Former WCW Heavyweight Champion DDP, short for Diamond Dallas Page, is creating headlines this week. Mainstream media outlets are electing to broadcast the story of Arthur Boorman, a disabled Gulf War veteran who has used the DDP Yoga system to make a dramatic change in his rehabilitation. Boorman was told by his doctors that he would never be able to walk again. However, through DDP Yoga, and personal encouragement from the former professional wrestler, Boorman has lost 140 pounds within ten months of applying the techniques he absorbed from DDP. In addition, Boorman's flexibility, balance and strength has improved, resulting in Arthur being able to walk without the use of a cane or back brace. The inspirational story has been picked up by media outlets worldwide.

As a wrestling fan for the last 20 years, it's especially gratifying to see a retired wrestler like Diamond Dallas Page successfully adjust his lifestyle from pro wrestler to high profile yoga instructor and inspirational speaker. In the last several years, pro wrestlers from the 80s and 90s have not been able to make a proper transition out of the wrestling industry.

For example, the world's most acclaimed wrestler Hulk Hogan helped weave the sports entertainment business into American culture. But since his divorce from Linda Hogan, the former six time WWE Heavyweight Champion has twisted into a shadow of his former self. The biggest name in wrestling history now hawks couches and televisions for Rent-A-Center alongside Troy Aikman. It's a tall nose-dive from selling out Madison Square Garden. His cohort Ric Flair isn't doing any better. Grantland .com ran an article on the "Nature Boy" comparing him to fictional character Randy "The Ram" Robinson, from the critically acclaimed film The Wrestler." But unlike those men, Diamond Dallas Page has been able to steer clear of small time independent wrestling shows and he has kept his nose out of nefarious activities.

It's not surprising Diamond Dallas Page was able to be a positive and motivational charge for Arthur Boorman. Page has always fought against the odds. Page started in the sport as a manager for men like Scott Hall. But at the age of 35, Dallas Page decided to try his hand at becoming an active wrestler. In a few short years, Page went from a forgettable manager, to headlining pay per view events against legends like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage. In his last full time role in the business, Dallas Page played an inspirational and positive character, a la Tony Robbins. Funny how life sometimes imitates art.

Regardless of the success of DDP Yoga, Diamond Dallas Page can be proud of his accomplishments with Arthur Boorman. It's a feat that not many people can claim.

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DDP Yoga with Diamond Dallas Page Helps Disabled Vet; A Fan's Perspective

NORTHFIELD, Vt. -

A yoga class may seem like an odd fit at a military university, but a class at Norwich University may be a winning formula in the battle against Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The weight room is almost always packed at Norwich University. But just down the hall, a new-age physical and mental exercise is beginning to draw a crowd.

"I say, 'I'm doing yoga.' People are like, 'you're doing yoga?' And they get a little laugh out of it, and I'm like, 'yeah, I love yoga'" said D'Lontae Sewell a Sophomore Cadet at Norwich. "I've had a couple of people try it with me and they're like, 'you're right, yoga's pretty sweet.'"

Sewell began taking yoga classes about a year-and-a-half ago. He's one of about two dozen students who consistently find time for the mat. Will Feuhr, another Sophomore Cadet says the class's spiritual side appeals to him, and friendly ribbing from peers doesn't deter him from attending.

"People pretty much give each other flak for everything here, so I would say I get no more than normal for yoga," he said.

Instructor Lauren Walker offers beginner and advanced classes for students and a separate class for those who have returned from war zones. "Some of the things, the techniques that we do here can really help pre and post," she said.

But she says veterans are less likely to attend. She says teaching cadets and civilians will help them when they're confronted by real-world challenges following graduation. "It just keeps my stress levels low and just lets me clear my mind easier," Sewell said.

"I know that when they take it out into the battlefield, of life or war, that it's really going to serve them," Walker said.

She says yoga stress management techniques can help combat the effects of PTSD. She hopes to begin an on-campus study next year to see if yoga classes taken before deployment could reduce the prevalence of the syndrome. "Nothing, nothing, nowhere, no one, that I've taught has been as rewarding as teaching here," Walker said.

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Yoga class at Norwich breaks new ground

Sienna Miller has taken up yoga to help with her pregnancy.

The 'Factory Girl' actress is currently expecting her first child with fianc Tom Sturridge and has recently begun practicing the relaxation and strengthening technique because she hates working out.

She said: 'I have been trying to do some pregnancy yoga as I'm definitely not a gym person.

'My mum started up one of the first yoga schools in London in the 70s, so I should probably utilise her expertise as I have really bad posture. But I think I'd probably kill her if she tried to tell me to sit up straight.'

