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Go with the flow.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Kesa Emi Nomiyama used to lift weights and walk on a treadmill, but now she takes yoga. Three times a week, she studies the 5,000-year-old Indian discipline, which she says helps her keep focused and in shape.

"I fell in love and I dropped my gym membership," said the 29-year-old nurse and University of Oregon student. "After the first class I went to, I was sore for a week. I was using muscles I didn't know I had."

Nomiyama practices "hot yoga" at Bikram's Yoga College of India, a newly opened facility in downtown Eugene. The trendy studio, which is part of a worldwide franchise, offers yoga classes in a 104-degree room. Nomiyama likes the temperature, which is supposed to improve elasticity and help release toxins, and she enjoys the combination of physical and mental activities.

Nomiyama is one of an estimated 35 million Americans who will try yoga for the first time this year. Once confined to New Agers with an interest in Eastern spirituality, yoga is catching on among young men, fitness fanatics, aging baby boomers and other unlikely enthusiasts who claim the mind/body practice does everything from heal illness to tighten abs.

Nationally, yoga is a $22.5 billion industry. Advertisements for yoga books, videos, clothes, wellness retreats and even yoga business training classes can be found in the back of magazines such as Yoga Journal, and the phenomenon is now reaching into the mainstream. Border's Books & Music sells yoga mats, L.L. Bean sells yoga wear, Wal-Mart carries yoga gear and some airlines are even offering in-flight yoga classes.

"Yoga has just grown and grown," said Donna O'Neil, director of yoga at Four Winds Yoga...