Pat Brown
Contributing Writer
Students of Manisha Sharma are quietly serious about the practice of yoga at New River Community College.
Visiting the classroom she occupies on Monday and Tuesday evenings at NRCC’s mall location, one can observe attentive young people dressed in loose clothing, sitting on yoga mats, listening to their instructor and following her instructions.
Not what you expected in a college setting?
“By calming, stretching, relaxing the body, we relax the mind,” Sharma instructs, and the students listen.
About 20 young people—and one of their instructors—make up the class roll.
“It’s a wind-down for the day,” said one female student in a tie-dyed shirt, “a relaxation.”
A young man said he valued the mental strength yoga afforded him.
From the front row a young woman said she gains “awareness” from her practice.
Though Sharma emphasizes that this is not a lecture class, she has brought a special video to show them on Monday night.
Doctor-turned–interviewer Sanjay Gupta is pictured visiting SV Yasa Yoga University in Bangalore, India. The film examines the way the school is “merging traditional health practices with modern scientific research.”
The scientists have tracked heart rate variability as subjects perform various poses or “asanas.”
Thirty years ago, Sharma studied under Dr. H. R. Nagendra, the yogi who is featured in the film. The yoga university’s stated goal is to work toward “yoga-based medical interventions.”
From 1994 to 2002, Sharma volunteered to bring yoga to people of all ages who were living in refugee camps in India. These days, she teaches classes in Blacksburg at the Recreation Center Wednesday through Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. She is an English instructor at NRCC in addition to teaching yoga there.
New River Community College got a big response when they announced Sharma’s intentions to teach yoga last term.
Enough students to fill two classes signed up. The school plans to offer yoga again at both campuses in the fall, but probably only one section at each site. (NRCC’s original campus is in Dublin.)
Sharma leads the class through a long series of gentle movements that ready her students for the many poses they will attempt during the next hour.
After weeks in the class, the students move in near-unison, resembling a ballet taking place on the floor.
“Focus on the process,” she reminds them.
Later they rise to perform some standing and bending poses, including tree pose, which is designed to improve balance.
“Yoga is interdisciplinary,” reminds Sharma. “We go through the body to reach the mind.”
With not a single snicker or disruption, the student finish the class and a few of them begin to bring out folded tables and chairs that had been pushed against the wall. The space is returned to a traditional classroom.
“They are so mature here,” Sharma says of her students. As the semester has progressed, a few “were so excited to get into lotus position,” the crossed-legged pose that begins and ends most yoga exercise sessions.
Some of the students may be motivated to sign up by the fact that the class includes no written exam and credit is based on attendance.
But before the class breaks up, while they are all lying down and taking in the final relaxing breaths, a few are so tranquil that they fall asleep and begin to snore.
“That’s absolutely normal,” Sharma said.
From all accounts, it appears the students are here to learn, to embrace relaxation techniques during a hectic period of their lives, to tap into the process and power of practicing yoga.
