of asanas called the sun salutation, or surya namaskar, each morning.
'The sun salutation pulls together a number of [asanas] and gets the body awake,' Gilmore says. 'If I do it in the morning to the sun, I have that feeling of following my heart. I begin the day with divine energy emanating through my heart.'
In 2004, Gilmore’s husband encouraged her to become a yoga instructor. Gilmore took a 10 day intensive course through the Living Yoga Program in Austin and became certified in 2005.
'I wanted to teach yoga to help people find out who they are,' Gilmore said. 'To help them learn to respect their self and to learn to honor their body. I just wanted to help people find that. It's my intention when I teach to help people listen to their bodies and, when something hurts, to honor that. I want to help people get to a place where they’re OK where they are and not imitating someone else.'
Gilmore also took a two day meditation training course at the Zen Center in Asheville, N.C. She said it was difficult, as a very active person, to learn meditation but is glad she took the course.
'Five years later, I'm starting to realize how much I use that stillness,' Gilmore said. 'It's powerful. It helps us find that still place where there's sanity instead of chaos.'
Gilmore's passion for yoga transfers to the classroom, where she says the most difficult task in teaching yoga is teaching an individual practice to several people at once.
'Yoga is a very personal experience,' Gilmore says. 'The hardest thing about teaching is that everyone is doing the same thing at the same time and it takes away from that personal experience.'
Gilmore has taught basic yoga to groups as large as 19, but prefers a class size of five to eight. Despite the difficulties of teaching to a group, Gilmore finds teaching yoga to be rewarding.
'When someone comes up after a class and says, 'I didn’t know I could do this' that's my favorite part of teaching yoga. It's why I wanted to teach. Anyone can do yoga. It's accessible to anyone. It's not about the ability to put your feet behind your ears.'
Gilmore tries to infuse health into all areas of her life. She works full'time as a counselor at Warrensburg High School, mentors two girls through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and volunteers at Bittersweet Place, a center that helps children with the grieving process. Gilmore participates in a food cooperative to buy organic food and spends time outdoors biking the Katy Trail.
'I try to take care of myself,' Gilmore says. 'I believe in health of the mind, body and spirit are one. You can't have one without the other.'
By Jesska Daugherty
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
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