HD + Instructor Finds that Yoga can Relieve Symptoms

HD Lighthouse Contributing Editor's Comment:
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Posted to the HDL: 04 Jan 2005

Laura Jean at the Guthrie Center

Old Lyme - It has been three full months since DNA Wellness Studios opened its doors in the Old Lyme Shopping Center. The name derives both from genetic association and slogans such as "Develop New Awareness."

Since 2002, Laura Jean had been teaching Kundalini yoga in a basement space, in Niantic. Suffering from Huntington's Disease, Jean discovered and began practicing the discipline five years ago. It's one that has helped relieve her of many of the disease's symptoms. A registered nurse, the 40-year-old Jean had been looking to expand from the Niantic space in which she'd been teaching.

Concurrently, Ann Irr Dagle, a personal trainer, was looking for a space she could "call home," one in which she could work with clients, coaching their fitness regimens and also teaching Pilates and a Hatha-based yoga technique. Jean and Dagle met last year and decided their interests complemented one another's. Their fields of discipline are different, yet "some of that is overlapping now," Dagle said. The studio itself is a sizeable rectangular space lighted dimly by a trio of modest chandeliers. The floor is covered nearly corner-to-corner and wall-to-wall by a comfortably thick, off-white rug. A sign welcomes practitioners into the space: "Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam Siri Wahe Guru," a Kundalini mantra.

Dagle described the difference between Kundalini and Hatha-based yoga: "Kundalini is very spiritual (and) definitely more meditative," while Hatha-based yoga, she said, focuses on strength and power from within. "Both of us," Dagle said, "want wellness wherever it comes from." Dagle's a jogger, and has been a fitness aficionado all her life. But she's also into the notion of slowing down from the pace of the everyday American lifestyle. She talked about the mind body connection, with regard to her running regimen. "I need it for the mental health" aspects, she said.

She talked about Jean's work with a population of clients with medical conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis and cancer to brain injuries. "Through yoga," Dagle said, "they've been able to overcome a lot of obstacles," as has Jean, who was away on vacation at the time this article went to press.

DNA Wellness Studios offers something for everyone really, ranging from classes in Pilates to pre-natal and children's yoga, to name a few. In addition to Dagle and Jean, the studio has other instructors who offer classes, including Kripalu yoga. Jean, 44, said of people in today's hurried society, "I just wish they'd take care of themselves," and that to her, fitness is "not about being a supermodel or being thin. It's about being fit. "It's about the health inside of you. It's about your heart. It's about your body and your mind," she said. Dagle talked in Zen terms. "It's all about mindfulness, being in the present." She said, "This is about (people) taking care of themselves, about slowing down, enjoying life."

The studios currently offer some 25 classes each week, all geared toward wellness through whichever discipline best suits a particular client. Many people, Dagle discussed, feel the pressure of time, in terms of not having enough. "They have to pencil it right in," she said. "Put it right into their Palm Pilot, make the time." She said the demographics of people who arrive at DNA Wellness Studios from day to day and week to week vary from those in their 20s to those in their 70s. With regard to each individual's choice of "wellness," Dagle said, "There's a difference between yoga and fitness people," that the "fitness people are more on the hurried" side. "Fitness people need to slow down," she said, and those who practice yoga tend to "understand that they have to slow down if they want to be healthy." She said, "I've noticed definitely that the yoga has helped me slow down." She also said, "People don't realize with Pilates, with yoga, you can get a tremendous workout. "People think you have to sweat," she said. "And you don't. ... It's a kindler, gentler workout, but you get the same effects."

One such client is 50-year-old Jane Nebelung, who's been practicing Pilates with Dagle since February. Nebelung said, "I was going to be 50 and I wanted to regain my body." Since then, she said she's lost 40 pounds and five sizes, part of her lifestyle change being the incorporation of a low-carbohydrate diet. "Part of getting old," Nebelung said, "is arthritis setting in. ... And that is gone," she said. "I feel great. "I just feel like I have a lot more energy," Nebelung said. "Everyone says I look 10 years younger."

To contact Laura Jean, RN, CKYI or Ann Dagle, personal trainer, AFAA, and to learn about classes at DNA Wellness Studios, call (860) 434-1289 or send e-mail to dnastudios@snet.net.

Source: Reprinted by permission from Shore Publishing, 1/2/05

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