Yoga is a wonderful method for exercising the body and mind. It can truly improve the quality of one's life if practiced daily. I discovered it three years ago, and fell in love. To understand its effects, you must try it yourself. But I can try and explain some of what I view as the smartest thing I have ever encountered.

The idea behind yoga is to teach the mind through the body. We often see the effects of the mind on the body, for example when we are sad or tensed one can see this by the way we hold our head or shoulders. Yoga uses this body-mind connection in the other direction- It teaches the body how to improve, and the mind naturally follows. The goal of yoga is to enable ourselves to live happily and freely, and to live life to its full potential. One goal of yoga is to teach how to improve and approach challenges in life with a calm, free, and restful mind, yet awake and aware and not numb. At first sight the two words, challenge and calmness, seem to be contradicting, but they can actually live together. The physical exercises teach the body gradually but steadily to gain more strength, flexibility and stamina, and naturally and intuitively, without strain, the strength, flexibility and stamina of the mind follow. Moreover, the strong distinction between body and mind gradually disappears, and a feeling of union between mind and body is achieved, what is called the body-mind. Yoga is a truly remarkable system, because it enables one to improve. Improve in what? In whatever one pleases. Yoga simply gives the tools, which are improvement in patience, stamina, strength, and flexibility of the mind-body. These capabilities reflect in everything one chooses to do. Oh, I forgot perhaps the most important effect of yoga, to my taste. It is the feeling of freedom. Freedom, in all aspects. It starts with the emphasize of yoga on flexibility. As one becomes more flexible, each of the different parts of the body seem to gain its own distinctive feelings. It is as if some space is created in the joints, so that each part of the body can move freely without being attached to the other parts. This feeling of freedom of different organs translates to other feelings of freedom. That of the different parts and aspects in one's mind, or course; Suddenly it no longer seems contradictory to express different aspects of yourself, and to have many ways of expressions. Each way gains its place. Afterwards, other freedom sensations appear, like the freedom and space between yourself and others. It is easier to give other people the space they need, and to take your own space when you need it.

The meaning of the word yoga is union. It is the union of the body and the mind. It is also the union of ourselves with others; and mainly, it is the union of the many different aspects of our lives. This unity between different aspects does not mean that they are all the same. Again, yoga helps us find the balance between the unity and the wonderful sense of freedom of each part in the whole.

The effects which I have described are not gained in one day. Each time I do yoga I discover something new. In yoga, you never "get there". You are always in the middle of a wonderful journey, towards wherever you wish to go.

Here are some Yoga Links to places I practiced in.

Nothing can pay back what I owe my first beloved Yoga teacher, Tzipi Negev. She teaches in Musrara, Jerusalem, and she is simply wonderful.

The Yoga Garden. This is where information about my teacher in 2001, Gay White, can be found.

The Yoga Room at Berkeley- A nice place with teachers of many different approaches.

4th street Yoga at Berkeley- This used to be my favorite place for Yoga in Berkeley, since it is close to the fun coffee shops area of 4'th street, and it is nice to get out of the yoga class and go sit in the sun and have lunch.

I also liked to go to the Piedmont Yoga center in Oakland. This is also the website from which I took the cute figures doing yoga; I hope that is OK with piedmont yoga studio.

This is the web page of Rodney Yee, a famous yoga teacher who initiated the piedmont yoga center. His page has changing photos, and if you are lucky you get to see some very nice pictures of Rodney doing yoga.