Sienna thinks her skin looks much better since she got pregnant - though she is unsure whether that is due to her having quit smoking and drinking alcohol.

She added to Marie Claire magazine: 'My skin definitely looks better since I became pregnant - although not smoking or drinking has probably helped with that.

'Body-wise I've been slathering on Dr. Hauschka Blackthorn Body Oil to try to prevent stretch marks, which is gorgeous and certainly seems to have worked so far.'

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Sienna Miller takes up yoga

When it comes to laughter yoga, faking it til you make it is just fine.

At least, that's what Vishwa Prakash said at the start of the session that HuffPost's health news editor Amanda Chan and I wandered into recently.

It was one of a few guidelines Prakash offered, as well as keeping our eyes locked on our fellow attendees, some 20 men and women dressed in street clothes and standing in a circle in his textile design company's midtown Manhattan offices.

And with that, we were off.

Prakash traded with other leaders who led us through several "exercises" -- we clapped, we milked imaginary cows, we blew up imaginary balloons, threw them on the ground, and exploded into laughter as we popped them with our feet. In between each set, we walked around clapping and chanting, "Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha!"

"It's bizarre, it's plain weird. Adults do not behave this way," said Sebastien Gendry, who founded the American School of Laughter Yoga, the country's largest laughter yoga training program.

"You laugh, you clap and you breathe," he continued. (You also drive imaginary bumper cars, pretend to be lions and hug perfect strangers.) "Suddenly you find yourself really laughing and you don't know why. It's fun, and you feel good."

The goal of laughter yoga is to breathe and to laugh, not because anyone has cracked a joke, but because laughter is a playful, social, contagious thing. The "yoga" label is a bit of a misnomer. There are no downward dogs or inversions, just people coming together, usually for free, for a short session of laughter. And it has become something of a global phenomenon.

According to Laughter Yoga International, a group led by the founder of Laughter Yoga and Mumbai-based physician Dr. Madan Kataria, there are about 6,000 laughter clubs across the globe. In the past decade, more than 400 have cropped up here in the U.S., and organizers expect a few thousand will celebrate "World Laughter Day" on Sunday.

How and why people find laughter yoga varies. Many come to connect with a community, Gendry said, others come for catharsis or to feel better physically.

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Laughter Yoga: Can Happiness Heal?

A California-based research firm last month listed yoga studios as the fourth-fastest-growing industry in the United States.

Yoga (and Pilates) studios, according to IBISWorld, are proving to be recession-proof with 12.1 percent growth per year.

The study attributes the growth to a recent rise in interest in fitness. (Reports that the increasing interest is a result of this column are unconfirmed.)

Clearly yoga is as popular as ever around the South Sound, with dozens of studios offering everything from yoga in 105-degree rooms (hot yoga) to yoga on floating stand-up paddleboards (SUP yoga).

Still, Holly Menzies, who runs Tacomas Ashtanga Yoga studio, says many people still have misconceptions about yoga. These concerns very well could be keeping some people from trying an activity that can help them get fit, increase strength and flexibility and perhaps even alleviate nagging pain.

So, I asked Menzies and a few others to bust some yoga myths.

MYTH: I have to be flexible to do yoga.

I get this all the time, Menzies said. Its just not true. People see these really flexible people doing pretty advanced (poses) and they think I cant do that.

The truth is you do yoga to become more flexible.

MYTH: Yoga is easy.

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Area experts attempt to dispel myths about yoga

The way Sonia Jones describes it, discovering the practice of Ashtanga yoga -- a method that, in its most basic form, combines focused breathing with a set sequence of postures -- is a powerful, heady experience.

"It's like when you first fall in love and want to go back and see your first love again -- it was like that," Jones said. "It wasn't just like going to the gym and taking a yoga class."

Last month, Jones opened Jois Yoga in Greenwich, the most recent of three studios she manages in conjunction with Salima Ruffin, an entrepreneur in San Diego, and the family members of Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, the founder of the Ashtanga yoga method. Since 2008, Jois Yoga has opened studios in Sydney, Australia, and Encinitas, Calif., specializing in the traditional practice of Ashtanga -- meaning "eight-limbed" in Sanskrit -- yoga.

For Jones, an Australian-born former model, Greenwich resident and wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones II, that initial love for Ashtanga grew out of pain: a blown disk in her back that left her numb from the waist down. Friends urged her to try yoga as a method of healing.

"I said, `Oh, I don't have time and it's so annoying to take the time to stop and do yoga,' and all those misconceptions," Jones said.

Jones, like many traditional Ashtanga practitioners, traveled to Mysore, India, to study with Pattabhi Jois, known to his followers as Guruji. Jois died in 2009.

