Living Large

Hatha yoga isn't just for the slim and slinky. A few basic modifications can make its gifts--flexibility, balance, strength, stress reduction, and increased awareness--accessible to every body.

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg

Midway through her first yoga class, Kay Erdwinn wanted desperately to disappear.

Erdwinn had come to the class, not far from her Southern California neighborhood, in search of a noncompetitive, inwardly focused way to exercise. Instead, she found a teacher who demanded that she upend her five-foot-two-inch, 260-pound body into Halasana (Plow Pose).

The teacher hunkered down beside her on his hands and knees, egging her on like an overadrenalized sports coach: "Come on, come on, you can do it," he barked. Each yell made her feel more inadequate and humiliated. Erdwinn, then 23, didn't have enough self-confidence to gently tell the teacher what she was thinking: "I know you want me to do these asanas really well, but I am not here to compete and get really aggressive." She fumbled though the class as best as she could, then ran for the nearest door and never came back. "The whole thing scared me away," she recalls.

But Erdwinn didn't stay scared. She still wanted to find a meditative movement practice. In addition, she had fibromyalgia and had read that yoga might help relieve the muscle pain, sleep disturbances, and chronic fatigue that accompanied it. Erdwinn tried practicing from a book, checked out a few classes in nearby health clubs, and finally, years later, found the class her instincts had always told her must exist.

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