For some people, yoga might conjure thoughts of people twisting themselves into pretzel-like shapes and standing on one foot while trying to stay balanced. If you drop by Sacramento State at the Valley Suite in the University Union on Monday afternoons, the Yoga and Meditation Club will be practicing beginning yoga and a little bit of meditation, with no head stands in sight.

Tracy Terna, yoga teacher and head of the Yoga and Mediation Club said she makes the classes open to “all levels.”

“I don’t want anyone to get scared-off because it is too hard,” Terna said.

Michelle Marlahan, owner of It’s All Yoga in Sacramento, said yoga has the potential to have many benefits for students, some of which are increasing strength and reducing stress and anxiety. With the demands of writing essays, doing homework and balancing work and friends, school can be a stressful place. Marlahan said practicing yoga just once a week could have positive results.

Yoga itself has been popular for quite some time, but just how long it has been practiced is debatable. Marlahan said that yoga started approximately 5,000 years ago, either in India or other parts of the East. She said she knows that yoga in the U.S. is a lot different than in India.

“Yoga is not what we do here on the mat in the West, but it is one of eight components that builds the yoga practice,” she said. “Other components are breath and meditation.”

Yoga in the U.S. is practiced using a yoga mat and incorporates meditation and a focus on breathing.

Ternas said she has been teaching yoga for three years and begins her first couple of classes with beginning poses. If she gets a regular group of people attending the club meetings, she said that she will step up the poses to more challenging ones.

She suggests wearing loose-fitting clothes for the class, and to also bring a yoga mat if handy. If not, she said that she usually brings some with her for people to borrow.

Marlahan said that a yoga mat is used because it is best to do yoga on a hard surface, like wood, and the mat provides cushion from the floor. It also gives traction for feet and hands while doing poses, so that there is no slipping and sliding around while trying to hold a downward dog pose.

What to expect during a yoga club meeting are some warm-up poses and standing poses followed by meditation.

“We’ll do some gentle warming-up exercises, like some floor poses and abdominal work,” Ternas said, adding that the abdominal exercises help the spine and support good posture. “When we come to standing, we’ll do some sun salutations and we’ll do some warrior poses for strengthening.”

The September 2008 issue of the Harvard Health Letter described a series of yoga postures done in a flowing sequence. If done for at least 25 minutes, sun salutations can be a good cardiovascular workout.

“It stretches every major muscle group in the body, and it helps build up heat and energy in the body,” Ternas said of sun salutations. “It helps you get a rhythm in your breath, and in each pose you should be moving to an inhale or exhale.”

Some other poses that could be labeled as beginner are the triangle, the mountain pose and the tree pose. These poses are quite simple, although one may feel silly while in the tree pose, because it requires balancing on one foot with both hands pointing towards the ceiling.

“I don’t like to do inversions,” Ternas said. “It could become uncomfortable and injure your neck.”

After the yoga session is over, the mediation portion begins, and the meditation usually lasts an hour.

“We do mantra meditations primarily, which is meditation on mantras or spiritual sounds,” Ternas said. “We do a meditation with music. I bring my guitar and we’ll have a group musical meditation.”

If you are looking for a yoga class for a class credit or yoga more than once a week, it is not available at Sac State yet.

“We haven’t offered yoga through our department in the past,” Fred Baldini, chair of the department of kinesiology and health science for Sac State said. “However, we are going to propose some classes for the future.

Baldini said that there isn’t a particular reason that yoga is not available as a semester-long class for credit. For now, there is the Yoga and Meditation Club, which meets every Monday from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Stephanie Dumm can be reached at [email protected]