Ashtanga yoga consists of "set sequences of yoga asanas, or postures, that are coordinated with the inhaling and exhaling breath," according to Valerie Schneiderman, the Ashtanga practitioner and owner/director of the Yoga Shala in Ridgefield. The poses follow six series of increasing difficulty, and students progress through the positions at their own pace. They don't move on to new poses until they have mastered the preceding ones.

"You could characterize the practice as being a practice where every movement is coordinated with an inhaling and exhaling breath," Schneiderman said. "The beautiful thing of a practice like this is that it's very grounding."

Jones' first leap into teaching and entrepreneurship grew organically, and the latest extension of Jois Yoga emerged when the group of practitioners she recruited locally became too large to practice comfortably in her Greenwich home.

"I wanted to take the myth away that Ashtanga is for very fit, strong people," Jones said. "You learn for your ability."

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Jois: Yoga's latest extension

I had the pleasure of visiting William Broad at the Times today. He kindly gave me the tour, and showed me the Pulitzer wall, which he was on for a group prize in 1986. We even had some hang time in the cafeteria to chat about neuroscience, yoga injuries, the wacky yoga scene, human nature, and other top secret undercover stories.

I was most impressed by his actual desk, which was buried under piles of wacky science books and stacks of papers. Couldn't have been staged better. The office has walls of books, giving off the vibe that only paper books can: peaceful space for clarity, endless information luring original thought and creativity. The whole place is super-expansive by design and feeling, idyllic for focused streams of consciousness. My one complaint: no non-dairy milk options in the cafeteria! Let's get almond milk over to the Times people!

There are fish bowl gardens set up for external viewing but not to be entered. I've always wondered about these outdoor/indoor spaces with restrictions. My old apartment building also had a nice glassed-in nature area permitting no visitors for viewing or reflection; only the gardener was allowed in, on occasion, to pull weeds.

I have a big soft spot for the Times and massive respect for its tornado power. Lizette Alvarez gave me a huge and powerful gift. She sent me a general email through my website last year asking if she could interview me for an article on yoga. Now I read the paper, I had seen the small articles they publish weekly on yoga in the Stretch column hidden on a lower part of a page, and was grateful they had decided it was my turn. After she had hung around for a few days, I asked her if she had everything she needed. She said she spoke with her editor and decided to turn my story into a cover story. I was beyond nervous and excited, but more nervous.

Rebel Yoga was the most emailed and viewed article in the whole paper for a while, and burst open a small flood of other pieces on yoga. Yoga was officially here to stay, and now it didn't need its guru anymore.

Most of you, if you keep up with my ongoings, know that I invited William to have a public chat at the SOHO Apple store for the launch of Yoga Cures. (Have a listen to the podcast!) I thought a conversation would be more interesting than just me up there blabbing about my book and how awesome yoga is to a crowd of people who probably, hopefully, already practice yoga.

William has some serious yoga-people-haters, steaming about the topics covered in his book, The Science of Yoga, The Risks and the Rewards, where he actually concludes -- if you take the time to read the book and not headlines -- that the rewards outweigh the risks. I have had my fair share of yoga-people-haters over time too, so I have a soft spot for William there. I've learned that if you don't have anyone opposing your work, if you don't have anyone thinking "man that should be me, I could do that, I should have thought of that, or they must have teams of people doing it for them," your work simply isn't reaching enough people to be relevant.

To twist Mr. Broad's yoga-people-haters in a bind, S.O.Y carries no actual opinions about yoga. Getting to know Mr. Broad, his actual opinion is that yoga is wonderful, powerful stuff that everyone should practice with ease. He is so passionate when he speaks about his home practice and his physical limitations and the incredible benefits of stress relief, clarity, creativity and focus.

S.O.Y. reads comparatively to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, telling the windy tale of the history of yoga, the scandals through the times, and a lot of the not-so-talked-about topics that have gone down through past and modern history of yoga. You know, the stuff that no one likes to talk about. Insert yoga-community backlash, a movement of people actually coming out and speaking out about their negative experiences with yoga, pushy teachers, power-hungry gurus, and the scandals go on and on. He even has a bunch of stuff on me in there! And not so much to my surprise, he criticizes some of the marketing claims of my first book, Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, which were out of my hands and against my wishes at the time. That's another can of worms and a piece of my own history. On the metabolism issue however, if you have a listen to the podcast, a Strala regular inquired about her boost in metabolism and newly-acquired muscle mass that she has put on since her regularity at the studio. Confirmed by an actual doctor at the talk, another Strala regular: Added muscle mass does increase metabolic rate. So it all depends on how you practice. Yoga has massive benefits when you practice with ease.

