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Yoga lovers flock to Fowler Museum at UCLA for ‘Sunset Yoga’

By Arit John

Aug. 16, 2010 8:34 p.m.

As the sun begins to set behind the dorms, 60 or so students, faculty and museum visitors on brightly colored mats laid out across the Fowler Museum’s red brick terrace begin their salutations to the sun.

After two weeks on furlough, the Fowler Museum at UCLA is playing host to a free, hour-long yoga class every Thursday evening during the month of August. The class, “Sunset Yoga,” accommodates all levels of experience.

“I try to do poses that are safe for beginning practitioners, but that more advanced practitioners can go into more deeply,” said Aynne Kokas, a yoga teacher at the Wooden Center and the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience.

The yoga technique taught at the Fowler Museum is called vinyasa flow, which focuses on both fitness and mental clarity, Kokas said.

“It’s an excellent way to calm your mind,” Kokas said. “Practicing yoga helps make you more calm and focused.”

In addition to offering peace of mind, the yoga class may dispel some common misconceptions about the practice. While yoga is full of various foreign and nature-based positions and poses such as downward- and upward-facing dog, they don’t make up the entirety of the hour-long class.

Kokas said she has come in contact with two particular yoga myths. First, that yoga is only stretching. Second, that yoga is actually a religion.

“It’s really about the connection between body and mind,” Kokas said, adding that yoga is a form of meditation with no religious strings attached.

A good number of the students attending the class were already familiar with yoga and its benefits.

“It helps you stay in touch with your goals and intentions during the day,” said Nellie Kadkhoda, a fourth-year Spanish student.

Kadkhoda, who said she has practiced yoga on and off for several years, is on the advanced side of the wide spectrum of people who attend the classes. But even seasoned yoga vets have the opportunity to learn something new.

“(The class) added different aspects I hadn’t practiced before, which was a nice change,” Kadkhoda said.

Sunset Yoga is part of the museum’s department of public programs. The department includes interns who man the sign-in desk, hand out waiver forms and mats and offer the coffee provided by the museum. One intern, fourth-year world arts and cultures and global studies student Victor Cordon, said the class is useful because it gets people outdoors.

“It’s nice to have something that gets people outdoors and being healthy, but also it’s great to get people into the museum,” Cordon said.

Getting people into the museum is one of the added benefits, if not one of the main goals of Sunset Yoga. The class lets out at 7:15 p.m, and the museum stays open until 8 p.m. on Thursday nights.

“It’s free, and being in college, none of us have money to just throw around,” Cordon said. “It’s a great resource, and I don’t know if a lot of people know about the Fowler and the fact that there’s something like this right on campus.”

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