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Tara Stiles: Scandal, Controversy, and the Future of Yoga

Cat Cow 1

Cat Cow 2

Marichyasana C variation 1

Marichyasana C variation 2

In this second part of a series, Irene Leong offers four yoga steps for the upper body, as demonstrated by mYoga instructor Angel Ng.

Cat Cow 1 Start with the easy pose. Sit comfortably in your seat, close your eyes, take a deep breath and relax. Place your hands by your side on the seat, with palms facing down. Straighten your arms and engage the muscles. Bend your body forward until the head touches the knees. Inhale slowly as you arch your spine upwards and lift your chin and head back. Then slowly exhale as you round your back, bring your chin to the chest, and the head to the knees. Repeat three times.

Cat Cow 2 Still sitting comfortably in your seat, cross your arms and use your hands to palm the shoulders. Then follow the breathing process in Cat Cow 1. Repeat three times. This step aims to improve the flexibility of the spine.

Marichyasana C variation 1 Slide out of the seat a little, leaving some space between your back and the seat. Place your feet firmly on the ground, aligned to the hips. Keep your spine straight. Lift your arms up as you inhale to lengthen the front part of your body, and fold your body halfway forward as you exhale.

Marichyasana C variation 2 Still in the same variation, after putting your hands down, continue by placing your right leg over your left thigh. Place your right hand behind your back while the left hand pulls the left knee. Lift and lengthen your lower spine as you inhale, and twist your body to the right as you exhale. Look over the right shoulder and do a gentle twist of the spine. Repeat for the other leg.

Next week: Four yoga steps for the lower body.

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Yoga steps for the upper body

Yoga: Avoid Beginners Mistakes

While Attaining a Well of Happiness

Yoga has become a popular option for alternative health management. Research has shown the practice can significantly reduce mental and physical stress, improve mood, and slow the aging process.

But some yogis believe many of the estimated 20 million U.S. students are missing the best part of the discipline the inner happiness attainable through a healthy mind-body connection. They also worry about injuries that result when beginners tackle poses and exercises without proper guidance.

There are several disciplines of yoga, and with its rich history, the beginner can easily get lost or worse injured, says Mary Jo Ricketson, an experienced yoga practitioner and healthcare specialist, and author of Moving Meditation (www.thegoodwithin.com). A registered nurse, she also holds a masters degree in education from Northwestern University.

What I detail in my book is a comprehensive approach for both mind and body. This reciprocal relationship maximizes health benefits, and has exponentially positive consequences beyond the individual.

People have been practicing yoga for thousands of years, she says. In the West, the practice has integrated with our culture leading to variations including extreme yoga. Ricketson warns this sort of exercise can alienate beginners, who may not be ready to jump in the deep end first. Without the proper training and guidance, she adds, beginners risk injuring their neck, lower back, knees and shoulders.

The most important step is getting started, Ricketson says. Here are seven things beginners and anyone practicing yoga should know to maximize their benefits:

1.Cardiovascular (aerobic) training: As with meditation, focused breathing is a cornerstone of mind-body training. Aerobic means with oxygen and aerobic movement increases the flow of oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, including the brain. Cardiovascular training is the single most important aspect of the physical training because it keeps the heart open and strong.

2.Core and strength training: This includes the students abdomen and buttocks, and the lower back region, which extends to the base of the skull. Here is where strength, stability and balance originate.

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Yoga: Avoid Beginner’s Mistakes

Yoga enthusiasts are invited to the Wichita Art Museum, 1400 W. Museum Blvd., to learn the art of stretching.

The museum is taking reservations now for a May 19 yoga class in the museums Farha Great Hall under Dale Chihulys Confetti chandelier.

The class, open to all ages and all levels of yoga, will be lead by registered Vinyasa yoga teacher Amanda Assaf. She will use positions inspired by artwork in the museums collection. Participants will need to bring their own mat. Doors will open at 8:15 a.m., with the class from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m.

Its another way to get people who wouldnt normally come into the museum, said Debbie Deuser, museum membership manager. We have a great space for yoga with lots of room.

Museums nationwide, including those in Baltimore, Cincinnati and New York, are hosting yoga classes among their artwork. This is the first time the Wichita Art Museum has offered such a class.

If the class is popular, we will continue offering it, Deuser said. Organizers will consider offering monthly sessions, possibly themed around exhibitions.

Cost for the class is $10. Space is limited, and registration is required. Call 316-268-4985.

Reach Olivia Burress at oburress@wichitaeagle.com.

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Wichita Art Museum stretches out into yoga